My World....

My World...The title for this project I've been given.

So what is "My World"? 

To me my world is everyone and everything in it. From the people in my life, the ones I see day to day or the ones I see rarely, to the places I go and the things I do. 

The place where I spend most of my time is in my Uni room which at the moment is where my world revolves around. I eat, sleep, work and socialise in there. I also spend a lot of time nowadays going back to my boyfriends house which has turned into a home from home from home.  

I miss my world back down South at home and its sad that I only return there once every 3 months or so but thats my old world in my eyes. It's where I grew up and where I used to belong, I say used to belong because I never spend anytime there anymore and always feels odd to be back there. 

Other places which are part of my World are the cities London and Nottingham, I spend a very different amount of time in each but that is simply because of where I live now. 

The people in my world no matter where I am play the most important roles to me. 

My family, although I don't see them that much anymore, because of living a good 3 hour or so drive away, are always a phone call away no matter what time of day I know they will always pick up, they also regularly come up and visit and spend the day with me, except my brother. My mum's coming up again in a weeks time so I'm very much looking forward to catching up with her and spending some quality time with just her, although she's my mum she pretty much is my twin and I know I can talk to her about anything. With my Dad I think I've always been and always will be his little girl. He doesn't say or do much to make you think that but talking to my Mum I know hes very over protective of me and when I was growing up I could always just talk away for hours to him about absolutely nothing. My brother, well I never know how to talk about him. He's always been in my life, always there, always around but at the same time he hasn't. We've never really got on all that great as kids which has very much so affected our relationship now. I don't talk to him when I'm up at Uni except for the rare text conversation or facebook comment and when I'm home we still don't really talk although we're in the same house and see each other all day everyday. 

The last person that plays an important part in my world is Ross, my boyfriend. I only met him during freshers week here at Uni and we've had our fair share of ups and downs as any couple does. But, as sad and as dopey as it sounds I genuinely can't imagine life without him. The more I'm around him the more comfortable I become and the more I accept myself, I never used to feel good about myself and how I looked, and now I just feel comfortable around him even when I'm having one of those bad days where you just can't be bothered to do your hair after you get out the shower so you look like you're trying to set a new trend of afro frizz hair, you don't want to get out of your pyjamas, and make up is a no go so every flaw is showing. During the week at Uni he literally lives with me in my room, so at weekends when he goes home my room just seems so empty and lifeless with no company. When he leaves I realise how much I love him cluttering up my room with his endless carrier bags filled with his stuff, staying up until stupid times in the morning watching films, listening to music or him playing his games, and just all the little things we have between us which makes us simply us :). I won't bore you too much as I know I could probably write a whole blog on just him but to me he's the best company and knows me too well and what we have I simply wouldn't want it any other way. 

So when I really think about it my world pretty much starts with my boyfriend as he's the one person always there and I spend all my time with him or talking to him. The rest of my world changes from day to day but always involves the places or people I have talked about. So I'm not sure how I'm going to capture these people and places but this is what I want to base my project on, I think?!?!

My photographs inspired by others....

After stating which 5 photographers were the most influential to me and my work I am now going to post some of my photographs which I have taken in response to these images.

Corfu Town Centre

Brighton Bandstand

Canal D'Amour, Corfu

Brighton Seafront

Sidari Town, Corfu

Brighton Seafront

Brighton Town

Sidari Seafront, Corfu

Further influential photographers....

Audrey Flack - Marilyn Vanitas is another influential photograph to me. It is almost Vanitas like with the jewels, the hourglass, the fruit and the mirror which are objects all found in Vanitas paintings. I prefer these to the traditional Vanitas paintings because they look more modern and I personally prefer the use of the bold colours in comparison to the dull tones of the traditional paintings. 

I find all the works by Andre Kertesz very interesting and have always captured my attention, especially "Place Gambetta" and "Tour Eiffel" (shown below).

I personally prefer street and landscape style photography so to me these photographs by Andre Kertesz are simple yet in my eyes so effective and are beautiful shots of Paris. I particularly like the use of black and white in these shots. I feel that if they were taken in colour then it would distract too much from the elegance that has seem to be captured. 

The fifth and final most influential photographer to me is Jane Bown. The photos of hers I am particularly drawn to are the ones from her book "Unknown Bown 1947-1967". The two in particular from this book are "Net sheds, Hastings, 1955" and "Grimsby Dockers, Lincolnshire, 1962".  With these two photographs in particular, just like with Andre Kertesz, I think that if they were in colour it would distract from the simple nature of the composition and would make the photos look too over complicated in my opinion. 

This photograph is "Grimsby Dockers, 1962" a screen grab taken from http://arts.guardian.co.uk/flash/page/0,,2176315,00.html. 

Scan of "Net sheds, 1955" taken from the book Unknown Bown 1947-1967.

Thats the lot...my 5 most influential photographers or photos. It has been tough picking just 5 as there are many photos or photographers which have aided me in my work or inspired me to work in a certain style or so on but I've done it. 

Influential photographs to me.....

Wanting to be a photographer wasn't my first choice in a possible career I had always been more into Art until my GCSE's when I started to use photographs more in my work. 

The first photograph that ever really inspired me was by Ansel Adams - Clearing Winter Storm. This photograph to me is very striking and beautiful. The quality of his photographs and especially this one is fantastic which he achieved by using large format cameras and the contrast between the tones he has achieved adds something extra to the photograph which makes me feel like I want to got there and be in that place.

This image above Martin Parr - Think of England, hugely inspired a project I did for my A2 photography course. This was the first image of Parr's I ever saw in the exhibition at the Tate Gallery called "How we are now: Photographing Britain". It's interesting how the flag almost replaces the womans head and the whole image is very reminiscent of a typical British scene with the ice cream van, a deck chair, the way the people in the photograph are dressed and so on. I just remember initially seeing this photograph and wanting to investigate Martin Parr's work alot more. 

A test blog.......