Susanna - Methods/session 11 Text On Method
Text on Method / 2nd Draft May 14th
INTRODUCTION
A translucent camera
A playful photo book
A short narrative film
A series of experiments with pinhole cameras
A creative destruction of instant self-portraits
Thematic projects and self inspired research.
Self inspired and not self directed, not yet.
I can see tendencies and overlapping interests from one project to the next, but my research needs to be articulated and directed.
I identified one of my obsessions as the desire to deeply understand how light and emulsion create an image.
The short film I made, Anna, is based on one of my family’s memories. This short film is the first piece I made that explores a personal subject. Following up on this personal, subjective, self-reflective trend, I started taking self portraits with a Polaroid camera.
METHOD
A translucent camera
A handmade focal camera built with red-transparent acrylic plates, it works with medium format film. I tested it with colour film and the result are blue-coloured photographs. I made it as part of a thematic project where I was given the freedom to create any kind of camera within the limits of the tools and materials offered by the school. To make a translucent camera was my very first instinct, finding the reason behind this choice is a process a posteriori: I wanted to build a paradox of photography, I wanted to deconstruct and question the apparatus, I wanted to eliminate any doubt and incomprehension I might still have about how a photograph is made. This trend was again picked up in more recent experiments with pinhole cameras and instant photography.
A playful photo book
The final product of our second thematic project, made in collaboration with Andreas. Frown is a photo book that presents pages of grids filled with cropped photos of faces. The pages are folded in a way that the reader has to cut them open in order to see the larger photos inside. Being a collaborative project, this book is a result of many conversations and ideas thrown on a piece of paper, discarded, reconsidered, redeveloped. As it was my very first book I mainly wanted to explore the different possibilities given by such object and play with new ideas.
A short narrative film
Based on real events concerning my family, that I never witnessed but that nonetheless had an impact on my life. The finished film is very distant from those real events. Viewers that don’t know what story this piece is based on have perceived a different narrative. Despite the story not being what I had in mind, I still consider this short film a good learning experience and a solid filmmaking exercise. It does leave me with the unsatisfied desire to tell the original story in a way that I can communicate not just the facts, but also the more nuanced tones of a specific environment and in-depths characters.
Text on Method / 1st Draft April 10th
[Steve's brief feedback.
Use this template as a guide
http://pzwiki.wdka.nl/mediadesign/TextOnMethodOutline2019-20
The way you describe your process here:
http://pzwiki.wdka.nl/mediadesign/User:Susanna
is really good. Simply state what you made.
The discussion begins with a simple description of your work.
We can discuss your latest version at the next methods session]
A transparent camera
A playful photo book
A short narrative film
A series of photographic experiments with the analog process
A creative destruction of instant photographs
Thematic projects and self inspired research.
Self inspired and not self directed, not yet.
My research needs to be articulated and directed.
If I look back at the past six months I can see tendencies and overlapping interests from one project to the next.
Starting from the handmade focal camera I identified my obsession for deeply understanding how light and emulsion create an image.
The translucency of my camera, and the fact that I built it from the inside out, questions the function of a camera and allowed me to deconstruct uncertainties I had about the medium.
This trend was again picked up in more recent experiments with pinhole cameras and instant photography.