Evaluation

Elizabeth Chandler
University Of Salford
BA(HONS) Photography - Level 5
International Markets And Contexts
Self Evaluation - ‘The Many States Of Self’


Upon completion of the International Markets and Contexts module I wish to evaluate my my work in terms of it’s strength, appropriateness and overall impact, as well as commenting on my research and development throughout.

I have produced a body of work, consisting of 6 final images as required in the module brief.
The module involved much group work which required compromise in order to establish a festival location and theme that was equally as inspiring to each member of the group, as well as being appropriate for  suiting each of our photographic interests. We worked productively as a group, making important decisions early on. This allowed all members much time for experimentation, research and development which I feel is evident in the body of work I have produced.
Initially I expressed an interest in human emotions as this was my interpretation of our chosen theme, ‘the endless cycle’.
In the first week of developing ideas, I began by experimenting with old photographs much like my chosen artist (Natasha Caruana).
Using photoshop I obscured photographs to represent human emotions.
Looking at images and thinking of ways to represent feelings soon developed into an interest in my own emotions and how best to portray them in photographic form. I found various scientific and psychological studies online, which looked at the relationships between sleep and emotion, some concluding that sleep is the most emotional human state and linking such ideas to dreams and nightmares.
Others state sleep is the only emotionless human state.
And some counter balance the arguments, concluding that sleep is the most emotional state, however the only state where such emotions aren’t visible.
This stimulated ideas on how to photographically depict human emotion and I soon found myself interested in the ways in which we understand one an others feelings via an exchange of physical expressions.
“The Many States Of Self” is a photographic study as much as a series of alternative portraits. The work attempts to investigate the conventional taught physical signs we learn to associate with a given emotion.
I was interested in looking at the ways humans understand each others feelings and wanted to explore what happened when these expressions were removed. Was it possible for a human to convey a specific feeling without them?

I looked at the work of Luke Stephenson. And his series ‘spectacle wearing folk’, these images inspired the washed out tonality and composition of my images.
I feel the composition does to my images exactly as it does in Stephenson’s series, only the main focus is the expression as oppose to the glasses.
The overall aesthetic I chose for my final images was purposely done to induce a dream like feeling and ensure the main focus of the images was the facial expressions and or lack of them. Additionally I felt the way I utilise the space in the frame creates a sense of spontaneity, almost mimicking some traits we associate with the snapshot aesthetic, I feel this is an interesting combination as the images are evidently posed yet still posses some of those elements which increase a sense of authenticity.
I found an article online which revealed that 80% of people claimed they dreamt in colour, whist the remaining percentage claimed to only ever dream in black and white, however in an experiment where sleepers were woken mid sleep and asked to select colours from a chart, soft pastel colours were most frequently chosen, this reinforced the appropriateness of my editing choice.
The portraits are paired with images of myself sleeping which I captured using a remote shutter release set to take a 2 photographs every 10 minutes whilst I slept. This required much experimentation and I frequently changed my bedding to observe the impact of the bedding’s colour on the images.
I played around with the positioning of my camera and found that the pictures which make the viewer feel almost as though they are imposing or stalking from a distance work best.
I also included some of the images which were captured in the morning as I slept in, I feel these reflect my student lifestyle and give the body of work more context. (For example, in one image I am wearing a wrist band from a night club)
After much experimentation I found both the portraits and the images of me sleeping worked best with the absence of clothing, as the colours and styles of my attire seemed to distract from the expressions and altered the mood of the images too much.
I also experimented with long exposures whilst I slept, then using photoshop to layer them on top of each other, although I feel these images have potential for future development I felt they were swaying away from my initial interest in the emotion and it’s relationship to sleep.

In terms of exhibiting these images, I would display my prints relatively small directly on top of one another in a vertical line. My reasoning for the small size prints is that the images, particularly ones of me sleeping are quite intimate so the small print size would encourage viewers to get closer and perhaps educe a feeling of discomfort.
Frames and mounts would be minimal to reinforce the theme of endless cycle and recycling. The wall would be white as to make the images almost appear to fade away into the interior of the room, mimicking the irrational sensations of dreams.
I have also captured some sound clips of me sleeping which include texts and notifications coming through on my mobile phone as well as other ambient sounds. I feel these sounds give information and more substance to the images, I would like these sounds to be played alongside the images through headsets so that no other sounds in the room interfered. (unfortunately I have no cable which allows me to transport these clips to the computer, however hypothetically speaking in terms of an exhibition the above explains my intentions)