SORRI'S PHOTOGARAPHIC PORTOFOLIO

Portfolio Brief 1Create a self-portrait of yourself using only the camera (NO PHOTOSHOP ALLOWED). Think about how you can use pose, lighting, framing and other tools to communicate something about your identity.

Portfolio Brief 2 For this brief you are required as individuals to produce 10 images.Please take a photo which demonstrates the correct use of the camera for the following ways:Use of the self timer, low light image,shallow depht of field,fast shutter speed,light,colour,texture,line,balance and movement.

Portfolio Brief 3.

Find an image by one of the photographers listed which you like.Try and re-create the image so it is as identical to the original as possible.

Portfolio Brief 4Find an image that already exists in the world. Eg from a magazine/book/art history. Or take your own.Remove or add something to the image in order to change or subvert its meaning.

Portfolio Brief 5

You are required to create an image which responds to the theme “Human Identity and Digital Culture”. This is the most demanding of the briefs so far, and is an open-ended brief in which you can use any combination of techniques and tools. You may want to combine several images, retouch an image or stage an image.

The images I have produced are the result of the work that I had to do week by week since I began the Still Image module. Especially in the first two weeks, I struggled in finding the time to go around and take the pictures I was supposed to take for the weekly portfolio briefs, so I tried to use My work place and my home, where I spend a lot of my time, and do the best of it. For example my self portraiture; in which I appear sitting comfortably in my utterly messy room. It represents my self, My room it's like the extension of my brain! Complete mess and confusion; in which are also good things, like the cleaning product and the Iron machine in the mess; I was sort of inspired by the Painting of the Ambassadors by Hans Holbein. It's amazing to find links between things that you study also in other subjects that apparently haven't got a lot to do with a particular task that you have to do in Still image can suddenly turn out absolutely useful. On the very day we did the lecture about that paint, I came home and I saw my room in those conditions, and instead of thinking of tiding it up, I Immediately related the image of my messy room with the paint of the Ambassadors. Other Home\Work made picture are :the use of self timer with me eating a cake in the kitchens fridge during the breakfast service, not bothering too much about the customers waiting outside; the shallow depth of field, which I struggled a lot in achieving, at the end I came up with the idea of hanging a bottle with a rope out of the window: and the colour, I took a picture of the colourful drinks distributor at work, the Idea came to me when I was struggling in finding ideas for that picture, then I saw the distributor and the my my recalled the images of colourful varieties sweets in a market that Alex took and exposed in class for the second week portfolio. My weaknesses are more evident in these first too weeks, it is visible from the quality of the pictures that not enough time and effort has been spent in taking them, I realized it also seeing the very accurate a skilled work of some of my classmates. Also because I didn't study media, particularly photography before, I feel a bit behind and disadvantaged, and I would have wanted to have enough time to improve my techniques. From The third weeks onward I think there is an improvement in my work, I had more time and I put more effort in taking them, and I found them easier also because it involved the use of photoshop, that I thought and maybe still think that can make up on my “unskilledly” taken pictures and also because it involved more the use of our own imagination. In the third week we had to find an image by a list of photographers and try to recreate the image as identical to the original as possible, I found it quite hard to find the right image, the list of photographers was long and I had to go through to the work of all of them and their images were quite difficult to recreate. I chose forc paris by Andre' Kertesz: It seemed to be one of the easiest, but it was more difficult than what it seemed but at the end I think I did a good job. The next task was to add or remove something to an already existing image in order to change the meaning. In doing this work I was inspired by Patricia Piccinini who adds weird and monstrous creatures in real ordinary images, so I decided to add The Ancient mythological image of Venus in the picture of my summer holiday and trying to reproduce the ancient roman feeling of the presence of the Gods in their lives in the 21st century. In the last brief I tried to recreate an image that represents the human identity in the digital world trying to use as many notions of photoshop we learned as possible. I took a picture of the panorama and of the people walking outside the Tate modern gallery( a cultural centre), I was trying to represent the fact that our world and our life are becoming more and more dependent and surrounded by digital technology at the point that we can't live without it, they are part of us and our everyday live and we take them for granted . I received positive feedbacks by my classmates about the image, but I literally interpreted the task and It didn't come to my mind to use the discussion that we made in class about human identity in fact in my work there is noting relevant referring to What is to be human in the digital culture. Here I did the mistake of not using the resources that we have been provided by the lecturer to engage with the work. I would have wanted to redo or modify the image but It's too late now an I have to focus on writing this Contextual statement. I did a lot of mistakes in this module But I learned a lot from them, Next time I will try to get as

many feedbacks as possible, gradually and as early as possible on each work that I will do. Sometimes you think that you have done a really good job and then somebody may make you realize the exact opposite: because you fall in love with your work and sometimes unconsciously you tend to ignore what's wrong with your work. Comparing your work with your classmates helps you getting new ideas, and you can get very good and helpful suggestions from teachers and classmates especially when you are e stocked, these are things that we have been told since the beginning but I really realized only lately. The project has been quite a challenge for me, and I did the best I could do. For the next time I will try too keep in mind all my mistakes and weaknesses, learn from them and improve them.

Sorri Darbo

09/11/2011 13.56