User:Annalystad/stevesnotes

Steve's notes on my project

What are you working on now?

The happiness project. Shooting today and on Friday. Became disinterested in the initial concept I had and now am following my inspiration from national geographic. “our human story…”

Shifting the focus of the earth to the more human scale. Will be testing with different cameras, I will be using a 5D Mrk 2; am testing with a GoPro; will be testing on Fab and Sig and Karina from X-pub. I'll get them on a table; make more of a night scene which will cast shadows; I will use the continuous light being really low; [palette? ] You can disguise the fact it is a body through using a tungsten setting (4800 Kelvin). [How will the ambiguity of the image work?] By casting this colour you are forced to look at the body in a different sense? [Is it a real body?] It is a way of looking at yourself in a different way. I still don’t know what the viewer is going to take away.

This started for me from being homesick. In Norway the mountains have a beautiful blue cast; the "blue hour" occurs during the winter, between two and three, when the sun is behind the mountain everything turns blue. It is the time of day when I can sit down and watch and there is a sense of connection: it's the time of day, and at that time of year, when all I have to do is look; all the details are hyped, like they are on steroids. For some reason the direction of the light and the way the mountains catch it, makes it create amazing details. Foe instance, you start to see the difference between the new snow and the older snow; the sparkle of the new and the matt of the older snow; we have very local weather and you start to see those tiny differences. [the mountain becomes a recorder of data and detail] Similarly with the body pictures, there is a relation to the rake of the light and the record of the body. For instance, I found the model who had open heart surgery; she agreed to let me photograph her scar; in the context of the shoot this took on a new light; I also took photos of her stretch marks (due to weight gain related to heart medication). This experience was very positive for the model, she came to see her scars as beautiful and no longer hid them beneath her clothes. [so there is a relation to the sun, how light rakes against geological structures and how you use light as a way of reviling the record of a body.] I am interested in mimicking life by creating light set ups. Meat: In these tests I the same light but with a colour change, use the light in the same way, by walking around and. This creates a different view than you would if looking in a refrigerator. I wanted at first to compare human body with the meat; this is open to an interpretation, it can be misread as a comment on the meat industry, as opposed to a comment of the natural elements between the body and the meat; as a method of recording the individuality; similar in shape and texture. [there are two levels of abstraction = geological and the particular body – the generality of one frames the detail of the other - see 'gestalt image'] I want to draw people’s attention to the detail. Body pressure: “it’s just a fucking meat market out there.” A swipe to right of left determines your fate. I wanted to see if I could draw similarities between the availability of meats and the availability of partners on line. This is not obvious at first so I tested with cling film on my fiancé [describe].

[What does this describe outside the meat/people parallel?] I’m interested in the obscurity of it, the reflection on the cling film; a small thing can transform; I think in society we take on different forms whether we like it or not; it is a way of describing […] the little differences are what we define ourselves by and which we are defined by… [What is the relation to detail here - what is the pleasure of detail?] I find it exiting because it is – a tiny pimple becomes amplified, what we consider significant details are maybe not; it’s the secret life of the body; I wonder what it would look like.. [What do you want to share about detail?] The moment; I wouldn’t want to share the moment I look at the mountain; I want people to feel that moment within themselves; to have all the time in the world to go close to it; to actually touch the detail (using high textured paper of some sort [but you can’t touch the mountain, maybe that is part of the pleasure. Why not photograph the mountain?] I don’t want to reproduce that but translate it - which requires that you know something, it is not so much about meaning but feeling – to evoke something in someone else, to get the calmness and sense of self (being more aware). [Look into Affect – ask Steve to send text – email him] After I moved away from home I came to appreciate it. In San Fran' I got my roommate to lie on a table and I took long exposures of 6-7 seconds. I was re-enacting the sun, trying to mimic the sense of how the light hits the mountains. [what are your achievable aims ahead of next time?]