live through this - lady lazarus: uncoupleting suicide and poetry (2)

Daphne Gottlieb- Autor and poet.
here, while the story is more jumbled in its timeline,(and writen beautifully might i add)  the basics of her story lean around being a writer and sufforing from depression, and the decision to take anti-depressents even though they could stop the creative flow and loose her ability to write. About how growing up she was advised against it as a child because her writing was to dark. How she grew up, and how she came to chose to try medication for her depression, how it made her feel and how she is now starting to write again after coming over the slump caused by the medication to begin to write again. From what i can tell, her writing seems very interesting and its something i should look into abit more. i did fine a website with an interview with the writer herself which can be read here, which also includes a few examples of her poetry. 

Live through this - long, long thoughts (1)

Carol Queen - writer, editor, guest speaker and co-founder and executive director of 'the sex centre'
Carol's story tells about her life growing up and how she had taught herself that her first sexual experience would change her life, how it would be amazing and take her out of the small town she grew up in. However it speaks about how she used to write about getting out and getting away from there, writing her inner most secrets in a journal which she hid. It then speaks of her first sexual experience, when she lost her virginity. And how while she thought she knew everything she needed to know about sex. she didnt. and she realised just how little she did know. Following this experience she realised that they didnt use a condom, and she couldnt get to a doctors to take the morning after pill. She realised that the one thing she thought would make her life so much better could actually be the one thing to tear her life apart if she had become a teenage mum. From this, feeling that she had no where to turn, no one to talk to, and a life that surely would be ruined if she had had a child at such a young age and in a small town like that, that she contemplated suicide. She got to the point of working out the details of how, and how likely it was to work. Till it come to the point of writing the letter. And this is what stopped her, sitting down and just writing, writing about all that had happened to her, pouring her heart into this book, for as long as she sat there writing she couldnt be jumping out of her window. Now, she looks back and sees that yes her first time did change her life, because it lead her to learn more about sex and how as humans we see it, and it also lead her into writing, which is now her biggest success to date.

just to inform you...

I havn't really had time over the last few days to post anything on here. My laptop got stolen from my home on the 9th.  while i had the majority of my work backed up, it means its hard for me to have access to a computer for the last few days. Thanks to my lovely friend helen lending me her old laptop (which i am on now!) i can once again beguin to continue with my work. This break of 2 days without my laptop has really forced me into reading abit more, so i decided to start to write up my notes on the book that inspired this change in direction. 'Live through this.' So this is what will be in the following posts :) thanks for your patience and also for the help of a lovely friend.

plan of action!

Ok so my ideas for photography and video are both similar and different, so from now on my posts will be named for which one the reaserch is more about. For video i will start to look more at Surrealism and surrealist films and even avent-garde cinema, as well as photography and art in that style, while with the photography i will still basically follow suit by focusing on reserching artists i feel express feelings and my ideas for this almost text based project.

Ideas for Photos

Ok so recently i have been focusing on how to use video and what kind of style i would want for a video and to be honest i have found it a little hard to think how to encorperate photography into this project without being to samey to my video. So i had a brain wave after my last video of using a diary entry to base my photographs on, and exploring the idea of having it follow along a narrative of what happens during a breakdown. I also like the idea of breaking down the text and encorperating it as a title/discription to the peice of work to help reinforce the story behind it. I also could look into how a persons perception changes while during a breakdown. so maybe pairing up two images together? One of what is really happening, and one of what it feels like is happening. It is something for me to think about anyway, and develop.

My own work.

From looking at the movement in the two previous posts, Ive made a very short video, which isnt by any means finished, or even worked on alot. The idea behind it was focusing on a line from a diary extract that i wrote when there was alot of bad stuff going on in my life. While i do tend to bottle things in, i never feel like i can tell people my inner most feelings. Im to protected. However i do write things down, letters, notes to myself. No one ever has read them. But im looking to it for inspiration. And the line is that 'I feel like there is a beast within me' I worked upon the idea that when you self harm, or get the feeling to do it, its like a trigger switches inside you and you just find it hard to control yourself. its linked very close with paranoya. You feel like everyone is against you and no one cares. You become worried that people who love you, dont. And you feel that everyone around you hates you as much as you hate yourself. So keeping this in mind i wanted to focus on the eye, as if watching or being watched. I also wanted to try out speeding up the video footage to add a different effect. To represent the 'beast' within, i wanted to use my white out contact lenses. It makes a more obvious change to the exteria however when the feelings take over, its not always that obvious. So this is what i came up with:

i decided to make this film black and white, mainly because the people i have looked at so far have shot in black and white, and i think it adds to the abstractness of it,  I am not really happy with the text, and dont think that text in this kind of video is a good idea, maybe i should just give the audience the chance to make up there own mind. I know there is no sound. But that is my next step really, to work on the sound, edit out the text i think as well. Also while the lighting is good, i really want more contrast to my video so maybe look into how to use filters and effects to get a much darker look?  In here i cut up the eye movement and sped up parts, as well as leaving others the same. I like the effect but i think with the eye movement its a little more tricky to tell because the eye moves so fast anyway. Maybe next i could also experiment with the sped up style with full body movement. This is just a snipet of the idea i have to come for my video. i like the representation within the imagery and for some reason it reminds me slightly of a Dali's film Un Chein Andalou, in which we see what looks like a woman, in extreame close up getting her eye razored out. Maybe i could look into surrealism? it seems to be following the kind of style that i am looking at, representation and symbolism, high contrasts, black and white, even shock values to some extent.

Where i am getting my inspiration from

Mainly i am pulling from my own experiences here, and when it comes to subject matter ive also been talking to friends who i know suffer from Depression, Skitzophrenia, as well as people i have known to have self harm.Ive also spoken to someone who has had a drinking problem. but i will also be posting my notes i wrote on the book 'live through this.' and even reserching to get a more broad idea of what to think and to try and explain the emotions and feelings people have when they are self destructive

Silent hill Movement

while looking at the saw editing techniques the movement in that reminded me so much of the movement of the Nurses scene in the silent hill film.



i again also managed to find abit from behind the scenes to give me an idea what was shot, and what was finally realeased on the screens.

While the film is horror and its not really what i want to focus on, again like the movement created by the editing i love the movement of the 'nurses' i also love the style of them. Appearing to be bandaged from head to toe, and while in the context of the film it is obviously done to create a weird effect, it could be used in my work to help create the feelings brought on by a 'break down' or an episode of the want to self harm. The feeling of being completely covered from head to toe, cacooned if you were, suppressed by your feelings and your need to self harm. The movement is reflective almost of a self struggle and jittery-ness almost reflects the feelings that your fighting a battle within yourself.

Saw Editing

Something i also liked about the saw films was one of the editing techniques that was reoccurring. While i don't want to keep going on about the films, this technique is something that i think i will want to try out in my work. The idea is just over exagerated movements spead up really fast. Ive found a few of the examples i noticed in the films as well as a video how how they created one of the traps which i thought was interesting because it just goes to show how much effort went into making it look realistic. But i also managed to find a video about the editing on the cube trap which is (partly) which i wanted to look at. (it does have the sped up peices but only very quickly.)
While i couldnt find the clip i wanted (a car chase scene) i did find a few examples of the style i am thinking of:

the amanda trap (saw 1) i cant embed into this but here is a link to it:
The reverse bear trap
the technique im talking about is around the 1.40 mark

or the razor wire trap:
Pauls test
that starts around the 2.06 mark

or for a short clip in the Cube test:
Strahm survives
The making of the cube trap:



The editing of the Cube trap:

SAW (including spoilers! haha)

While many see 'SAW' or the 'SAW franchise' (seems though we are up to number 7 in the making) as a gore fest of un-needed and uncalled for violence, Many people wont look past the graphic nature to the main plot behind it, which is what intreages me the most. While it does take a long while for the story to come out, the basic plot and the story behind the lead character helps the audience to understand the mind of the serial killer 'JIGSAW' however to some extent John Kramer is not a killer.

While Saw one begins and remains shot 90% in one room, a bathroom, we soon learn that it is not all what it seems when the two 'victims' back story and what exactly they have done to deserve this, to play the game. While in the end we find out it all is the plan of a single man, who reveals himself in a very shocking twist at the end of the movie, Later on we realise that this isnt just the sick and twisted game of a madman, but a cold and harsh way of dealing with the idea that the world around us has gone to shit, and he is offering his victims a chance to write there wrongs.  

To understand the mind of John Kramer you will need to understand abit about his past:

Married to Jill Tuck, In flashbacks through out the 5th and 6th film we learn that Johns problems begun with the death of his baby Gideon while his wife was pregnant and working at a drugs clinic by drug addict Cecil and later we find out amanda young. After the death of his son, John closed himself off from his wife and soon found himself devorsed. . After this turn of events, John found himself trapped by his own complacency, until he was diagnosed with inoperable cancer. Extremely bitter over his wasted life, John began observing the lives of others and became even more depressed as he saw those around him wasting the gift of life that he had just been denied. After surviving a suicide attempt, John was reborn. The idea that the only way for someone to change is for them to change themselves. He designed a test for Cecil and decided to use the rest of his existence to design more of these "tests" as a form of "rehabilitation" that would change the world "one person at a time". These tests where on the premise that the victims would have to endure a pain, a suffering, a loss, or even (in saw 4) learn the act of forgiveness and moving on. John was soon given the name JIGSAW so named because he removed a puzzle-piece-shaped chunk of flesh from those who do not escape his traps. John himself states that this name was given to him by the media, and that the cut piece of flesh was meant to represent that these victims were each missing something, what he called the "survival instinct".

The tests: brutal which are often ironically symbolic representations of the problems in the victim's life and require them to undergo severe physical or psychological torture to escape. For example in SAW4 a man who raped and video recorded him doing it (and got off scott free from the law) had to gouge out his own eyes or else his limbs would be torn from there sockets.

To continue his work, he enlists the help of his only surviver to date Amanda. And via flash backs we learn that Detective Hoffman is enlisted into helping Jigsaw after he manages to create a copycat killing in JIGSAWS style to murder the guy who raped and killed his sister.

The point, that i well, love about this film is infact the logic behind it, the idea of forcing these victims into taking charge of changing there own lives, by sacraficing something else.

The machinery used in the 'tests' remind me very much of the DIANA THORNEY CROFT photo of the woman in the headset, infact JIGSAWS first apprentice Amanda servived a very similar trap seen here in a trailor:

 Not only does the imagery of the traps, the feeling of restraint, the darkness and almost evilness of the whole feel of this film intreges me. But the idea that these people are getting 'salvation' from hurting themselves also links into the idea of self harm that i am looking into. Some people do selfharm because they feel it saves them from this dark place, from this world where nothing seems right and your scared of your own mind, where deep down you know that this feeling wont leave unless you do it, unless you hurt yourself.

I was lucky enough to go to a 12-hour screening of the saw films in marathon at the cinema delux in town, not only did this help me by reinforcing the overlays in narrative and the high use of flash backs and elipse plots, but it also made me think about the great effort the team must of gone into, not only to have such an interesting plot, but to create JIGSAWS world inside them movies.

Diana ThorneyCroft

Known for making artwork that hovers on the edge of public acceptance, Thorneycroft has pursued subject matter that often challenges her viewing audience. Since 1989, when she began to work in the medium of photography, she has exhibited various bodies of work Canada, the United States, Edinburgh, Helsinki, Moscow, Tokyo, Sydney, Vienna and Belgrade and at the Carpenter Centre for Visual Arts at Harvard University. While her work 'The body, its lesson in camouflage' is somewhat a distorted and somewhat twisted take on reality its darkness, its feeling of constraint, the very high contrast, the twisted shapes, the bodys restrained, restricted. Its dark and yet it makes you want to look deeper into the work. It focuses on sexuality and also on anxietys. its almost like a dark play unfolding before your eyes. Her use of lighting plays gently and contrasts the high black. I must say i do love black and white photography which features high contrasts. Its just the difference between the darkest shadows and the white light. As if you are drawn from the darkness, but it is still there, watching.  some of her photos she shoots her subjects under water, almost if to distort this person, others she uses masks on. Her work really is inspiring. The feelings it makes me feel as an audience is something i want to portray in my work. Its almost abstract in a sence.

These final two images really stand out for me. The first being the wire or barbed wire on her arms, the skin is contorted under it and looks really effective. The second is just full on, almost torture. It reminds me slightly of one of the 'game' set ups in the film saw.

Evergon

Evergon, photographer, abandoned his birth name at the beginning of his professional career. Famous for his use of an extensive range of traditional and innovative photographic techniques. These range from exploration of long-neglected historical printing techniques through his pioneering use of colour photocopying, Polaroid photography and holography. Evergon focuses more on the process and exploration of the imagination an imagery used rather then just documenting. Through his staging of models and exotic props or by means of collaged images, Evergon has creates work resembling more the traditions of European painting than the conventions of photography.
Supprisingly Evergon as a person is alot different from what i imagened. I watched this video on him:
Profile of an artist- Evergon which i got to see how contrasting he is to what i imagened just by seeing his work.  I like his use of symbolism in his work, and im also intreaged by his use of a HUGE (room sized) polaroid camera!  His work often uses animals and human mix, and his work is very Controversial expesherly his work with high levels of bondage. However, this is what i like about his work. The intensitity and the feeling of being trapped. The sercumming to something, such as to be bound.  Sadly it is hard to find imagery of his online without paying the £30 odd for his cataloge. However i do love from what i have seen of his work. Maybe i could look into the feeling of being tied down.

Faking death

So finding it hard for inspiration on the internet (getting mega annoyed with a load of attention seeking photos of 'emo' kids holding out there wrists covered in fake blood.) I headed to the library where i found a book entitled 'Faking death' by  Penny Cousineau-Levine.  while the text focuses on the art photography and imagination of canadian photographers, some of the photographers in there caught my eye. Here i thought i would post a few of the images that caught my eye and then i could look further into them, and there work. 

The first that catches my eye is the work of Evergon. His work features bound people. Whats unusal and makes the distortion caused by the image, and what i really like about it is the distortion, it looks painful, and constricted. it looks trapped, feels enclosed, claustrophobic, whats unsual is that he mimics the 'scanner' effect by pushing his subject up against glass, and used the same lighting effect that you would get with a scanner. its a very different effect.

Another photographer that really shines out at me is the work of Diana Thorneycroft whos work of captured people, among a mass of greenery, dead animals, teeth, machinery, looks almost like a mix of horror and sci-fi. It again feels consticted but also gives across the feeling of domination and control. like something is controling you. 

reserch problems

i have found it really hard to find photographers who base there work on the emotions behind self harm, the main thing i can find is photos of people with scarification on there bodies from years of self harm, or overly 'gorific' amature photos of bloodied bodies. although it has made me realize that the majority of self harmers seem to cut this is not something i want to pursue in my work.

Defining self harm

Breathing space

Self-harm results when an individual sets out on purpose to hurt or injure his/her self. Self-harming behaviour can manifest itself in different ways but involves something that hurts such as:

Cutting 

Burning 

Overdosing on tablets or medicines 

Punching 

Throwing the body against an object 

Pulling out of hair or eyelashes 

Scratching, picking or tearing at their skin 

Inhaling or sniffing harmful substances 

Swallowing objects 

Inserting objects into the body 

Tying ligatures around the neck, arms, or legs to restrict the flow of blood 

Ingesting small amounts of toxic substances or objects to cause discomfort and damage but with no intention to die.

An individual may self-harm on a regular basis or only occasionally. It is evident that for many it is a way of coping with a specific problem and they stop once the problem is resolved. Other people self-harm for years whenever certain kinds of pressures or feelings arise, an example of this was Kelly Holmes the Olympic gold medallist who self-harmed when she was injured or when her training was not going well.

Self-harm can be seen as the opposite of suicide as it is often a way of coping with life rather than of giving up on it. However, some individuals may go on to complete suicide and often this is unintentional.

Defining self destruction.

Self destruction is a broad subject matter and i found a few articles to help me to define it abit better:

Oregon counciling- self destructive behavior in women

We are self destructive when we use drugs in an attempt to control our emotions. There is no mind-altering drug which does not have some harmful physical effect.

Eating disorders, alcohol and drug abuse are easily recognizable self destructive behaviors. But self destructive patterns are not always so obvious, nor are their causes always easy to understand.

We are self destructive when we spend beyond our means; when we are sexual in ways that cause us to lose self respect; when we keep ourselves in personal relationships that cause us to feel inferior, abused, or taken advantage of.

We are self destructive when we neglect our bodies and do not give them rest and exercise; we are self destructive when we drive ourselves, overworking or over exercising to please others or to make ourselves feel okay.

We are self destructive when we stifle our legitimate angers; when we turn our disappointments into contempt for ourselves; when we avoid attempting our ambitions because we will not accomplish them perfectly.

We are self destructive when we make others responsible for our lives,

by blaming "them"

by an attitude of helplessness

by believing and behaving as if we have no capacity to change or to manage our own lives effectively and pleasurably.

As women we are especially vulnerable to self destructive behavior which has its roots in the sense of shame. Because we are sometimes ashamed of the simple fact of being women!

We can feel shame about our bodies

"I'm not pretty enough, or thin enough." "My body is dirty because of my sexuality."

Shame of competence

I'm stupid." "If I try I'll mess it up." "Some things I'll never be good at; I'm just a female."

Shame in relationships

"How can I expect anybody to like me, I'm such a witch!" "People think I'm foolish when I try to say anything." "Who could love me, I'm so awful?"

Shame about our own character

"Why try? " "I'm flawed." "I'm disgusting." "I'm worthless." I'm powerless."

Addictions, compulsions, all the forms of self destructive behavior have the perverse function to numb shame. When we are caught in self destructive tangles, we forget to feel badly about ourselves -- for the moment.

self destructive behaviour not just cutting

• Psychologist: "Have you ever deliberately harmed yourself by cutting?"
• My response: "Only when I couldn't afford a tattoo or a piercing."
• Psychologist: "But that's..."
•  

My response: "exactly the same sort of pain, it's just more socially acceptable. People don't look at you like 

some sort of messed up freak.

Psychologist: "I'd never considered that."

Self destructive behaviour is more common than anyone realises. And it doesn't just take the form of cutting one's skin with a sharp blade. There are many different ways to be self destructive, some are just more obvious than others. I'm going to try and run through some of the different ways people self-destruct. Keep in mind, I'm not a psychologist, I'm just going with what I've learned from doing it myself and being there when people close to me went through it as well.

What makes some of these things difficult to detect is that some people do them for different reasons other than to be self destructive. I'm not going to go into the reasons why people become self destructive, as I think that other advice on minti well and truely covers that, I'm just pointing out some things that even my psychiatrist missed, and show how easily it can be missed or misinterpreted. There are many complex reasons as to why anyone does anything.

Live through this.

I resently brought a book, entitled live through this which is a book about 'creativity an self-destruction'  The book, is basically a collection of essays wrote by famous female artists who have struggled with self-destruction, and how they use creativity to servive abuse, incest, madness and depression, cutting, eating disorders and addiction.  Its an inspiring collection of work and leads me to want to include something on self destruction in my work, the most obvious one for me is Cutting and self harm. After all i know how it feels to feel so numb that pains the only thing that can get you through it. to make you feel alive. 
However i dont want to follow the obvious route. i want to focus on symbolism, and maybe insted of showing a narrative making my work more conceptual? making it almost like a weird virsion where you can see inside the mind of someone on self destruct mode? i like the idea of making the audience feeling what you feel, or giving an insight and tryin to explain feelings through imagery. im going to start by

Trying a new angle

Resently i have got tired of limiting myself to such a small feild as the mexican day of the dead and really want to open up this project to something which i find cropping up in alot of my reserch so far, the relationship that the living have with death.

I like this idea of what it is that makes us feel alive. so like my little experiment before i thought id ask around, what is it that makes you feel alive?

here are some of the answers i recieved:

•  music above anything else
• and when people show they care for me... thats when i feel something back... that kinda.. human connection...
• when Im helping someone and they either learn or grow from my help so it doesnt happen again
• Having free choices
• being happy makes me feel alive. and being happy is a choice. so, I choose to live life. I choose to feel alive.
• walking on Sandsend Beach. Being part of the crowd/being there when Leicester score & win
• the feeling of being wanted, quite simply. :P
• going outside and feeling the air i breathe, seeing the sun, and watching the rain :)
• being on a tall building over looking the world
• the smell cut grass, flying down hill on a bike right on the edge, A snuggle from one that cares, learning something new
• when im at the gym and i feel my muscles tightening and the blood surging through my veins

The point im trying to make is that everyone has something different in there lives that makes them feel alive. being human, we morn the dead, we fear death itself and we work so hard to feel alive. Sometimes its things that hurt us that help us feel alive. Pain is one thing that keeps me alive. Do you ever feel so numb that you will do something little, like dig your nails into your hand? bite the skin on your finger? even to a point drinking a little to much, or smoking to much, people do this to get feeling back, that feeling of being human. being alive.

Dear Blogger.

Dear blogger, im sorry i haven't been updating you alot resently, but in all honesty i feel like crap. I feel myself spirialling into something that i dont want to do but i cant help it. this is how it always begins. Something triggers it, i dont know what but from this i just end up in that place, that place i dont want to be again. All i can hear is that little voice of paranoya in my head and its turning into this peircing skreaching noise. But if thats not enough. i am alone. more alone then ive felt in a while, i dont want to be here no more but hay what can i do? waste all that money on half a degree, even if i do go home from the sounds of the phonecalls i got last night its nothing happy to go home to. but here? what do i have here? i'm doing a course surrounded by a segrigated class of people who dont even want to attempt to get to know each other. i am slipping away into a world where i am stuck. Stuck being alone, with out the confidence to continue my work or the courage to do what i want, do i just sit there, witht he constant nightmares causing my lack of sleep. i dont want to go to sleep, im scared by my own thoughts and where they come from. or do i try and change this feeling of alone, paranoid, numbness into something i can work from? something i can use to fuel my work. I know what i want to do. the one thing i always turn to when this feeling takes over. But i promised myself i would stop that. so maybe throwin myself head first into this will help.
we will have to see i guess.

What would you do if you only had 15 hours to live?

leading on from the video Forevers not so long i tried to do abit of a survey, which i asked:
What would you do if you only had 15hours to live?'
so here are some of the answers i got:

• 'saying goodbye to friends and family and probably spend some time on the ice'
• 'i would get as drunk as possible, fall asleep and die'
• 'seriously telling people exactly how i feel and trying to summarise what i want people to remember to the people closest and doing something nice'
• 'play monopoly'
• 'don't know...i would first call everyone I cared about and said how much I cared for them and loved them then I would do things I would not have done before'
• 'take out lots of loans and spend lots of money on things ive always wanted'
• 'id probably cry 1st then tell the guy i love that i loved him and gather my friends together and just have fun'
• 'id probably do anything and everything possible to do enjoy the last bit of life i had and not look back on anything i did that day'
• 'perhaps eat drink and do everything I wanted to do for so long but never had the motivation'
• 'drugs and sex, and drink jack daniels for the last 3 hours'
• 'spend it with the best gf in the world'
• 'I have 15 hours to live? Go convince Andy Keogh to marry me (And Stearman!). Blow all my money, spend time with family..'
• 'Id want to find the someone who i thought had made me happiest in the world then be with them and my daughter.'
  

This idea reminds me of a blog style website i found called Before i die i want to...
where 2 americans have taken polaroids of everyday people and asking them, what do you want to do before you die? The Before I die I want to... project was inspired by a combination of factors: (1) the “death” of the Polaroid, (2) a psychologist’s tool called safety contracts, and (3) a passion to get people to think about (and act upon) what is really important in their lives through this simple, straight-forward question. I think this is a really clever idea. and it all makes us think about how precious life is and our own mortality. The most touching of images on that site is that they ask patients in a hospice what they want to do before they die, as well as asking the staff who deal with death on a daily basis.
a few examples from the site:

 

Forevers not so long

http://foreversnotsolong.com/

Forevers not to long is a short film that i found while looking for something else, And it really sturred an emotion for me.
While i cant find the video embedded to put in here if you click the link at the top of the post you can watch it.
I think the main hard hitting thing is that relisation that you are going to die. Its set around a bomb going off in america and a guy who finds out that this bomb is going to kill him and everyone around him. It really does make you think, what would you do if you had 15hours to live? the thing that hits me hard is when the main character, rushin home with food, because there is no way of getting away, invites a complete stranger into his home to stay with him, because he doesnt want to die alone, he asks this woman he meets (and is rather mean to might i add) 'would you spend the rest of your life with me?' a question that is over used in stupid romance flicks, (which i hate) is rather poyant here, when both characters know they are both going to die. It basically shows what they do in there final hours alive.
Its a subtle yet very touching short film. It does really make you think, what would you really do if you only had 15 hours to live? and you know there is no exscaping your death.

tutorials

while in the small group tutorials after discussing work, we also looked at each other blogs and Annie had posted a video which we then watched in the tutorial, i didnt know if i should post it on my blog but because of the way this video made me feel.


From the offstart, the dancer painted all black, it brought me back and reminded me of something nightmareish. i know it will sound stupid, but it reminded me of the orcs from lord of the rings. Which i once had a nightmare in which they were chasing me. (i know its the start of a weird collection of dreams ive had.) The second thing that as it were, made me feel uneasy was the movement. the jitteryness of it, that mixed in with the sound, it is the sound that makes this tense, harsh, it made me feel uneasy and even to some extent freaked out. Just the movement in mix with the sound together. It deffo had the intended reaction from me which annie had and what im guessing the director wanted to create.

Day of the dead photo shoot.

So i managed to get my 'day of the dead' inspired photoshoot up and running.  To start with i planned how i was going to shoot it. I decided that to make this more interesting for me, that it was to be a self portrait, and that i wanted it to be just a close up of my face, So for the perpose of self portraits i got Camera control pro 2 which allowed me to control my camera via my laptop, which ment that using my laptops remote i could change iso,shutter speed, appature. I also wanted to create rather a contrasted image so i adjusted the exposure compensation.  I desided to light it using avalible lighting and a flash gun, which i did move after the first couple of shots. I also desided to make a time lapse video while applying the makeup, just for a bit of fun, i have a feature to do that on my webcam, and now i have found out that camera control pro 2 also allows me to do that.
this is the time lapse of my prep:



So here is what i achieved doing this photoshoot:

after the first few images i adjusted the flash gun slightly to get better light by adding a diffuser as well as adjusting the location. i also decided to encorperate some small skull heads that i owned to recreate the look of the Mexican Madness shoot that i featured earlier in my blog. While i lke the straight on portraits, i think te images that stand out mainly to me are the photos that are almost extreme close ups and strange crops of the images. i really like the close up of the mouths and the close up of the face. I guess it links to my passion for surrealism and there way of 'cutting' or cropping the photo on just one body part, detacting the audience from the body as a whole. maybe this is something for me to look into? i also like the playfulness of some of the photos.

So i thought i would share a few of my fave images  from the shoot:

Its really strange, i was rather confused that i prefered images of mine that wasnt like the photoshoot of Mexican Madness, but rather my own ones.  I also found it really easy to take the photos, normally with models i find it hard to ask them to do what i would like and i guess by cutting the middle man out i feel alot more at ease. i dont really do alot of portraits as i really dont like my self image, my self esteme is rather low, so maybe this is something i can explore more? self portraiture and experiment with using myself. I do feel that part of me wants to make this more personal to myself and maybe that is one way of doing it.

Days of the dead

I found a good link to a collection of photos an american paper put together between halloween and the days of the dead. some of the photos i really like, but i also like how its a mix of cultures all surrounding the dead.  I like how none of the images are morbid in anyway and theyre all bright and colourful. it just reminded me of this project.
The link is below:

Days of the dead

Some of my fave photos from this link:

I like the use of light and colour in this. while there is no symbolism of death in it, as an image its very powerful. I like the use of silhouette and how it contrasts the colour with a block of black, and how the focus of the jars go from distingishable to just small dotted blurs the further from the camera you go.

This image is another that i really like, The gashia is a symbol of beauty and elegance, and here we see them mutilated and cut up, its a bitter sweet contradiction. i also like how the subject isnt the closest to the camera and the depth of focus is different. 

this image was taken at the halloween celebrations at the white house, and really reminds me of the 'remains of the day' video from the corpse bride. 

Plan of action

Tomorrow i plan on my first mexican day of the dead shoot, I have got a basic design for the makeup, i have also decided that i want to make this a self portrait.
My plan is to set up my tripod agains a plain white wall, however i have a selection of bright coloured card that im going to stick to the wall to create an interesting background.  I have have perchased the softwhere to shoot through my laptop so i will be using this to my advantage and using it to help me frame and shoot the images.
for the makeup idea i want to encorperate jewels so i brought some of those craft gems to stick to my face, i also brought interesting glue on eyelashes, as well as using the facepaint.
I will upload a contact sheet once i am done.

Danse Macabre

While Looking for some exhibitions to go see to do with my current projects one leaflet caught my eye 'DANSE MACABRE 2009' The reason this caught my eye is because danse macabre is the dance of the dead which i looked at while in ASLEVEL and wrote about in a blog post before! I looked at the leaflet and while i couldnt get to the exhibition on the dates it had left, (london) i have since visited the website.
Danse Macabre is a gothic art exhibition that was on in Nottingham and London and included artists, photographers and live performances.
I looked on the websites of some of the artists and photographers and here are the more interesting ones that i found and liked:

michael cowell:

illistrator and artist (some photography but mainly just of areas of interest to him) his main work that interests me is his illistrations. They seem really eeary to me, often looking at isolation, or those with large groups seem even more haunting expesh when you cant see the faces (as in the image below)  The very sketchy and messy approch reminds me of the 30days of night comics. the shading and colourisation also has that 'dark gothic feel' with many of his images using this sort of tea stained colouring rather then pure white.

http://www.michael-cowell.com/

Photographer and illistrator Mark Leary who does a mix of work- some of his manipulations have a very surreal almost Dali feel to them which i do really like. His photography is a mix of different kinds of portrait, being alternative in style, and weird and clever set ups to put his model in. I really like this photo of his work  and its almost fitting that the title of his website is http://www.asylumseventy7.co.uk/ because the subject looks as if he should be put in an asylum. Obviously making a statement about vanity and obsessivness with how we see ourselves and how important it is how other people view us.

I was also excited to see that two former DEMONTFORT students were in the lineup, Both photographers:
Hamish Walker (fine arts degree)

 Hamish's photographs attempt to capture the exhilarating and terrifying atmosphere felt when walking through the city alone at night, where all your senses are heightened. Light reveals only details in this landscape, serving to reinforce the shadows.

and the work of Grace Elkin who also has a fine art degree from DMU whos work is a mixture of portrait, glamour and fashion with hints of the gothic and alternative scene with some surreal and some fetish (latex ect) work 

Day of the dead and corpse bride

So while looking at the day of the dead the one thing all the bright garish colours and the candy skulls reminded me off was a scene in TIM BURTONS  corpse bride.
This is the scene it reminds me of:


singing skeletons playing instraments made from each others with garish colours and a mix of floresent coloured lights. If death was really like that most people wouldnt be afraid of it.
The whole premice of the film is that the lead Victor accidently marrys a corpse while practising his wedding vows in the woods and ends up being dragged to the underworld. However  the way Burton shoots and planned this film is that the normal earthly world is dull, unexciting, people do things because they have to not because they enjoy it, infact the characters in the normal world arnt ever seen having fun. Everything is dark, colourless, and to almost some extent greyscale, but the ironic thing is when victor enters the underworld, everyone is drinking, having fun, singing dancing, bright coloured. Almost as if to say that death is more fun then life, and that lifes only the que to get into club death. or never feeling so alive till your dead.

'Real life'

'Death'

This whole premise is very day of the dead, and corpse bride even mocks both the living and the dead.
And this is not the only Tim Burton Film to do so, infact many of his film focus on how maybe death is better then life. Another example of this is Beetlejuice where two resently deceased ghosts are trying to work out the ins and outs of haunting while trying to stop its house being taken over by the new occupents and stopping the psyco dead guy beetlejuice (DONT SAY HIS NAME 3 TIMES!) featuring many scenes which show that the dead do have more fun like in this scene where the two main characters (the ghosts) are trying to scare away the current tennents:

Facepaint day of the dead photoshoot reserch

After looking at the day of the dead, and seeing photos documented by Mary Andrade, I noticed that a common thing to do was to paint faces to look like a skull, which gave me an idea of a fashion style shoot but to include facepaint of a skull.
the first thing i thought was... how the hell do i do that?
so i serched online and looked at a few videos on how to do a skull facepaint, some step by step guides, facepainting books, but the best i found was a guy who has a few posts about SFX style makeup (mainly for halloween!) and came across this video post:



So i grabbed ahold of my makeup kit, which while i do have alot i was limited to the stuff i had for the first experiment.
I did have white face paint from a themed night out, and a few different shades of eye shadow and eye liner that i had to make do with to experiment with.
Just for experimenting i did do it on myself and i did copy the half a face skull look. However for my shoot i am thinkin full faced skull would look better. But while i was settling for the half a face look i did a basic 'mexican day of the dead' style eye makeup on the other side of my face. anywho! this was the results:

Once i perchase the right makeup for this (a dark black facepaint) and next time i attempt this i will design it out first rather then just do it as i go along, from afar it doesnt look to bad, I need to try working on my blending for the shadow and of course as i just said a design ready but i mean for 30mins work it didnt come out terribly bad.

Ideas while looking at the Day of the dead

From the day of the dead reserch i have done so far, i have managed to get two ideas really.

One was from looking at the work of Mary Andrade: My idea was to go to a graveyard just before nightful armed with candles and lay them across graves, Maybe with brightly coloured flowers to almost recreate a day of the dead ritual. I think it would look interesting maybe with a close up of the grave followed by a zoomed out so we can see that it is the only grave decorated like that and that maybe the original photo isnt all it seems (mainly that it wasnt actually taken at the festival!)

I also had an idea of using candles to form a coffin shape on the ground and photographing that, inside and maybe outside, even an idea of placing a photo of a person inside or even maybe (i know i know! health and safety!) but surrounding a person in candles in the shape of a coffin.

My final idea involves facepainting and doing a fashion like photoshoot, almost like that of Steve Neaves, but with the face of the model painted like a skull.

Mexican Madness

In addition to my previous post about bizare magazine and its feature on the mexican day of the dead, the halloween issue also featured a photoshoot in a mix between fetish/glamour and to some extent fashion featureing model Kitty Lea By photographer Steve Neaves. The photos all feature Kitty in a latex costume surrounded by garish colours, flowers and flames, candles and images of skulls (figures, jewerly, hair pieces.) These photos are basically more how i would shoot, day of the dead based shoots, with bright colours and symbolism from the traditions. These photos used in an editiorial sence, have had text added to them which are 'Traditional day of the dead poems'  (note obv some of these images are double spreads and with only an A4 scanner the images will be in two parts.

Quote reads:

'On the day of the dead,

spirits rise, the dead walk

abroad tand the bones of

ancestors shake off their

dust and creak into life...'
I think this is one of the stand out images for the editiorial for me, the face, the pose, and the build up of tranditional symbolism, i like the use of the hidden skulls in her hair as well as the layout of the flames surrounding her almost building a 'coffin' of flames

This image is very effective expesh as the text fits in with the image, the flames at the base almost seem to frame Kitty.

I like the use of the flowers in this photo littering the place, as well as the more subtle gestures like the photo in the frame in the background is of rock legend KURT COBAIN who killed himself (one of the premature deaths of a great rock music icon.)

This is my least fave photo from this collection and while it is well compose i think the model looks awkward, She almost looks doll like in this position and i am not sure if that was the desired effect of the photographer.

This will have to be my fave of the photos from this collective. Maybe its just because we can see the detailing on her styling, or the cropped close effect, but the colours looking extreamely vivid witht he contrast of the flowers in her hair to the blue of the background seems to stand out more now then in over photos. The makeup is flawless and the Ringflash is used giving that wonderful effect with the eyes. As well as the traditional aspect, with the skull candy, where it is to represent eating your own death.