Robert Frank__

Robert Frank, born in 1924, is a Swiss-American photographer and filmmaker. He is considered to be the pioneer of the "snapshot aesthetic" in which the documentary image is rendered bluntly and without conscious artistry. His best know work is The Americans (1959) which is a portrait of U.S. culture, when the images were first published the public viewed them as shocking and gross. But soon after they were seen as American iconography.

I only found Robert Frank by trying to find artists for my research for Metropolis. But after looking into his work more i have found that i really like his work. Especially the americans. I love the way all of the photos are honest, not really staged, he just went out and took photos of people in their every day life, i think that says alot more than if they were staged. I picked him for this brief because he photographs busy locations and workplaces which i think is a good representation of metropolis.

Alex Parish__

Alex Parish is a photography student from Brighton and Hove. I came across him on google where i saw one of his images. I then went onto his flikr account and looked through his work. I think he is very relevant to my Utopia Dystopia shoot, i love his images because they seem dark in a way and show the darker side of towns and cities. Which is what i am aiming for with my Dystopia shoot.

Lego Contact Sheets__

This is my complete photo shoot for my buildings made out of lego. I think it went really well, i enjoyed doing it anyway because of playing with lego for hours. Im really happy with the outcome of the day and i think it will make my location photography piece much stronger.

Circuit Boards Contact Sheets__

This is my complete photo shoot of circuit boards for my location photography brief. I did 2 shoots in total, my first shoot went really bad because the contrast was far too high so i got a kind of pinkness around most of the images so i did the shoot again and it went really well. For this shoot i used a macro lens on the college nikon cameras with a tripod.

Utopia/Dystopia Photoshoot__

 Contact sheets for Utopia Dystopia Shoot

For this photoshoot i went into Oxford with my camera and tripod and set the shutter speed as low as i could. For this shoot i wanted to give the impression of over population, which is why i wanted to make it seem like the people in the background were moving really fast and the subject was staying still. I also wanted to show the world moving so fast around the subject. I think the shoot went well but as i was feeling really ill i didn't take as much time as i should of. So if i had the chance to redo the shoot i definitely would of and spent a lot more time on it to make it the way i should of.

I went back to a forrest in Wantage near my house to do my Utopia shoot. Again i was still using a tripod for these shots when i probably could of got away with not using one because i didn't lower the shutter speed as my idea was that this shoot was to be the complete opposite of the oxford one. I did like the way this shoot went but again i wish i spent more like with it and experimented more. I know for sure that i didn't take enough photos for my Utopia shoot so i will just have to come out with more outcomes from the same images and just edit them in completely different ways.

  

Location Photography Final 2__

Second outcome for Location Photography

For my second outcome for Location photography i went a completely different way than i did for my first. I selected a photo i took from oxford castle hill of a busy road in oxford and inserted an image of a circuit board i had taken earlier. Im really happy with the outcome of this piece because i like the subtlety of the image. Its kind of like you don't notice the circuit board unless you really look and i like that. 

Research photoshoot for Dystopia shoot__

Test shoot for Dystopia shoot

For this photoshoot i just wanted to experiment with shutter speed to get an idea of how my dystopia photoshoot would turn out.

Complete Oxford Photoshoot__

 Contact sheets of Oxford photoshoot 

Location Photography Final 1__

Final Piece Number 1

This final image is made up of a combination of the Oxford photo shoot, the lego images, the photos of circuit boards and some old photos taken from a while ago. For this piece i wanted to give a true representation of metropolis, which in my opinion is a very busy crowded place over populated and over industrialised.  If i started over i probably would of made the image made up more of just circuit boards and less of photos i took of places because i think it would of worked better. I also would of liked to of done the image from a birds eye view to see how it would of turned out.

Santiago Calatrava__

Spanish born architect Santiago Calatrava was born in 1951.

He gained international celebrity for his structures that suggest the shape of the body and organic entities. His constructions are made from concrete, glass and steel. After failing to take class at Ecole des Beaux-Arts (School Of Fine Arts) in Paris because of student protests in mid 1968 he returned to Valencia and attended Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura (Technical University of Architecture). While there him and some friends challenged themselves by writing 2 books on the architecture of Valencia and Ibiza. After graduating he went to switzerland and enrolled in Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule (ETH) or Federal Technology University in Zurich, in which he recieved dual phd degrees in structural engineering and technical science in 1979 and 1981. The public witnessed his architectual imagination when he and some other graduate students desinged and built a swimming pool in the rotunda of the school's main building, which was transparent, donut-shaped, and suspended above the floor, it allowed passersby to watch swimmers from below.

I really like Santiagos work because its very intricate and symmetrical, his constructions and designs are very out there and bold i think mainly because of the very clean cut colour and points. All his constructions looks very neat and tidy.

Sir Norman Foster__

Norman Foster was born in Manchester in 1935.

He graduated Manchester University School of architecture and city planning in 1961, after which he won a Henry fellowship to Yale university, where he got a masters degree in architecture.
He is the founder of Foster and Partners, which is now a worldwide practice. It was founded in london in 1967, but now has project offices in more than 20 countries. The practice has recieved 470 awards and citations for excellence and has won over 86 international and national competitions.

Norman Foster and the practice Foster And Partners are responsible for The largest single building on the planet (Bejing capital Airport) It was designed and completed in just 4 years and opened ahead of schedule. I like his work because his architecture is very modern and ahead of its time. All of the work that i have seen reminds me of metropolis just by the strange shapes and futuristic design they all have.

Oxford Photo Shoot____

Went to oxford with maurice for photography to take pictures of building to incorporate into our location photography brief. These photos are meant to be put into our take on metropolis with our other photos taken of lego and circuit boards. I think the shoot went really well and im happy with some of the outcomes i came up with from the day.

A take on perspective down the side of a building. I edited it in this way because i like the effect it had. I first changed it to black and white and then played with the curves and levels to make the photo look darker and sinister in a way.

 I edited this photo in the same as above for the same reasons from this angle i think it makes the building look daunting, as if you are so small compared to it. This is one of my favourite photos from the day although i probably wont use it in my final outcomes.

This photo is of the stack of books in Bond Square. I like this because they resemble two buildings. I also love the shadows that appear on them. I think i will use this in my final outcomes because they look like futuristic buildings.

This photo doesn't really relate to the brief in the way of the building isn't the focus of the picture, but i wanted to experiment with depth and i think this is a good outcome of that. This photo was taken on the oxford castle hill.

 Another take on perspective.

 This shot doesn't really have much to do with the brief at all. I just really liked this one :)

 Down a street shot. I like this one mainly because of the people in it. I think it gives more of a feel of metropolis, and my view of dystopia, over crowded in a busy place.

I love this shot of this street. After finding it i have decided this is where my photoshoot for image manipulation and computer applications will be :)