Musicians Pose Again

Following on from my post on the 12th March, I have done a second shoot with some of the same, and some new faces, performing for me again in the studio. I am really pleased with this second shoot and feel I got the lighting perfect this time. Also the musicians were a lot more comfortable as they knew what to expect and this is apparent within the photographs.

I am really pleased with how this project is turning out and am going to do one more shoot before I settle on a final edit, though I feel I do have some final images already. This time I have kept an image that includes the instrument as well as cropping in on the faces so you can link them together better and see how their expression and style fits in with what they are playing.

Let me know what you think and how you feel the project is panning out so I can have more feedback before my final shoot!

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"Where Children Sleep"

I have really loved my current projects mainly because I have discovered so many new photographers. One I am particularly glad I discovered was James Mollison, his series 'Where Children Sleep' was referred to me by a friend after seeing it in the Daily Telegraph Magazine because he thought it might relate to my bookwork project (which it totally did!!) I managed to get hold of the article and instantly fell in love with his work.

Mollison traveled the world, photographing various children and their bedrooms. Mollison started the series because 'I found myself thinking about my bedroom: how significant it was during my childhood, and how it reflected who I was' which is why I wanted to document different bedrooms as I believe they really tell you a lot about a person as it reflects their interests, aspirations and inspirations. Mollison departed on this project as an idea for engaging with children's rights and help other children to think about inequality around the world. His images show a stark contrast between cultures and wealth and poverty, with children living in squalor to children living in mansions. It was a very powerful project and as soon as Amazon have the book back in stock I am definitely going to buy it!

But for now, here are what I think were the most powerful images from his series. Really showing how different children lives can be and opening my eyes to some of the horrific situations children have been bought up in, it definitely made me even more grateful for my bedroom when I was a young girl.

The Photographic Bookwork

If your home is your castle, then indisputably the bedroom is your throne room. It is the place a seldom privileged few get granted leave to enter, and to the owner it is a sacred area to unwind from an oft cruel world and attempt to regain a sense of sanity.

This holds especially true for the hectic, ramshackle lifestyle of a student. It is one's place of sanctuary, a respite from the burdens of shared accommodation and the setting for multiple attempts at debauchery.

A bedroom can say a great deal about the inhabitant, and within these pages is depicted the boudoirs of a select group of individuals, with each shot delivering an insight into the hearts and minds of the souls represented within.

As those of you who keep up-to-date with my blog, you will know my Bookwork project has been all about bedrooms, and by photographing this intimate space I hoped to be able to create a portrait of an individual without photographing the person in question. So here is my book that I have created on blurb.com and has been sent off to be made. But until the final thing arrives, here is a sneak peak for all of you blogger fans out there! Let me know what you think!

Knock Before Entering by Claire Organ | Make Your Own Book

Musicians

Another passion of mine has always been music, listening to it and performing. Brought up with a Dad who works in the music industry and owns over 3,000 CD's and LP's I have always been interested in watching and listening to performers and therefore I felt as we get to write our own brief for our Negotiated Practice project I would combine my two interests, music and photography, the only hard part was coming up with a good idea to fuse the two. My brain wave came when I read an interview with Phil Collins who was discussing a particular advert I am sure you all know, where a man in a gorilla costume drums one of his well known songs to advertise Cadbury's chocolate (no I don't get the link between chocolate and a man in a Gorilla costume drumming either) but back to my point. Phil Collins states that because Cadburys hires an actor to learn and drum the part instead of an experienced musician, he gets the song exactly right. This is because he did not know how to play the drums and merely learnt what he was given, whereas a professional drummer would have his own technique and style that he would put to the song. This gave me the idea of documenting musicians as they play. Capturing their attitude to what they are playing. The relationship between a musician and their instrument, their music. I know that when I perform I get absorbed in what I am playing and this raw emotion of someone doing what they love and getting into it is what I wanted to capture.

So I sent an email out to everyone at University calling for all musicians and got a good response. My first shoot I had about 10 people, a few guitarists, a couple of singers, a flutist, clarinet player, cellist and even a ukulele. I got them into the studio, sat them down and told them to play anything they were comfortable with and just started snapping. I wanted to focus on the facial features as this is where the main emotion comes from so I cropped right in. I am really pleased with the results of my first shoot and think the images look great. I particularly like the head shots where you can't see the instrument or what thy are doing as it makes the images all the more interesting.

Anyway, I shall let you have a look and determine whether you like the idea and the photographs for yourself, but for the moment I am very pleased with the final result. The first 7 are of people playing or singing with instruments that you can't see due to the crop whereas the last three you can clearly see what they are doing, which as I stated earlier I don't think are as successful though they are still nice shots! Enjoy!

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The Sunday Times Style Magazine 6th March 2011

One thing I dislike about commercial photography is how long it takes for you to see the finished publication. About a month ago I assisted on a shoot with Victor De Mello for the Sunday Times Style Magazine for their "Big Spring Issue" and finally it's out. The shoot looks great and it was a wonderful experience (though very long and tiring days of course). I have done a few shoots with Victor now and am always impressed with his work when it comes out. So everyone, take at look at the Sunday Times Magazine that came out on the 6th March and let me know what you think of the shoot to learn about "Your SS11 Lookbook on how to wear the trends". (And yes that is my name in tiny print on the last page of the spread!!!)



And also for your viewing pleasure, I took some sneaky backstage shots on my phone for you to see how the shoot went on! Enjoy!

Simryn Gill's 'Dalam' - the inspiration for my bedroom project.

I saw Simryn Gill’s series ‘Dalam’ exhibited in the Tate Modern, where the images covered an entire room, top to bottom with brightly coloured rooms. When I researched more into what the project was about I became fascinated with the idea. She travelled around Dalam and photographed stranger’s front rooms. What I love about the images is how they really display a culture completely different from ours, especially as the country she was in is very religious. Each room was brightly coloured and full of beautiful artefacts and give a window into the lives of these unknown people. It is Gill’s project that has really inspired my idea. Unlike the area that Gill photographed, I don’t think England has a strong easily recognised culture and we aren’t very religious anymore and therefore to me these types of front rooms don’t exist anymore, many houses don’t even really have a front room. Therefore I decided to photograph bedrooms because to me bedrooms are an important space to people, very personal and private. I know that when I visit someone news’, house I always like to snoop around in their bedroom as it really shows a lot about the person. Therefore using Gill’s idea I am going to adapt it to photograph different bedrooms. I really like how she uses the same format for every picture which is something I need to experiment with and decide how to photograph the bedrooms as I would like them to all be the same format as well. I love how vibrant her images are and hope my images have the same bright, homely feel to them. She used natural lighting to create her images which I too will be focusing on, or possibly include a camera flash as well, just to get an even light for the whole bedroom, again this is something to experiment with in my first shoot. Although Gill’s work is mainly about culture whereas mine will be about the individual it still does relate to what I feel is a lack of culture here in England. Gill focuses on capturing a space that even though is private, as it is someone’s home, it is one of the most public rooms, that guests will see and therefore it is clear that these people have put a lot of time into making a room they can show off with pride whilst still keeping it personal to themselves. I was really amazed by the hundreds of rooms pictured in the one exhibition room and feel that a similar idea would work well in book format.