Christian Hammond

Digital media arts

Still Image Portfolio

November 2011

Self Portrait

Self timer

Low Light image

I created a street scene at night. This photograph had a shutter speed of 8

Depth of field

Shutter speed

Light

Colour

Texture

Line

Balance

Recreation-original

Laszlo Moholy Nagy

My recreation

Subversion of an image

The task here was to find an image which already exists in the world and subvert it to make its

meaning change.

The photo I chose was Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima. This is a historic photograph taken on February

23, 1945, by Joe Rosenthal. It became a hugely popular photograph and is regarded as a symbol of

American pride.

I removed the flag to show how easy it is to distort a photographs true meaning as I feel without the

flag the photograph would not have become so popular in the world today.

Original

Subversion

Human Identity and Digital culture

Contextual statement

I began the process of taking these photos by surveying my environment and thinking of candidates

for the photos. This led me to take photographs of mostly things in my surrounding area. An idea for

the future would be to expand more and go out into the world for more of my photos.

I chose to photograph myself on my facebook page for my self portrait. This was to try and take a

new spin on the self portrait as the brief was to break the rules of selfportraiture. Since facebook is a

huge repository of identities all across the world I decided that in the modern society it is a big

definer of a person. I debated between this and a picture of my identity card as the subject but the

facebook identity won out as I felt it was a more modern spin on the brief.

The low light image was taken at night on a busy road. The shot was devised of two lanes of traffic of

which I endeavoured to catch lights of the bus on the first lane to emphasise the lights of the traffic

on the lane behind. In the future a picture at a more busier time, maybe on a roundabout would be

better.

The depth of field image focuses on the bottle and blurs the background behind it. This shot would

be better with a more inspired subject.

For the shutter speed image I attempted to catch a drop of water as it fell from the tap. I feel this

shot would have come out clearer if I was to use a better camera however it does capture the drop

of water falling from the tap.

For the Light image I attempted to show light in contrast to darkness. To do this I focused in on the

light to make the outstanding area pitch black

Origionally for the colour image I planned to take a bright multicoloured picture but I decided to take

a picture of stripes on a bedsheet with cool, familiar colours which work well together and show

different shades of silmilar colours.

For texture I photographed a bumpy texture on a suitcase which I kept very simple.

For Line I photographed a reflective skirting board, I liked this photo as It reflected the brief as a

simple constant line, however its reflection added a nice effect which made the photo more

interesting .

My balance photo was planned to show a bottle in two states, one of standing up, about to fall and

one on the ground. By capturing both states in one image I feel that this reflects the subject of

balance between two states.

My recreation photo was of a photo by Laszlo Moholy Nagy. I chose the photo because I liked the

unexpected nature the photo seems to have. I attempted to recreate the image using a the black and

white setting on the camera to give it more likeness. My approach to this was to create an image of

the same sort, keeping the black and white effect, but making it more modern with a different person.

In the picture you can see the increase in quality caused by modern technology. In the future I would

have more resources and time which would make recreating a photo better in quality and idea.

My photograph subversions subject was a very famous photograph of U.S marines raising a flag on

Iwo Jima. I chose this image because of the external nature it projects such as its symbolism of pride

and loyalty for U.S citizens. I then decided to remove the flag, the key point in the photo which would

inspire these things. With just a small touch like this the photo is completely subverted and no longer

projects any of these things.

For the Human identity and Digital culture I tried to work from an angle which emphasized the

merging of human identity and digital culture. I did this by merging a photo of two hands and an

iphone, by putting them together I am showing the possibility of human augmentation in the future,

something that is likely to happen at some point. I used photoshop to achieve this using tools such as

the clone and blur tool to merge the two images.

I researched a great many photographers throughout this task. I investigated Laszlo Moholy Nagy,

Walker Evans and Lee Friedlander in particular. Although I went for a completely different take on the

photograph I was inspired by Lee Friedlander’s take on self portraiture. His photography appears to

go for exposing the bare nature of the subject whilst the picture I took was of the projected and

socially displayed self. I showed the image of myself which I allow everyone to see whilst he contrasts

with showing the side nobody sees. Matthew Barney is an inspiration I would have liked to have

followed, however his work is more of a surreal nature and may not have fitted in with this task.

The main problems I ran into in this tank was the restraints of time I encountered and the

quality of equipment. The equipment I managed to rent our was not of the standard I would

have hoped as the Nikon D4 cameras were all taken and so I had to settle for less. I can see

this has affected my work in some areas as I am not familiar with this camera along with it

not being of the same standard as the Nikon.

This task was a big introduction to photography for me due to the basic level I have worked

at before. I have learnt some skills throughout which makes me confident that in the future I

could produce some better photographs with the correct equipment.

In the future I will be more inspired to go out into the world and photograph natural subjects, I feel

that this will improve my photography as I will have a more diverse range of subjects to work with.

In conclusion I feel that my portfolio could have been greatly improved with more time and better

access to better technology. I have however improved in the field of photography and in the future

will be able to produce better photos from what I have learnt from experience and research.