INTIMACY * EMOTIONS * MEMORIES

A study on slice of life photography and conveying nostalgia

What do you want to make?

In my previous work I’ve experimented a lot with creating cinematic scenes, almost like a screenshot out of a movie. I created this with the ultimate goal of this particular analysis but at a stage where it had no actual narrative depth.

Earlier Work 1
Earlier Work 2

Key to my work will be the subject of memory; I would like to recreate moments of intimacy that provoke emotion. I want this work to have a slice of life element to them; universally relatable, specific moments that we all share. These memories will be shot and composed in the way that remember them; fragments and details of a moment that comprise a story together.

Example of the "memory"

I will start with intimate moments I, myself am experiencing first; for example lying in bed with my partner. The photographs will be intimate compositions of details that fix in the memory, arranged in ways to create a narrative that conveys emotion. In this experiment I have taken several images and rearranged them to give them a narrative like above. This is the foundation that I want to build on in my project, exploring more within the realm of intimacy starting with myself as a way of warming up to these intimate compositions.

My first try at a "memory"

I want to draw on the visual language of cinema, such as 80s Asian cinema. These have a particular colour range; a yellow-greenish, mostly warm toned aesthetic with a high contrast and yet a softness to them. I will also draw on the influence of asian analog photographers who use a similar aesthetic of this grainy, green toned, nostalgic aesthetic. With this style, I want these images to put the viewer in a particular nostalgic place. However I would also like to dabble in a more wholesome/summery colour palette like in the Ghibli examples in the chapter "Why do I want to make it".

Example 1
Example 2
Example 3
Example 4

These images will be shot digitally and colour graded and lit to have an analogue and cinematic blend style. This promotes, to me, the best of both worlds; combining my digital shooting method with the style and nostalgia of an analog look. I want these photographs to have a feeling of being a quick snapshot while at the same time being a little too dreamy and stylised to create the feeling of it being a memory that is romanticised.

Analog style study 1
Analog style study 2
Cinematic Style study 2

Why do you want to make it?

I have always been moved by slice of life type images and artworks, there is something poetic about a piece of artwork that shows you a normal everyday scenario that you are not a part of and can still give that feeling of having been there. It gives me a feeling of now-ness while never actually having experienced that particular moment. Examples of these kinds of moments in the movies Totoro and Kiki's Delivery Service below, in which an absolutely mundane moment is captured, however I am transported to relaxing, stress free summer days.

Another big reason I want to create this type of art is because slice of life Anime was a big part of my escapism tactics in childhood. They were essentially a coping mechanism for my younger self to deal with an unstable environment by mentally transporting myself into different, more stress free and wholesome worlds/scenarios.

Totoro 1
Totoro 2
Kiki's Delivery Service 1
Kiki's Delivery Service 2

Relation to a larger context

This project will be my contribution to the slice of life style art. Below some screenshots of the movie Minari, which is about a Korean family in America that struggles to life off of a new farm they just moved to. While it's not spectacular in the same way that action movies are, and even though not everyone suffers the exact same struggles as they do; there is still a relatability in the way that the family is trying to keep afloat together, while still finding small hopeful moments in each other.

I hope to create the same types of artworks where the viewer can have a relatability in my work that is entirely shaped by how their life experiences are. Essentially finding common ground, despite different pasts, presents and futures.

Minari 1
Minari 2
Minari 3

Who can help you and how?

Right now I have found some courses on Domestika that might be beneficial to the research I am doing:

Self-Portrait as a Personal Diary by Daniella Benedetti
Emotive Photography: Create Real, Up-close Images by Carol Peña

Self Portraits as a Personal diary
Emotive Photography

Other than that I've been asked some good, critical questions by Barend mainly:

What makes a photograph cross the line of being a pretty photo and being an artwork that has narrative?

That is something I am still figuring out and do not yet know who can help me out in that regard.

Timetable

Okt-Nov

Shoots with models - main focus on developing analog style, composition experiments.
My own intimate moments - Main focus on composition.

Dec-Jan

Shoots with models - Combine composition and style
Dabble with narrative: what works and what doesn't?

Jan-???

The work as a result of these experiments.
conclusions
Thesis deadline

References/bibliography

In the mood for love (2000)
Minari (2021)
My neighbour Totoro (1988)
Kiki's Delivery Service (1989)
Sideways (2004)
The Power of Now - Echkart Tolle

I choose these movies as my references because some of them have a very slice of life element to them. Scenic/cinematographic and story wise I feel like they can have a relatability to different types of people because they can be interpreted in your own way, while still having a concrete idea of what is happening.

Mathilde-project proposal

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