RCA Secret 2009

These are my two images that were featured in the RCA Secret this November. They are just scans taken from the website.

"A British Holiday"

"Happy Christmas"

Blackpool Art Fair - Grundy Art Gallery

These are some images i shot on some out of date Reala film in San Fransico. This first image is currently on show in the Blackpool Art Fair. The exhibition runs until the 2nd Jan 2010.

The remaining images are part of the set.

Week Five - People and Place

Title:

“PSL - People and Place”

Introduction:

You have been asked to submit a series of 6 images to PSL (Project Space Leeds), a relatively new gallery, on the theme of people and places.

Details:

One image is required for submission.

The image can be any format or style you wish, as long as it fits into a cohesive series.

School (Now Flats)

First Flat, Above Beauty Salon

Hospital, Where her Daughter was Born

Train Station, to represent Travel and taking her daughter to and from her Dad

Bedroom, first house thats just hers

Supercollider (with work), first exhibition outside of college

This series continues with another 3 images but the breif specifies only 6

Week Four - Litter Campaign

Title:

“Litter Campaign”

Introduction:

You have been asked to create an image to be used as a front for a campaign against the ever increasing amount of litter in the UK.

Details:

One image is required for submission.

The image needs to clearly show there is excess litter in a new way so that the message about not dropping litter can be reinforced to the public.

This image is the 3rd idea for the brief as each previous idea became more unachieveable within a week. Origianlly i wanted 'Raining Litter' to be shot outdoors and for it to be literally raining litter on my model. This failed due to the high winds and heavy rain throughout the week. My next idea was created through Chris Jordans latest project (www.chrisjordan.com) and my aim was to gut a pidgeon and fill it with litter. Unfortunately we did not find a dead pidgeon (or other bird) in time and so the idea has to be put behind. We later found and disected a pidgeon, the results of which can be found here: http://petebenjamin.blogspot.com/2009/12/insides.html

Instead this idea is suppose to represent humans as animals and how we wouldnt eat litter so why make them. However again as the weather wasnt compatible, it had to be shot in the studio, which has made the environment too clean

Week Three - 4.48 Psychosis

Title:

“4.48 Psychosis”

Introduction:

To mark the 10 years since Sarah Kane’s final play ‘4.48 psychosis’ was originally performed, then director James Macdonald will redirect the play on 23^rd June 2010, exactly 10 years on. A statement image is needed to appear on the front of the commemorative program guide attendees can purchase.

Details:

One image is required for submission.

The image needs to be simple but eye catching, and needs to portray the character(s) in the play without assigning them any personal, identifiable traits.

Week Two - Marks and Spencers

Title:

“Dinner Party”

Introduction:

Uprising chef Joe Bloggs has designed a Dinner Party for Marks and Spencers, you are needed to take the photographs of each course for use on the packaging and also in the advertising.

Details:

There needs to be an image of each of the 3 courses and 1 of the wine that is recommended to accompany the meal.

Remember that Marks and Spencers are known for sexualising their food using rich colours on black background, bear this in mind when shooting your images

In Hindsight, this is not the best work. But it is part of the 5 week breifs

Week One - "Where's Kate?"

Currently in college we are working on a series of 5, 1 week briefs, that we have to write ourselves.

Title:

“Where’s Kate?”

Introduction:

You have been commissioned by the producers of the independent film ‘Where’s Kate’ to help create two options for posters to be used in promoting the film. Working closely with art director Joe Bloggs you are required to produce two different mock ups of possible film posters.

Details:

The image needs to give the audience a slight insight into the film and try to portray the characters feelings/emotions.

As the photographer it is your responsibility to gather a selection of images that can then be fitted behind the relevant text on the poster accordingly. Remember that text is likely to be covering certain parts of the images, in particular the top and bottom and so try to avoid having key parts of the image here.

Cowboy

These were taken as part of my brief at college to enter a competition, I chose the London Photographic Associations "Let's Face It 6". In these images I tried to portray the models as fans of whomever they were dressing up as, their serious expressions showing this.

Jedi

These were also taken as part of my initial idea for "Let's Face It 6".

Autobiography

These images were taken for my first brief at college "Autobiography". In this brief we had to depict ourselves in 4 images, and someone else in 4 images.

In the images at the top I tried to explore how much about a person could be learnt from where they are. Initially I wanted to show the person in different places with different parts of the body in show, so rather than just feet, their shoulder, hands etc. In the end however I decided to stick with feet so that there was more of a theme in the images. Though I think it would have worked better if the composition was more similar throughout.

"Morning"

"Day"

"Sunset"

"Dusk"

In these next images, I am showing my 4 autobiographical images. I have chosen to show myself with my family, as I believe that family plays a large role in shaping and socialiasing you into who you are. In the images I have depicted us doing the sorts of activities we would normally do together, and by wearing similar clothes, I aimed to show the influences we have upon each other.

I have used vignetting around the edges to draw the viewers attention into the main focus of the frame. The only image this did not particularly work with is "Dad and I" because I am too low in the frame.

"Mum and I"

"Dad and I"

"Ims and I"

"Me"

Dorothy's

I took these interiors to serve as a memory for both a good friend, and because the house looks as though its been left back in the 70's.

I find them fascinating.

'Sitting Room/Spare Bedroom'

'Helen's Room'

'Master Bedroom'

'Kitchen'

'Living Room'

Sam

These are few of the many photographs I took of Sam during the summer. Many many thanks for being such a reliant and compliant model!

These first two are 'Innocence' and 'Corruption'. Initially I was shooting the innocent one lying down so that it was composed similar to that of an ancient greek painting, however, in the end it turned out to work better this way.

'Innocence'

This second image represents 'Corruption', I shot it with the intention of it looking almost like someone out of a Dickens novel. I think because this is so contrasting to the first image in terms of the style of clothing and the models pose, the two photographs work well together.

'Corruption'

The next two images were shot, it could be said, as a very short narrative. The first showing someone cowering from the unusual green glow being emitted by his television, to being absorbed an fascinated by it through some unknown and unfightable attraction. The eerie green the television is glowing was actually natural, which really added to the scene.

'Cowering from the TV'

'Into the TV'

This final image was a bit of fun one night when Peter was in the area. I really like the grimey feel the dull colours and noise gives the image, which makes it work quite well even though the image is technically 'correct' in more ways then not.

'Sam and Pete at Poole Skate Park'

Our first brief this year was entitled 'A Picture is worth 1000 words'

'While one picture can do a lot, could it describe your entire day?

How about a part of your day?

We're about to find out.

You are asked to create a short series of three images that encapsulates part of your mornings, afternoons and evenings. Try to make each image as personal as possible.

This is to try to test your observational, compositional and narrative skills.

What you leave out of your image is almost as important as what you put in.'

The theme we are working on this year is 'RISK' and we have been asked to incorporate that into each of our projects. For me, working in the studio is taking a risk as I am much more preferable to using natural lighting in natural environments. Although I do enjoy being able to dictate the lighting, I am not a fan of setting up images to perfect, I would rather capture its reality.

With these images I tried to make them as simple as possible to that they would sit nicely together, this symbolises that my day to day activity is often quite plain and simple.

The composition of the frames is almost exactly the same, this is so that the hanging in light and of activity is highlighted and so that when displayed as a final set in a series, there is a strong, visible horizon line (the table) throughout the images so they are presented aesthetically.

With the use of the lights I tried to recreate that of daylight in terms of direction and strength. In my first image 'Morning' I have the light coming in the frame softly from the right (the East) to show the soft early morning light. As we move on to my second image, 'Noon' the light id much stronger and more head on (high in the sky, at its strongest and brightest at noon). And finally in my third image, 'Night' the light is more beamed from the right of the frame, thus showing the last rays of light (from the west).

Morning

Noon

Night

As they would be displayed

A64 Abandoned Service Stations

We went on a little mission to explore the villages and feilds surrounding the A64 between Bramham and York. On the way there, we stopped at this service station. It has been abandoned for some time now.

We took a bit of time to wander round, then went inside for a closer look. We didn't expect to find the service station complete with counters and display racks/fridges which made it a little bizarre, but i think it was the nesting pigeons that really added something to the place.

At the end of the day on the way back, we stopped at a different abandoned service station on the other side if the road. There wasn't as much lying around in this one, but I think the tones of the colours adds a little extra to the images.