Refining Ideas

Refining My Ideas

I have several ideas and certain things I want to achieve. However some of there have merged into one big aim, without any clear finish point.

One huge feature in my recent ideas is working with human spaces, focusing more on empty spaces and architectural photography. Visually I see this body of work will be fairly minimal, lots of open empty spaces with an emphasis on pockets of light. I've always been interested in shapes and geometry within art, and the bauhaus style of work. I want to take some aspects of that and take it into my photography. Photographers I'm inspired by in this way are:

Thomas Demand -

I feel Demand's work is very minimal, these photos show human spaces. They give the impression of human life, common and familiar spaces such as an office. These are bland, mundane spaces however all of Demands work are constructed environments made of paper and cardboard. He meticulously creates these environments, showing a huge talent and incredible eye for detail. The photos do look very realistic, you don't even doubt them being fake due to the accuracy. However when you study the images closely you start to notice that they are too perfect, too precise. For example in the leaf photo (Bottom) Demand has bent the paper to give it a much more realistic texture and to create imperfections, things that make the photos more realistic and believable. Demands work is often printed on a huge scale, this huge scale allows the audience to the photo for what it really is, constructed. I admire Demands work and his process of creating photographs, it has a similar concept of Gregory Crewdson, making the false and constructed believable. Both spend a huge amount of time creating their photos and set out to create something that tricks the audience into a false sense of reality. Demands architectural creativity is also very present throughout his photography, his work is very 'German' and has strong geometrical shapes.   

Dan Williams -

Dan Williams was a young American photographer from NY. There isn't much known about him as a photographer, I discovered him via youtube. However I feel his photos do have a Demand and the lower photo reminds me of a Chris Dorley Brown photo. I feel these photos have a sense of scale I've seen from Jeff Wall. The geometric shapes and blank spaces are something I find very appealing and is something i'd like this forthcoming project to include.

I feel this mundane and bland office space is a good starting point for me when looking at empty spaces and the use of geometric shapes in the photos. Unlike empty places where things and activities happen such as courts or fields, I do definitely feel these offices have that sense of the mundane and banality.  something I aim to include throughout my work along with these strong shapes and spaces that show a trace of human life and the everyday.

Another body of work is finding beauty in the banal. This project has seemed to vary in terms of results. I feel there is a good project there, it just needs refining. To me it is a project that will happen over time, a project that needs to be found. I really do like the idea of finding beautiful things and scenes in the everyday and the banal. There is something captivating about one little piece of beauty and interest in something so bland and bleak. 

I do feel that bleakness is a trend that continues in my work, probably due to my upbringing and being British. For this project I want to find unique yet almost stereotypical things in the bleakness of England. However I feel this project can not be forced. I feel if I force this too much the results will be too cliché. 

Photographers who photograph in this style are - 

Robert Chilton

I feel Chilton's work is very mundane, he sets out to find things in the everyday, but things that are different and again, bleak. 

I have followed Chilton's work for a number of years now and I feel some of his work does seem too forced, for example the slide photo does seem quite poorly photographed, and again this idea and notion of an overgrown playground is quite stereotypical and almost too easy.