The brief that was set contained some words that I wasn’t really sure of their definitions so I did find it rather hard starting off to think of ideas for my photos. After looking at the definitions I initially came to the conclusion that I would choose migration as my word however after much thinking about the potential photos I could take for this I didn’t feel truly satisfied where it was going. I felt that the images were going to be too generic and that isn’t what I wanted to portray in my work. After much consideration, I did eventually change my theme to the word synchronicity as I decided that I could express myself better through it. I have never really done anything like this task before so it was very new to me. Because of this, I did find it rather hard to find my aesthetic initially but after some hard research, I did find some modern pieces that I felt I related to and that I wanted to use as influences for my work.
After deciding my word I then looked into the meanings behind it and started reading between the lines. Synchronicity has been defined as “Coincidence of events that appear meaningfully related but do not seem to be casually connected” (The American Heritage Medical Dictionary, 2017). After reading this definition, ideas for my piece started running through my head, however, the one idea that I decided was the best for my aesthetic was to have fruit pictured in their generic style but to have items in the frame that wouldn’t be there usually. This idea fell into my aesthetic as I like to challenge generic stereotypes and expectations. I also felt that this theme fit the word synchronicity as the fruit and the items are not connected however they seem meaningfully related as they are in the frame together. I decided that this idea was the best for me so I went for it.
I researched many photographers who had previously done work with still life images specifically ones that included fruit as it was the best for me to compare with my ideas. I realised that many photographers had interpreted culinary photography different with some going the literal route and just having fruit in a frame with a brightly coloured background (figure one) and others going in the same direction as me by challenging expectations (figure two.) These images are the ones that excited me the most. I did decide to keep the lightly coloured backgrounds that the others were using as I felt it kept the desirability that I wanted the images to have at first glance. My first mistake I made, however, was buying a glossy background to use. Because of this, my photos were bombarded with creases in the background. These creases I later airbrushed out of the images in post-production.
When planning out my images I pictured multiple scenarios with the fruit encountering many items within the frames, some of these images never made it into the production stages and many were taken out during post-production. My reasons behind taking these pictures out of my series varied. Some were not used as I felt the images were not up to par with the others, some were also taken out as I felt the background was not bright enough like the others in the collection. I wanted the background to be almost identical in colour for all of them as I felt that it made them more of an obvious series of images so some were removed for this reason.
Victor Burgin spoke about recognition in photography which I feel applies to what I was talking about stereotypes for certain genres. He said “These codes list certain features of the object as the most meaningful for purposes of recollection or future communication” (Burgin, 1988) I feel that this quote represents what I am trying to challenge well as it shows that we find specific parts of photos to use in the future when trying to determine genres of other work.
In ‘Ways of Seeing’ by John Berger he states ” The relation between what we see and what we know is never settled. Each evening we see the sun set. We know the Earth is turning away from it. Yet the knowledge, the explanation never quite fits the sight.” (Berger, 2008) I feel like this quote from Berger fits in well with the style I was trying to take up as I interpreted it, specifically looking at my research, that when we see certain images we see them as generic as they are what we are used to seeing publically, however, there is not anything to say they should be seen as generic for that genre. With my pieces, I want to challenge the generalisation to make people realise that just because something is not what they are used to seeing does not mean its wrong.
I feel that my work has really worked well in the sense that it does what I wanted it to do. It challenges norms and because of this, I feel that my photos are a great representation of how I interpreted my word. However, I do feel that there are aspects of my work that fall short. I realise that I am a beginner in the world of photography but I do feel that the images I used as influence look much more professional (figure 3) than my finished work. I feel that one of the reasons for this is the background. The background used in the images I researched are very matted so that most of the people who see the images are drawn by the food. As I previously stated I had to change my background in the post-production and I do feel that this is obvious if you look closely into my images and that is one thing I would change given the opportunity.
Bibliography
The American Heritage® Medical Dictionary. (2017). Synchronicity. [online] Available at: https://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/synchronicity [Accessed 6 Dec. 2017].
Burgin, V. (1988). Thinking photography. Houndsmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire u.a.: Macmillan, p.33.
Berger, J. (2008). Ways of seeing. London: British Broadcasting Corporation and Penguin Books, p.7.
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