William Henry Fox Talbot

Project 1 - the instrument - exercise 1

Alec Soth

assignment 1

To do the assignment of the square mile I have chosen my parents neighbourhood. I moved into this area of Madrid when I was eleven years old. I was coming from an area of Madrid, which is the one I consider as the place I grew up, in the outskirts of the city. In this new neighbourhood I went to school one year, and to high school four more years. It is in this area also where the swimming pool in which I have spent most of my adolescence (I was a synchronise swimmer and practised for three hours every day) is located, so I chose this as the place to re-explore and photograph in this assignment.

I moved from my parents’ home in 2005, and then I moved from Madrid to Cardiff in 2011. It was only a couple of months ago then I came back, so found the opportunity to photograph some of my memories really enthralling.

The photographers I have looked for inspiration were Stephen Shore and Eggleston. Their images of the conventional daily life and the colour of their film photographs is engrossing. Also influenced by them I have researched Alec Soth. I particularly like the façades in his Niagara series.

I also enjoyed Keith Arnett's series of his neighbours, and how captivating are Tom Hunter and Venetia Darden's portraits. However, I found difficult to approach people and asking them for a picture. Also there were not many people in the city as it was a bank holiday this weekend.

While taking the images for the Square Mile I had the photographers mentioned above in mind. In some aspects a couple of the photos taken would have a reminiscence of their work.

I'm not completely sure if the project works as a whole. For me it does, as I recognise the buildings and the area. The images are also edited with a film filter in Lightroom software (VSCO cam package) so the feel and colour is similar to Eggleston's colour images. This gives them some consistency and continuity. But if I look at the images from the perspective of an outsider, it could be that they don't belong together.

 

With regards to assessment criteria, I have taken a first stab at an analysis below:

Demonstration of technical and visual skills – The images have in general a good composition. Location of subjects in relation with each other makes sense and is balanced. Style is somewhat mixed (angled and simplistic images with more vernacular photos).

Quality of outcome – as mentioned above, the project perhaps does not work as a whole.

Demonstration of creativity – Honestly here I would have liked to get closer to people. I find this terribly difficult.

Context – I have done a couple of days of research before taking the photos. I am satisfied with the result in this sense, though I had probably a predetermined idea of what I wanted to show and have stick to that, keeping the influence from the research (hopefully) in control.  

dfp formal submission - List of contents

Please find in this section (Assignments DFP), in inverse chronological order, the assignments submitted for Digital Film Production and my tutor's reports.

Also links to assignments can be found here:

Assignment 1 - a five shots sequence
Assignment 2 - creating atmosphere
Assignment 3 - creating meaning
Assignment 4 - constructing a narrative


Many thanks,

Maria

inspiration

stephen shore