For me experimenting with another medium other than digital – in this case Instax film – was quite refreshing but the problem was how to take the basic Instax picture and use it to get my point across that the image nowadays is predominantly ephemeral. It took me a while to get used to the Instax film and camera for several reasons. Firstly the film itself used quite a high ISO exclusively (800 to be exact) which was good for lower light but in daylight often struggled to achieve a correctly exposed image. Therefore I found I had to wait for cloud cover or else accept part of the image would be overexposed. Secondly the dynamic range of the film was quite low so the lighting had to be quite even or otherwise the parted of the image would be underexposed while others would be overexposed. In the end I didn’t mind these traits as I felt they added some character to the images and the main subjects were still visible on the photographs. Thirdly, the camera always let out a flash burst, presumably for people shots in dark places where the camera was anticipated to be used. I had to be aware of getting to close to the subject or else the flash would overexpose it. Lastly the film was instant so I only had one shot for certain changing scenes as the film took roughly two minutes to develop before I judge whether the exposure setting had been correct. Once I had gotten accustomed to using the Instax camera I found this last point quite liberating as I was experienced with taking lots of shots from different angles of the same scene in quick succession.
I got my point across that the image nowadays is predominantly ephemeral by making the Instax photographs appear inside an encompassing photograph taken with my DSLR. I chose to use a DSLR for the high image quality and to isolate effectively the Instax photograph from the rest of the encompassing photograph. The effect of this was that while the Instax photograph was undeniably indexical to the scene it reappeared in, things had since changed and so the viewer had to question the meaning of such changes on the overall photograph. I feel I used well people’s natural curiosity to see what the Instax photograph contained by mostly placing it in the middle of the encompassing photograph to draw the eye into the photograph. This is how I would suggest my images worked best at telling a narrative as the encompassing photograph had obviously changed since the Instax photograph was taken so the narrative was clear. In this way the 8 images worked as single-image narratives but also as a whole when put together. I felt technically I could have used a smaller aperture setting on some of the encompassing photograph shots as it wasn’t immediately clear what had since changed.
I was particularly pleased with the way that I managed to present the images when put together in a visually striking manner. Although the brief had simply advised the work to be presented on a blog, I elaborated on this aspect of the brief well and it made the project more coherent. As well as this the Instagram style grid inside an empty picture frame pointed back to the ephemeral manner of the images. I thought the concept of ephemerality of the image was quite complexly visualised in my photographs and so therefore it was important to have a clear rationale and in the blog post with the images, which I felt I achieved. This was further expanded on in the post: Rationale for Assignment 2 – Documentary – Ephemerality of the Image. I thought the images on the whole worked better in black and white because it separated form from content so it was clearer to the viewer what the focus of the photographs were. Also the black and white medium for me reinforced the ‘truth’ factor behind the images as black and white photographs have been accepted as fact for a long time compared to colour.
I would say the project was creative but the picture-in-picture idea was perhaps an obvious and overly direct way of representing my abstract concept. Having said this I felt it was well implemented, especially as I was influenced by the Droste effect in my presentation of my work as a whole. A big plus was the development of my idea – from experimenting with fleeting encounters in ‘Containment’, to the beginnings of taking an instant photo of people who then hold the instant photo and are rephotographed. This culminated with the development of this idea by adapting it to the instant photo showing an altered scene compared to the encompassing photograph.
In terms of context I would suggest I could have researched more concerning similar artists who used pictures-in-picutres as I tended to rely on my assertions derived from Maartje van den Heuvel (2005)’s ‘Mirror of Visual Culture’ essay. Also if I had managed to complete more exercises leading up to the assignment I might have been better prepared for it; so wouldn’t have had to experiment and alter the project quite so much. However, the work I did complete, particularly van den Heuvel’s essay helped me get to a project I was eventually quite satisfied with.
References:
Van Den Heuvel (2005). Mirror of Visual Culture. Documentary Now! [online] Available at: https://www.oca-student.com/sites/default/files/oca-content/key-resources/res-files/heuvel_discussingdocumentary.pdf [Accessed 3/3/2017].
Documentary 