Component 2
05.
Music has inspired filmmakers and photographers investigating the connections between sound and image. In the video Dancing in Peckham by Gillian Wearing, the artist dances to music that is inaudible to the public around her. The direction and speed of movement in a musical performance is recorded in The Cellist by Anton Giulio Bragaglia. The black and white photography of Francis Wolff features many important jazz musicians with their instruments during recording sessions and rehearsals. Investigate appropriate sources and produce your own response to Music.
[96 marks]
Music has inspired filmmakers and photographers investigating the connections between sound and image. In the video Dancing in Peckham by Gillian Wearing, the artist dances to music that is inaudible to the public around her. The direction and speed of movement in a musical performance is recorded in The Cellist by Anton Giulio Bragaglia. The black and white photography of Francis Wolff features many important jazz musicians with their instruments during recording sessions and rehearsals. Investigate appropriate sources and produce your own response to Music.
[96 marks]
Something that interests me is the art of music, a form of emotion that everyone shows and perceives differently. For Gillian Wearing, this was represented in her project "Dancing in Peckham", in which she decides to stand in the middle of Aylesham Shopping Centre whilst a bewildered crowd go past her, not knowing or hearing any of the music she is listening to. The first thoughts I get out of this is that Wearing has managed to sort of create her own world in the middle of such activity around her and still manages to show her feeling and passion for music, even if we can't hear. Coming as a source on the paper, this intrigued me and gave me some ideas on how I could use this idea of expression of emotions and feelings in order to represent and investigate music in photography.
Initial Photoshoot
Coming into this, I'm not sure what I wanted to do so I decided to go to the famous Denmark Street in London and chose to attempt to go around and take some pictures of the things that came into interest to me. I firstly wanted to have pictures of me taken to showcase how instruments can be used and get a feel for how I can start to represent music in different ways through photography. Honestly, this wasn't very successful because to me I'm not sure how it made sense but for my next photoshoot I will find myself a specific photos.
I took one set of photos of a friend playing the guitar and then used the power of editing tools such as Photoshop and Lightroom in order to represent a kind of Francis Wolff-y style, although I admit it does look very superficial, I will definitely look to getting into a proper studio with lighting tools to properly alter the feeling and evoked emotions in my photographs.
I took one set of photos of a friend playing the guitar and then used the power of editing tools such as Photoshop and Lightroom in order to represent a kind of Francis Wolff-y style, although I admit it does look very superficial, I will definitely look to getting into a proper studio with lighting tools to properly alter the feeling and evoked emotions in my photographs.
During this process, I found myself realising things that actually mean something to me and I decided to note down everything that I found inspiring to me about the idea of music so I can work upon this, including many guitars which capture my interest, my own included as well as the general sphere of music and the people who work to make it all happen.
Response 1: Francis Wolff
I then started to look at Francis Wolff and his jazz photography, during a time of opression due to his home country Germany banning the music. Wolff's style was intimate and authentic, capturing candid moments with minimalistic composition and natural light. His photos showcased the personalities of jazz legends like Miles Davis and John Coltrane, adorning countless album covers and magazine. His images are iconic, reflecting not just the music but the cultural and social milieu of the jazz scene. His work continues to inspire photographers and music enthusiasts, reminding us of the power of art to capture human expression - and this is what I wanted to do for my initial photoshoot seen below.
Response 2: Anton Giuliu Bragaglia
The second artist mentioned in the paper is Anton Giuliu Bragaglia, of whomst was the intellectual leader of Italian futurist photography, which was then known as photodynamism. His style was based around the idea of replacing the objective reality of a subject captured in a fixed moment with a projection of the subject's proprietary essence, which he identified as pure movement. This can be seen as he has used the likes of long exposures in order to capture the movement of subjects while having a monochrome filter over them.
This is what led to me my next photoshoot, using the idea of low light and high exposure in order to produce more photos in the studio actually similar to the likes of Francis Wolff, until I decided to take some of the below pictures and edit them from their originals to allow for a long exposure effect because I wanted to see how my photos fair with such edit.
This is what led to me my next photoshoot, using the idea of low light and high exposure in order to produce more photos in the studio actually similar to the likes of Francis Wolff, until I decided to take some of the below pictures and edit them from their originals to allow for a long exposure effect because I wanted to see how my photos fair with such edit.
This was my response to Anton Bragaglia and Francis Wolff's pictures, inspired by the futurist, monochrome theme using my mirrorless camera and a tripod.
I initially decided to use the monochrome filter on my camera in order to produce the above and I think the results of my shoot turned out okay. I then decided to put these into Photoshop in an attempt to turn these pictures into my own, with this inspiration I have coming from the research i have done. I think this is what turned my project into something that actually has meaning, showing my conceptual thought process of what I think futurist photography is, portraying artificial movement within the photographs.
I plan to change it up a little bit for my next project and I want to try something new. I was thinking of providing a new insight into this response. My first idea was to try and make a form of moving still by using images frame by frame in order to make a stop motion animation, turning it into a flipbook. My mindset is more to show off the movement and control of music rather than the emotions that it shows, but I think that these will go hand in hand and show themselves together. For now though, I am still working on my photoshop process with some more images. I will show the method to this below after my pictures.
High shutter speed times and flash guns will be the main pieces of equipment I need I have found the artist Gjon Mili whilst doing this, which is helping me plan my next actions. (zoetrope)
I initially decided to use the monochrome filter on my camera in order to produce the above and I think the results of my shoot turned out okay. I then decided to put these into Photoshop in an attempt to turn these pictures into my own, with this inspiration I have coming from the research i have done. I think this is what turned my project into something that actually has meaning, showing my conceptual thought process of what I think futurist photography is, portraying artificial movement within the photographs.
I plan to change it up a little bit for my next project and I want to try something new. I was thinking of providing a new insight into this response. My first idea was to try and make a form of moving still by using images frame by frame in order to make a stop motion animation, turning it into a flipbook. My mindset is more to show off the movement and control of music rather than the emotions that it shows, but I think that these will go hand in hand and show themselves together. For now though, I am still working on my photoshop process with some more images. I will show the method to this below after my pictures.
High shutter speed times and flash guns will be the main pieces of equipment I need I have found the artist Gjon Mili whilst doing this, which is helping me plan my next actions. (zoetrope)
In the meantime, I have also come across the 60s movement Fluxus.
I found this of interest when I saw that one of the founders was George Maciunas; a Lithuanian-American artist who was best known for starting the Fluxus movement with the organisation and management of the start of the movement, of which he actually wanted to call it a "shared attitude", rather than a movement. He was joined by many famous artists including Yoko Ono, Joseph Beuys and Nam June Paik.
"Fluxus was an interdisciplinary and experimental approach to art that emphasized blending different artistic media and breaking down traditional boundaries between art and everyday life" |
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Pixelsynth Experiment
I was introduced to a website called Pixelsynth, in which it allows for photos to be taken and used to create noise and sound using the waves and colors, as well as allowing you to alter photos and change the way the image on your screen looks to create a new sound. I started experimenting and I managed to create some interesting sounds with this, including lot of white noise and also some deeper darker noises. This was an interesting way for me to experiment with how images can be used to create sound.
Anton Corbijn
I have also been looking into the interdisciplinary artist Anton Corbijn, who is known for his black and white pictures of famous pop artists, whilst also making his own feature films. He uses slow shutter speeds to allow for the subtle movements and gestures of his subjects.
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“I feel the imperfection is much closer to how life is than perfection” |
Now that I have done my second photoshoot with the studio lights and a proper camera to establish the connection between negative space and emotion bordered within a frame, Corbijn's work has inspired me to work on another photoshoot but this time perhaps where I can take the Wolff ideas forward and turn my photos into album covers, or photos that resemble album covers and turn my work into something representative of how much can be represented. The thing that sticks out most about these pictures is that they do not have much to do with music in their actual subject matter however they do represent the idea of emotion and music in photography, inspiring me further.
Trying to think of different ways to present myself and express music in my own way photographically, I thought I could recreate some album covers famously made by artists, but with my own inspiration. It does seem silly having "The Cockroaches" instead of "The Beatles" (they are walking the wrong way and also are stock photos, free to use commercially) and also The Life of Nedas, not Pablo. Its an interesting way to understand how a musician is able to portray their album with just one image, showing you everything you need to know, or at least what to expect. I hope it is like that, at least.
More Photos
I have taken a few more pictures in my photoshoot out in Brick Lane / Aldgate / Whitechapel - I have put the pictures spread across this area into three different sets. The ones below are set 2 and these are the ones that I feel are musically involved, including some trials again at producing album covers. I wanted to try long exposure testing with lights and using a phone as a flash gun, but the result weren't great. The idea in general was the show movement of a person as well as the light to, like the way people do this when sad songs come up in concerts, swaying their hands in the air. Maybe I also need to improve the settings I used, the shutter-priority mode has a lot of features that I didn't go into, so I could definitely have a better product. This is in link with my response to Bragaglia and Wolff. The final three were also edited slightly since I was not happy with the raw outcome.
Sound again again again again
Linking back to before, I found another artist by the name of Zimoun. He is a Swiss artist who is known for this musical 'sculptures', made of simple and functional components to make sound. He has managed to create many installations of which different ambients and settings have been produced, and I find it interesting because this is something I can take with me in order to explore sound in general. But obviously, I need to find a way to make it photographic.
These two are the ones that stuck out to me most since Zimoun has managed to almost produced foley sound effects using boxes and motors and all sorts of simple but unconventional items to make these sounds, almost like loops, which makes me think about the potential ways I can make this photographic. For example, the first idea was about using shutter speeds and amplifying them to create an image and then have a loop of the confined sound, like having a 1/694 shutter speed and looping 6.94 seconds
These are the pictures that I took mainly from the Whitechapel Art Gallery The installment was by Zineb Sedira and it was called Dreams Have No Titles. This was an exhibition based around her activist travels as a Parisian moving between Algeria and France and England. This had a lot of performance in it with different themes and types of music and it was interesting to see how it was all portrayed. There were lots of behind the scenes parts to it, including a few parts where I was able to see proper records and film. Definitely recommend.
A good photograph is like a good hound dog, dumb, but eloquent.
Eugene Atget
It is also interesting to see how artists also use platforms like Spotify in order to show off their music with a little canvas showing a video of a part of a music video or just anything that encapsulates the emotions and feelings of their song. My favourite shown up here is Kathleen because I am a fan of CATBM but their music has such aura that allows them to have low shutter speed, not dark but dim light and you can feel it in the songs and their own video.
The Final Three Days:
Plan for the three assessment days:
Day 1: Focus on broadening my response to the monochrome, low shutter speed photos
- Create some album covers in school, explore emotion and feeling, link to the movement of people and objects.
- Basically an elaboration of what I have already done, but the final product.
Day 2: Creating a physical moquette/exhibition of ideally a guitar. Cardboard resources and glue. String maybe as well.
- Having one item to physically show off and use in photoshoots like done in day one will be key to finishing my investigation.
- If not a guitar, then some form of physical object I can make WITHIN a day, documented on picture and then having someone play and taking pictures of them
Day 3: Finalising the products and (hopefully) studio work in order to show off my final piece.
- My idea was to create a commercial of the product, using an album cover of some fake artist and having that to cement my final piece. The low shutter speeds will be crucial.
Day 1: Focus on broadening my response to the monochrome, low shutter speed photos
- Create some album covers in school, explore emotion and feeling, link to the movement of people and objects.
- Basically an elaboration of what I have already done, but the final product.
Day 2: Creating a physical moquette/exhibition of ideally a guitar. Cardboard resources and glue. String maybe as well.
- Having one item to physically show off and use in photoshoots like done in day one will be key to finishing my investigation.
- If not a guitar, then some form of physical object I can make WITHIN a day, documented on picture and then having someone play and taking pictures of them
Day 3: Finalising the products and (hopefully) studio work in order to show off my final piece.
- My idea was to create a commercial of the product, using an album cover of some fake artist and having that to cement my final piece. The low shutter speeds will be crucial.