start of half term week...

In the next week I will be finishing off any lose ends to the project, such as sketchbook work. I will also be preparing for setting up the exhibition for when we go back on Tuesday 8th of June - I will get 3 white boards to mount my photographs on, a smaller board for ipod and headphones as well as finding out the best place to print my images as I have at least 60 A4 photographs to do.

FRIDAY (LAST DAY)...

Today I finished giving my board another two coats which should be enough for it to look even and clean. (I intend to go in next Monday after half term to drill it onto the wall so that I can do it whilst not many people are around and its a big job so I don't want to get in anyones way too much). I also collected some sounds noises from the videos of my photo shoots of people watching horror films so that I could use it for my scary sound clips to show in the exhibition.

I then made sure I took all my work and collected everything that I need over half term to complete my work.

THURSDAY - CLEARING THE STUDIO:

This morning we all spent sometime completely clearing out the studio out of all of our work so I had to make sure that all of my photographs were down from the boards that I mounted them on. As well as clearing all of my stuff out of the studio, I knew that I had to get an extra board to mount the third set of 20 photographs on - the board needed to be around 8ft by 4ft. My initial plan was to go to B&Q which is a 5 - 10 minute walk from the college to get a boards which I could paint once I had got it. However after asking around college about boards I came across a spare board which had been previously used for graffiti work so on one side had graffiti on it but the other side was plain so I decided to paint this side of the board white. This was a useful find as it saved me both money and time to continue to organise the rest of the exhibition work. - Today I painted one coat on the board but I still feel it needs two more coats which is why I intend to do tomorrow.

TUESDAY AFTERNOON/WEDNESDAY...

Over the last two days in college I have mainly been concentrating on creating a animation of the photographs that I have taken of people watching horror film clips. To create this animation I have used Flash and Photoshop.

Here is the animation itself:

(Video currently not uploading)

As well as the colour version uploaded above I also experimented with creating a black and white version similar to the photographs I have created. However I found that the black and white version was too dull as video and didn't really grab the viewers attention enough so I kept it to the original colour version.

One problem that occurred whilst created the animation was that if I was going to upload all of the images at once then they would end up being to big for the 'stage' and that meant that I would need to re size all of them - However I used a similar technique as I did to crop the edited photograph using Photoshop. I first found out what size the frame was in flash and then did a 'Batch Resize' in Photoshop so that when I uploaded them they would all be the correct size and Flash would do the important automatically for me. Another problem was that when the images were uploaded they were off cue with the frame of the 'stage' which then meant I had to move all of them slightly. However when it came to watching the animation I realised that there were small white area of the stage showing where the images had not been moved correctly, therefore I added the final animation to Final Cut Pro and cropped around the sides a little so this would no longer occur.

Tuesday morning:

This morning I pinned up some more photographs up on my wall, this time it was of the edits that I had done over last week and had printed off A4 over the weekend.

Here is photographs of the two boards that I covered this morning:







After pinning up the photographs with a white boarder I experimented with cutting of the boarder and just lining up the images themselves - I feel that although this will be more difficult and a longer process I believe that it will look much better, particularly against a white background.

WEEKEND...

I firstly finished off editing the best photographs from the three last photo shoots so that I was able to print them all on A4 pages and experimented with laying them out in certain orders to see what ones are the best - one major problem that occurred was that I found that some of the images were out of focus and couldn't be used. This was something that I didn't originally notice when editing on the computer, therefore I need to go back and edit some more photographs as alternatives so I have enough for 20 different people in each film category. Here is some examples of some of the blurred images that can't be used:











With the image (above right) I noticed that all of the shots are out of focus and can't be used which is a massive shame as the expressions were very animated, however I still feel as though I have another photographs for the final series

I also experimented with making sound clips by taking audio from the three films that I showed - I merged all of the clips and created a montage of sounds that was as distorted as it could be without all of the sounds being unrecognisable. This clip is only 50 seconds long but I intend to create a 3-4 minute piece which I will put on a loop so it is played over and over again. In the 3-4 minute sound clip I will use sounds from both the film clips I have shown as well as using sounds from the recording that Becky (who is currently making a doc on mine and a few other people's projects) did of the actual photo shoot as well.

Friday...

I spent the majority of the day today continuing to edit my photographs - However the main problem that I came across was that all of the images were different sizes once they had been cropped to the composition I wanted them, this meant that when I go to print the images off then they will all be different sizes and therefore would not work as a series. To overcome this problem I got some advice from some of the other students on my course, who explained that I could use Photoshop to do a 'Batch Resize' which would make all of the pixels of the images the same size so I would no longer have this problem.

I also used Photoshop to edit the photographs, I desaturated the images as well as adjusting the levels so that the tones were as similar as possible. Here are some examples of the photographs that I edited today:












HOSTEL (2005)













THE EXORCIST (1973)












FRIDAY THE 13TH: PART 1 - THE FINAL CHAPTER (1980 -1984)

Thursday editing...

Now that I have taken all of the photographs that I had planned to do I decided to start editing some of the photographs. Initially I started out by picking the photographs I wanted to develop further - I decided to pick as many images to develop from each film clip as possible so that when it comes to the point when I need to pick the images to use as part of the exhibition I will have more choice and therefore hopefully will have a better range of facial expressions to display.

I intend to make all of the photographs black and white so that I can make all of the tones as similar as possible because one thing I have noticed in the original colour verision is that all the lighting and colour tones have changed dramatically at times. Here is an example:

Third Horror Photo Shoot...

This morning I decided to do another photo shoot of people watching horror films as I felt that I didn't have enough choice of different people's reactions and I also believe that if I give myself enough choice then I will be more likely end to up with a better final outcome as well. In the photo shoot, I photographed around 10 people which now means that all together I have shot over 30 people so that gives me quite a wide choice of photographs to choose 20 from each film clip.

Today, more so then before I found that the process was quicker as I now know what points in the film provoke the strongest emotional responses from the sitters. For some reason today I felt that more people were getting scared easier, particularly the girls I asked - I'm not sure if this relates to the high-levels of stress that is floating around each group on the course as the end of the project nears ever closer and whether this had played an affect on the sitter's emotions.

Here are set of examples from the photo shoot (pre-edit):

Ideas for how to display the photographs...

This morning I experimented with looking at the best possible ways to display my photographs in the exhibition. I have been debating what size to display the photographs, either choosing an A4 size or A5. I think more than likely I will use A4 images as then this will emphasise the isolated feeling I want to create in the exhibition as the images will seem a lot closer up and make the space seem more cramped and uneasy - this alongside the scary music I intend to create should hopefully provoke the same kind of emotions in the viewer of the work as the actual sitters who watched the film so the viewers should be able to place themselves in the same situation.

I decided to display the images I had done so far all on one wall so that I could spot the photographs that I feel don't work as part of the series and work out what photographs need to be cropped more and what adjustments of levels and tones need to be done in post production.

Here is a photograph of the wall with all of the photographs up:


Overall I felt that I need to do a lot of cropping of the images in post-production as the photographs don't as of yet work as part of series because some of the composition are closer up and some are further away so I need to sort this problem out before I can develop how I want the images to be presented any further.

WEEKEND...

I spent the weekend looking over my photographs and still feel as though I need to take some more photographs, which is useful that I have booked out the photography studio for wednesday morning (I chose weds morning as I know that this is a time when the majority of people on my course are in college and will be available for me to photograph).

Also throughout the weekend I continued to update my sketchbook, particularly recording the photographs of people watching horror films that I have done so far. I also wrote about the set up of the photo shoots, evaluating what worked well and what things I feel I can improve on for the next shoot.

FRIDAY it was THE 13TH yesterday...

This morning I spent sometime in the studio, this time not taking my own photographs but helping out with Nicole's fashion shoot. By helping out for a little while, particularly during the set up, I learnt a lot about the lighting using in commercial photography and a lot more about how I can set the studio better for my own photographs and how to get the perfect lighting conditions for the affect required. I found the experience really interesting and I feel like I've actually learnt a lot more about the importance of using studio lighting to control how a photograph looks, which is good and will help when using a studio environment in the future.

Also today I have been focusing on ideas on how I want to present my final outcome which at the moment seems as though it is going to be a series of around 60 photos of different facial expressions which have been created by showing horror film clips. I intend to split the photographs up under each film, for example I hope to end with 20-25 images for each film clip, which I want to present on 3 separate boards. I want to use the 2 boards with 4 sides and push them together to make a small room from them, of which three walls will be taken up by the photographs themselves and a back wall which may be will display a small piece of writing explaining the idea behind the experiment. I have also started to think about maybe using sound to represent what the model's have watched. I thought about showing segments of the clips but I feel that another visual element will take the emphasise away from the actual photographs created. Therefore I feel sound would be the best option - the idea will based around incorporating a montage of different sounds, some from the video clips shown, some from the sounds creating by the sitters (i.e. scream, gasp etc.) and then also sounds of people talking afterwards about what they saw, such as what they felt was scariest parts etc.

Photographs from both photo shoot (Tuesday 'n' Wednesday)...

Here are some examples from both photo shoots consisting of the sitter watching three horror film clips - The Exorcist, Friday the 13th and Hostel (PRE-EDIT):

Wednesday Morning (Second horror clip photo shoot):

This morning I have continued where I left off yesterday afternoon by continuing to the studio set up to photograph people who are watching clips from horror movies. I decided not to change anything about the last set up as I felt that it worked really well, also because everything was already set up I could go straight ahead and take photographs which then meant that I would be able to photograph more people than yesterday in the time slot allocated.

Today I was gradually finding it easier to photograph the facial expressions as I was becoming more and more aware of the times in the film clips that provoked the strongest emotions and expressions in the sitter. This meant that at times I could be ready with the shutter held halfway down for a quicker release, hopefully catching that instant genuine reaction from the sitter better. I also felt as though I have gradually been finding the experience more and more personal, at times I have felt myself getting annoyed with the fact that some people were not feeling any emotion towards what they are watching or finding the experience at all frightening. I think this is because I have seen the majority of people show emotions of fear and when some people don't I find it difficult to understand their point of view. Above all though it is extremely interesting that my emotions are being provoked by the sitter's emotions and at times I reflect the way they are feeling even though I am only listening to the clips. May be it because the sounds of the clips themselves are as powerful as the visual footage - this is something I feel I must develop on further, how does sound effect our emotions? May be sound can affect our emotions more? Interesting.....

Tuesday afternoon (first photo shoot using horror film clips RESULTS)...

Overall I really enjoyed doing this photo shoot and I felt it has been particularly insightful, especially in terms of looking at how we all react differently to the things that we are shown. What I found most interesting about the shoot was the diverse range of facial expressions that have been created - these ranged from the obvious expression of fear to happiness and contempt. I personally believe that the majority of the seven basic facial expressions (discovered by Paul Ekman) were all produced by a range of different people looking at just the three horror film clips: Hostel, The Exorcist and Friday the 13th. This was actually rather surprising as I thought that the only expressions produced would be fear, surprise and disgust but at times even signs of happiness, contempt, anger and sadness were created by various people. This in a way kept the photo shoot rather exciting as even though by the end of the shoot I was aware of the times in the clips that provoked the strongest responses I was always kept on my toes by the unpredictable range of emotions created in the sitter as it always varied from person to person.

Here are some examples of the expressions that were created by the sitters (this images are pre-edit and have not been adjusted using Photoshop yet):











FRIDAY THE 13TH

Tuesday afternoon (first photo shoot using film clips SET-UP)...

This afternoon I used the studio in college which I booked in advance two weeks ago. Initially I had some help with setting up the lighting to how I wanted it to be. I decided to use two large soft box lights which were placed either side of table. The table was used so that I could rest my laptop (which I was using to show the videos) on it. So that the sitter could easily view the laptop on the table, I used a sit which would be situated slightly behind and in the middle of both lights. I also felt that by getting the model to sit down in front of the laptop this would relax them more, as it would remind them of siting at home in front the television so hopefully they would be less prone to be put of by the camera or lights. I then put the camera on a tripod as I knew that it would be easier to keep the camera steady whilst taking fast continuous shots of the sitter's facial expressions. The studio was completely blacked out, including the window and door, so the only light created was from the two soft box lights. I did this because I felt that this darkened effect would emphasise the fear in the sitter but also it would take them away from the college setting as if they were completely on their own watching a horror film. I hope that this would create more genuine facial expressions but also distract the sitter's attention away from the camera and focus it more on the film clip they are watching. Also unlike the last photo shoot I did in college, I decided to not use such of a close up framing of the face as I felt that if the expressions were strong then this would cause more body movement so it would be highly likely that the face would not be in the frame correctly.

Image of set up needed

Tuesday morning (mid-project review?)...

This morning we had a mid-project review where as a class we each gave a short presentation about the work we had done so far, what we plan to do and achieve at the en of the project. We also went back through our statements of intent to see whether we had done what we said we intended to do and what has changed about our project since writing the statement (i.e. different direction for the project or different use of media chosen etc.). As well as this we all wrote notes about each other's presentations, focusing on the strengths and weaknesses of their projects and advice on how they could improve their work.

Overall I found this experience very helpful for me to stand back and reflect upon my work but most importantly it showed me that I need to really pick up the pace for the project and instead of over-thinking everything, I just need to get on and experiment. I also feel this was echoed by the rest of the group in their notes as they all felt the project idea was good but I just need to do more photographs of facial expressions and use different techniques in creating the expressions.

some more photographic experiments...

After looking back through some of the videos I have downloaded, I decided to show some of them to my family - the main reason for this was so that I could work out what videos provoke the strongest responses from sitter now rather than wasting valuable studio time deciding in college tomorrow. I also want to keep the photo shoot very structure so I intend to show the exact same videos to everyone who models so the final outcome of expressions are fair in comparison to each other.

From the photo shoot I found that although the television programmes I showed such as Britain's Got Talent and Embarrassing Bodies did provoke an emotional response in the sitter, the facial expressions weren't as strong or as obvious as I thought they would be. I also found that if the person had already seen the programme before then their response was minimal as the shock-factor had been lost.

Here are some photographic examples of the facial expressions created whilst watching these television programmes above:



Channel 4's Embarrassing Bodies
<-------------->






However, I found that this wasn't the case when showing clips from famous horror movies. I noticed that even if the sitter had seen the film, such as my brother has watched both Hostel 1 and Hostel 2 he did not know what was going to happen next as it was only a short clip of the first film and I didn't actually tell what film he was going to watch initially either. Therefore I found that the shock value was still important in creating a vivid response from the sitter and that it is an important part of ignitiing fear in the viewer whilst watching horror films. I also was surprised too see that the article written in The Telegraph (see earlier post) was quite accurate as so far I have found that the emotional response to watching the videos do vary from person to person and I have found that some people do laugh while others squirm of look away. This concept is defiantly something I want to expand on and I now feel that I will experiment with this idea in the next photo shoot tomorrow. I should my family a variety of different horror movie clips, including the old and new - I found that while the majority ignited vivid response from the sitters some of the clips didn't create any effect what so ever such as Stephen King's It. I also found that the movies that provoked the strongest response from the sitter were Saw, Hostel, The Exorcist and Friday the 13th. However as I felt Hostel and Saw were from a similar torture sub-genre of horror I decided to just choose the one clip which I felt was better - I choose Hostel for the suspense that is created in the clip.

Here are a few examples of facial expressions created from showing the horror films, The Exorcist, Hostel and Friday the 13th:





<---------Hostel (2005) film clip









Friday the 13th film clip----------------->

Horror film clips...

Here are a selection of some of the horror film clips that I have downloaded (the selection is of some of the best clips that I feel will provoke the most vivid responses from the viewer):

WARNING: YOU MAY FIND SOME OF THE VIDEOS SCARY, WATCH AT YOUR OWN PERIL...

Hostel (2005) film clip


The Exorcist (1973)


Friday the 13th (1980, 1981, 1982,1984, 1985, 1986, 1988)

Finding videos to use for photo shoots CONTINUED...

Whilst searching for more information about what emotions horror films provoke in the viewer, I came across an interesting article from The Telegraph online. Here is the link for the article: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2535221/Horror-film-gene-that-makes-some-scream-while-others-laugh.html

As well the article I found here is a selection of some of the videos that I have downloaded:

Britain's Got Talent


Embarrassing Bodies (WARNING: this video contains some embarrassing body issues?)


Facejacker

I also intend to upload some clips of horror movies that I have found which I think best represent the ones that I will use in the up and coming photo shoots next week.

Finding videos to use for photo shoots...

I have spent the majority of the day looking and trying to download videos to use for the up and coming photo shoots in the studio in college which I have already booked out. I firstly tried just typing in the videos I was looking for on a search engine like Google, however I found that the majority of video clips were on the website Youtube so I decide to use that website as my main resource. I decided that I was going to continue with the idea of using human-interest programmes such as Britain's Got Talent and Embarrassing Bodies as well as other various documentary-style shows. I found it relatively easy to find interesting clips from both shows using Youtube as both ITV and Channel 4 seem to be uploading various of their shows onto the website, probably to get up with the ever growing use of the internet to watch television. I used a website I found using google to download the videos so that I would be able to show the clips without needing the use of the internet as I know this would not be available to me in college.

As well as downloading various television programmes, that I may or may not use in the photo shoot, I decided to move onto finding films that I could use to provoke an emotion in the sitter. Instantly I thought of horror movies as a very good way to ignite a feeling of fear in the sitter but once I started to watch several clips I noticed that my emotional state varied from film to film. For example when I watched a clip from The Exorcist I personally found it made me laugh at times even if I did feel slightly awkward for laughing, where as when I watched Hostel I found that I was a lot more anxious and disgusted particularly in the torture scene. I found that this idea of how different horror films can provoke different emotions in the viewer really interesting and its defiantly an aspect of the changes in our emotions that I want to explore.

Ideas...

Now that I have a stronger direction on how I want to develop my project, I have decided to research into what kind of videos I want to use to create a certain response in the sitter. I've looked at trying to find videos that should ignite each emotion that I have been studying (seven universal emotion discovered by Paul Ekman; Happiness, Sadness, Contempt, Fear, Surprise, Anger and Disgust) however I didn't feel as though I could find videos that would accurately provoke each emotion. I also felt that this would still leave me in the same position I am in now because I know by having a series of different emotions portrayed I've not really proved anything other than how I provoke the emotion in the sitter and the final outcome may still be seen as random and confusing to the viewer. Therefore I am going to focus on finding a particular genre of film, genre of television programme to use in the hope that I can ignite some sort of expression in different people. I have looked at using human-intterest programmes such as Embarrassing Bodies or Britain's Got Talent because I have noticed myself whist watching the shows, the sheer scale of different emotions that can be created throughout one-hour length programme - This is something that I find particularly interesting especially in terms of how we react to what we our shown - if I was to show something disgusting on a show like Embarrassing Bodies it would be interesting to see if they react differently, such as someone may cover their face, another person may laugh or even have to get up and walk out. This concept is something that I feel I have to experiment with to see if there actually are a range of emotions created or whether they would in fact all be the same.

Thursday thoughts and plans...

After discussing the direction of my work with several different people, including teachers, and also by spending some more time researching into the use of media in order to provoke a reaction, I finally have an idea on what type of external stimulus I want to experiment with further to create an emotional response from the sitter.

I now feel as though the best way to get a genuine reaction from the sitter is to use video, this could be of a television programme or a film. The main reason I feel this is because whilst experimenting with using videos and images in the last photo shoot I found that that the photographs I used worked to provoke a response in the model, however the response was so quick it was extremely difficult to capture the genuine response on camera without the sitter being distracted. Although this was not the case with using videos as I found that all of the sitter's attention was focused on what they were being shown so they wasn't as put off by the camera. I also found that as the videos lasted longer so did the responses in some cases but not all.

ELECTION FEVER...

THURSDAY 6TH MAY:

VOTED.............

wwwwwwwwednesday...

After getting feedback about my work I decided that it was about time I really organised what I intend to get from this project and have a clearer idea on what I want to achieve at the end of the project. Initially I struggled to come up with a solid idea of which I could progress with but after sometime talking to people about my project and researching on the internet about facial expressions, I came up with the idea to focus on why we react strongly to certain things, i.e. when in an argument our facial expressions can make someone else more angry than what we actually say (this is something that I also found out about in the documentary 'The Human Face'). I thought of the idea of photographing people talking or going about their daily business but felt that this would distract away from the main focus being on facial expressions and not necessarily body language. I also felt that this idea may not be very accurate because its hard to get the sitter/model to act as normal when they are constantly aware of the camera.

I know that I want to do a more scientific experiment with the essence of the project to prove something important about facial expressions similar to what Paul Ekman has spent his life achieving. I also wanted the experiments relate to my own interests, which is why I feel as though I have come to the conclusion that a good way to experiment facial expressions is to look the reaction that are created by the media, i.e. newspaper articles, magazines, film and television. I intend to look further into what kind of media to we most react to and what the reactions mean and I hope that I can find a particular aspect of the media to focus on as part of photographic experiment looking at facial expressions.

I also continue to update my newspaper portrait collection, still focusing on analysing the facial expressions that are prominent in the newspapers and what they might mean...

Some edits from the photo shoot taken last weds...

Here are some edited version of some of the photographs that was taken during the photo shoot last week:

I have edited these images using Photoshop - I changed the tone to black and white to bring out the details on the facial expressions and then adjusted the Levels of the image so that the lighting and tones are stronger/contrasting.

umm it's tuesday...

Today I spent the morning selecting and printing the most successful images from the photo shoot I took last Wednesday. I selected 18 images of which I felt best showed a range of diverse facial expressions from a range of different people. I printed them off A4 on a black and white printer and from this I decided to pin them up on my display board in a grid-like style. The main reason for doing this was so that I could get the images out of the computer and be able to look at them in a different but most importantly is so I can show others the work I have been doing and be able to listen to their feedback on how I can improve my work.

Below is a photograph of my board at present (after I have pin up the photographs taken):
Some of the feedback I received was really helpful, particularly in terms of getting more ideas to use for the next photo shoots I intend to do. What I found was that visually people thought the presentation of the work was good and a lot of people spoke to me about what the facial expressions meant, which was my intention to gain as a response. However some people felt that the ideas and reasons for the photo shoot were slightly muddled and hard to understand - for example a lot of people were confused on the direction of the project and what I have set out to achieve. This is something that I feel is echoed by myself as well because I feel that I like the outcome of the photo shoot, however I don't feel as though the process and idea of the shoot was focused enough to be able to prove a certain ideology. I also felt that the sitters were too aware of the camera and this was effecting their expressions so I now know in the next shoot I need to focus on using some sort of stimulus that will distract the sitters attention but also provoke a vivid response from them as well...

WEEKEND...

During the weekend I spent some time continuing to update my collection of portraits from 'The Guardian' - which still is still very interesting and surprising in terms of me realising how much more I am of other people facial expressions now than maybe I was before I started this project.

I also decided to take some photographs Sunday night which related to the work of Gary Schneider who I have been studying. Schneider's images seem to have been created using a very dark room, a long exposure on the camera and a torch to light up the face so this is exactly how I set my images up. I decided to get the sitter to lie on the floor as then they would move less so as not too blur the image too much. I also used a tripod as I would not be able to hold the camera steady with such a long exposure. The photo shoot was an experiment to find out if the effect was achievable and to see how this affected the photographs. The whole point of using the torch was so that I could highlight the areas that I felt were important in terms of identifying a certain facial expressions, for example a happiness face would be predominantly evident through the raising of the corner of the lips or "crow's feet" created at the corner of each eye. This was my main focus so I decided not to worry too much about the emotion expressed but just to experiment with the lighting and how I would be able to show only parts of the face rather than highlighting all of the face.

On reflection, I feel that the technique I used was reasonably easy to pick up and with a bit of practice could defiantly work in terms of only highlighting a small part of the face. However I sort of feel that because the lighting is so dark and eerie would this hinder or alter the way emotion is expressed, for example would a face expressing happiness be as obvious in the lighting used? This is something that I feel I will only be able to find out if I continue to experiment with the idea, particularly in terms of photographing each emotion...