This week i shall experiment with different shutter speeds, (slow and fast) varying apertures and decreasing ISO. At this stage i don't feel the subject is too important, yet getting the technique right and producing images properly as to how i want them. Despite this, i do have ideas that i want to achieve for this project, ultimately showing time lapse, yet i want to suss the camera techniques technically first. Some ideas circulate around the idea of something staying the same, while everything around it moves about and changes. Here is an example that may visually illustrate this idea better..
Where it is argued that this shed will some day change, through any reason (being graffitied, burnt down etc), everything else around it changes alot more quickly, weather its people walking past or clouds moving above etc).. This idea can tell stories about various subjects and the changing variables around them.
Where this shed is fixed to the ground and other things are moving around it, this next example shows a similar idea, but the subject is more cultural and mechanical rather than natural (clouds/weather)
This example uses artificial light (from the cars) to enhance its aesthetics, really emphasising light in dark, also showing motion and movement on a fixed surface. The story behind this image isn't of particular interest, and pretty much explains itself without any question, its more the technique i am interested in here. Technically and visually this image works very nicely, though.
EXPERIMENTING SLOWING DOWN SHUTTER SPEED:
Check out these films, which all use timelapse to make very complex ideological discourses, as well as creating powerful aesthetic effects:
ReplyDelete"Chronos" and "Baraka: - Ron Fricke
The Qatsi Trilogy - Godfrey Reggio
Fricke was Reggio's cinematographer on the Qatsi trilogy, which I feel are all MUCH better than anything Fricke directed himself. He's an absolute genius of a cinematographer, but Reggio is a much deeper thinker, and a much better political analyst, and so neither of Fricke's films have the meaning and power of the Qatsi trilogy, even though they are arguably sometimes "better shot".
I'm not sure I agree that choosing your subject is less important than practicing the techniques. You know your own needs best, and it might be true that for the moment simply mastering the tools is the right way forward, but...
ReplyDelete...the big difference between timelapse images that are merely pretty, and timelapse images that speak to us about time, and being in time, is the level of personal/emotional engagement that the photographer has with the subject.
Our need for and fear of change, our need for and fear of stasis: By focusing upon objects and spaces that you feel something about (even if that something is "nothing, emptiness"), I think you will bring the project to life in a way that a purely technical exploration cannot.
All that said, it is true that just playing can lead to amazing discoveries. Perhaps you could do a combination of the two approaches?
These two posts have been very helpful and have made me reconsider this project in a more experimental light.. I will continue to experiment with different subjects and techniques and i would like to make them specific to me eventually, perhaps drawing upon points and issues in my life i didn't realise where there, or chose to block out..
ReplyDeleteI am still eager to use a rose in an experimental shoot to represent love, and particularly how love chose to treat me a few years ago.. i will set up a situation to show this.. diagrams of my idea to follow..