monday 29 november 2021

Moving Body Film Screening:

Group Feedback

After today's group crit/film screenings, I think giving feedback is much more of a skill that you need to practice and train to get better at. I think it was challenging to give helpful feedback for certain films because they were only a minute and really experimental, so I didn't have a visual catalogue to compare many of the films to. It got easier to give feedback as we watched more films because it got easier to analyse and process what was going on at the same time, and I tried to give feedback from different angles each time. What I found most helpful was critiquing and hearing feedback on others' films that I really liked, because I was already trying to learn from how those films did things differently to mine, and then also hearing how those differences are received by others and how those match up/don't match up to the original intention.

Introduction to Body Politics Project:

Was the exercise a collaborative process?

Although it was group work, I wouldn't say it was a wholly collaborative process. All of us were using the same information to produce portraits of each other but it would take our own individual efforts to ask each other questions and reveal parts of ourselves to others. Moreover, I would say that we were working 'separately together' because we were working towards our own individual outcomes rather than three group outcomes. It was also less of a collaborative process because in the end it was up to us to interpret what another person shared and build our understanding of their personality through a process of recognising parts of the other person in ourselves or other people we knew. In that sense that makes the process completely individual, but we help each other by trying to share as much information as we can and engaging with each other as much as possible so that it doesn’t feel like one-sided interviews but a conversation between three people. I think this was helpful in that we were still encouraged to develop our ideas individually and
When it came down to capturing, the fact that we had more than 2 people in a group made it so that the portraits were more of a group effort than other groups of two. The capturing was collaborative in the sense that we were discussing locations and coming up with ideas based on what locations the group agreed to go and how long we would stay there. This really worked for me because I do better at observing what is around me at the time to come up with ideas on the go. Having teammates and deciding where to go as a group meant that there was a restriction there and I think that actually helped stimulate my creativity more.

How do you feel you were perceived? How do you feel you perceived your partner(s)?

I think I was mostly perceived as a bubbly and talkative person. I have a very double sided personality that comes off one way but there’s a whole other half that never makes the surface. For the most part I’m good at voicing my opinions and things I think about the world but not really talk about who I am or what I believe in as a person. I always get surprised by people’s perception of me as fun/bubbly/chill/cheerful, because I’m everything but those things when I’m alone. It makes me really respect people who say who they are, know who they are, and you can actually see it from the outside. In fact it’s kind of scary knowing that someone has nothing to hide.
I perceived my group mates as pretty transparent and enthusiastic people who weren’t shy or did their best to overcome whatever shyness there was in order contribute as much as possible to the conversation. Although our conversations mainly centred around our interests, I think that information is equally useful for capturing someones personality in a portrait. I also take the things that my teammates didn’t actively reveal themselves into a lot of consideration such as: their styles of communication, their sense of style, their sketchbooks from what I could see, their handwriting, etc. From what I could see I perceived them people who really care about their work but not so much that it tunnel visions them or obsesses them. In fact these people don’t really live in extremes and are really balanced. I think their work is personal to them and art is a tool to express themselves. I think they’re no-nonsense people who know when to be lighthearted and free spirited. I think they both see and move through the world for its beauty and the possibilities of artistic creation.

Did you feel seen or represented?

I can definitely see and name specific parts of my personality being represented in the portraits of me. I like that the portraits of me were edited to be desaturated because I was wearing all black. I also liked the directions I was given for how to pose; I was told to look lost in my thoughts to the side/out the window, which definitely represents how I’m always daydreaming or it could represent how I’m always looking elsewhere but the present moment in life. I also like that in one picture there is a birds eye angle, it makes me look small which I think is representative of how I feel small all the time.
I think it’s hard to say if you feel seen or represented by someone else’s portrait. I’m responding to someone else’s vision of me and their gaze. I’m not sure if I can evaluate how well someone else sees me, if what I infer from their photo is accidental/unintentional/not true to their vision/intentions for the photograph.

How did you choose to represent your partner?

For my photos, I think photos are most intersting when the photo/subject is ‘in media res’. I wanted to portray Tegan’s cheerful and whimsical demeanour, and portray a sense of curiosity and wonder in her portrait, so I photographed her looking out the window with a hand on the edge as if she was tiptoeing to see outside. Her facial expression naturally rested in this curious look with a soft smile that I hoped for, and the natural lighting coming from an angle really highlighted her soft features and warm undertones. She’s reaching for the sunlight through a faded window that doesn’t show the outside, I think her gesture and facial expression says ‘I don’t know what’s out there but that’s okay’ or ‘I don’t know what’s out there but I bet it’s good’.
In contrast, I photographed Tori under artificial lighting coming from a tiny lightbulb hanging from the basement ceiling. The environment was void of personality and you couldn’t assume anything from it except for the lighting which I liked. I thought Tori was very forthcoming and straightforward in our conversation, but she said something about her interest in the surreal and unusual that surprised me. I framed Tori in this dark and empty space to represent that unknown which can either be scary or wonderful, and she’s staring straight upward as if to confront the great unknown but with a facial expression of curiosity and wonder that says ‘I’m not scared’, whilst also creating the light around her and clearing the darkness as she moves through it.

How and what could you improve the capture of others in future? What techniques could you use?

I would like to experiment with capturing with different camera angles and through interesting surfaces. My teammates captured me through blurry windows and with high angles, as well as the window frame within the frame. I think these compositional techniques make the portrait really interesting and I would like to break away from straight-on shots from the shoulder up in future. I also think the act of looking at the camera is something intersting I would like to tackle. There’s something about the straightforward gaze of the subject that feels challenging and it’s hard to make a shoulder up portrait seem intersting, probably because it doesn’t feel like they’re doing anything even though ‘seeing’ another is probably one of the most difficult things ever.

Reflection This page is part of the collection 'Part 2 - Photography and Moving Image'.

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