29.04.13 SNEAK PEAK!

SNEAK PEAK

It's not long now until this project is all wrapped up and ready for the exhibitions!

To keep you wanting more heres a sneak peak!!

24.04.13 The Beginning

Taxidermy! Road Kill! And all things Natural!

A brief introduction to the subject of my upcoming project!

Every project has its beginnings and for once this project seemed to happen quite easily. My previous project had felt like a mad dash where I’d been unable to connect properly with any of my subjects, so for this project I wanted to do a story entirely on one person’s life. I faced a big problem though, which was finding a subject interesting enough to warrant three months shooting and I was excited when I first came across Jonathan. Mr McGowan came up in a conversation I had with my sister, we quite often discuss our creative ideas and we were discussing taxidermy when she mentioned the name of a local taxidermist who was a bit of a local celebrity. Although it was not his taxidermy people knew him for, but his unusual lifestyle choices, the most bizarre of which is eating roadkill.

With all this in mind I was anxious to meet the man who lived off the land and see if his life was as shocking as it first sounded, but on meeting him I found he is a normal man with many interests which influence his way of life. With his own set of morals firmly installed in the environment and wildlife Jonathan does his best to live in harmony with nature.

The more I researched and spent time with Jonathan the more I have grown to admire his dedication to the preservation of wildlife and his ongoing quest (as it were) to educate and persuade a nation which shuns the natural from their busy, high tech lives.

 

13.04.13 UPCOMING PROJECT!

Get excited people! The project I've been working on since the beginning of January is almost complete!

After my last project I wanted to base a project solely on one interesting person. I wanted to concentrate on representing them truthfully and making a big piece of work about them. 

When I met Jonathan I instantly knew the project would work. He's a local taxidermist, environmentalist and just so happens to eat roadkill. Check out his interests and hobbies here: http://www.thenaturalstuff.co.uk/ .

In the next few weeks leading up to the unveil of this project I will use this blog to document its growth! Only last week was I chowing-down on badger, rat and buzzard but soon the project will end!!!

11.04.13 The photograph and death

Vintage Photographs of a 1946 United States Nuclear Test

Some unique vintage photographs have surfaced of a United States nuclear weapons test conducted in 1946. Named Operation Crossroads, the experiments were conducted just off the coast of Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands and were designed to test the effects of nuclear weapons on naval ships. Two nuclear bombs were detonated, each releasing an explosion equivalent to over 23 kilotons of TNT, but because the bombs went off underwater the blinding flash that usually occurs was barely seen, meaning clear shots of the resulting 900 ft (274 m) vertical water columns were available. The eery images were taken 3.5 miles away from the island beach, which is now uninhabited due to the resulting radiation.

 Photographs will always hold a grim fascination for me, their link to death is intriguing in many ways, whether it be for nostalgia and remembrance or simply the documentation of times in history which we couldn’t have witnessed without the invention of photography. These images for example embody quite a few of these unusual interest I have because of its subject matter and also because I am witnessing something that even most the people present for cannot witness today (because they are dead).

10.04.2013 Patricia Piccinini

It's been a while to say the least! I think with the impending doom which was the start of my major project coupled with an extended dissertation I felt I didn't have time to blog, which is silly really because I have been looking and collecting things to blog about none-the-less!

I'll blog about my latest project soon but here’s a few gems that have caught my eye recently!


"How To Tell The Future From The Past" at Haunch of Venison in New York, by Australian artist Patricia Piccinini has created a strikingly realistic animal/human hybrid sculpture which aims to explore the fears of modern society, such as beauty, aging and disease. As well as sculpture, Piccinini's work spans photography, video and drawing, presenting the "human animal" as resourceful and sophisticated but fundamentally incapable of bettering itself.

I first saw Piccinini's sculptures a few years back at the Saatchi in London and was taken aback by how life like they are! Not only are they completely realistic, as if it might walk away at any moment, but each piece has an unease about it that, when coupled with knowledge of the sculptures intent, really does make you think. That is what good art should make you do.

17.12.12 University work- The Collector

The Collector

This university project expores the lives of people with large collections and aims to shed light on the types and scales of collections out there!

17.12.12 Update!

In anticipation for my new project I thought I'd better share with you the photographers in my research who's work I have found inspiring. I haven't been posting recently as my project work has taken over my life but this post 'Julian Germain' as his series 'For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness' was important to the project and the series is beautiful aesthetically and really helped my project get out of a pretty deep rut. This projects different poses and interesting details reminded me that documentary work is about 'seeing' and along with the advice of Paul Wenham Clarke (a tutor at AUCB) I came to a very big conclusion with my work. 

This conclusion (though I feel I already knew this and hadn't admitted it) was that my work was suffering through lack of technical skill still. On my course we've been barely taught the essentials, so with PWC's advice I went out and brought more lighting equipment to play with over Christmas. Hopefully my camera will be repaired and ready for testing so I can get a solid lighting technique as I need this so I can concentrate on taking a great portrait! Along with writing my dissertation, passing my driving test and general Christmassy things!