COMMISSION

A quick brainstorm of what comes to mind on the topic, Waste:

-Recycling -

 paper, card, rubber, plastic, metals, Recycling collection bins

-Wasteful food -

Breakfast, Lunches, Dinner, snacks, Restaurants, café's, fast food, compost

-Water -

Drinking water, half full glasses, tap running water, dripping pipes, baths, showers, rain water, washing up water, watering plants

-General household waste-

Food, water, boxes, food packaging, plastics

-Clothes-

Charity's, clothe collection, hand me downs

-Places-

Dustbin truck, Dumps, wasteland, sink holes,

-Plants-

Recycling collection bins, compost

AAA

When on the subject waste i automaticly think of rubbish and recycling, however i dont want to base this project on this theme. Instaed ive been thinking of waste in the houshold, for example i come from a rather large family who use a lot of water every day. Focusing on water i think of the amount that i myself and others waste. For example half drunk galsses of squash is a common thing to see, it doesnt sound like much but it goes to waste every day and is one theme that seems quite relevant to research into..

Also i myslef have many showers and some family members prefer a baths, however this again can waste water as baths use more water to fill and can also be overfilled easily. Washing up can also be a pain, our dish washer uses a lot of water also and sometimes the washing up water goes to waste which could be used to water the plants or for another purpose, as well as the amount the washing machine uses also.

The point im trying to make is that my household generally uses a lot of water but it seems like half of it is wasted, it makes me wonder how much water gets wasted in my area in other houses. It must be a considerable amount.

If i could represent wasting water in some way it could be quite interesting. Ive found this artist who is a 'Liquid Sculpture' Martin Waugh captures digitally the moments when a drop of water hits water. Ive found it quite interesting and beautiful to look at. An example of his work is below, it's not the theme i am looking for but it caught my eye when researching.

Martin Waugh Photography

Martin Waugh Photography

Martin Waugh Photography

The reason why i picked this photograpgher top look at was because of the way in which he captures the water droplets and the colours and experimentations that go with each image. They look not only beautiful but each unique. Another photographer who takes very similar images is Markus Reugels, famous for capturing the world in a droplet of water and his other water based images.

Markus Reugels Photography

Markus Reugels Photography

Markus Reugels Photography

When looking at this photographer im obessed with the complabiltiy of the image as well as the amazing colours of substances he uses. He is very similar with to the previous photographer Martin Waugh. Because I am using film for this project i cant take images like this or after researching them do i think they resemble waste in anyway so I'm moving on from this photography.

A Idea

Just as a simple idea i have in mind, i could represent wasteful water by having many half filled glasses as a focus point of the camera. Maybe the camera angle could be directly above or straight so the curved glasses and the magnifying of water will emphasise the amount being represented.

Maybe i could use just one glass frosted or brittle, all representing wasteful water. 

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Images on wasted food

After looking at various images and having lectures on waste production, i was able to come up with an idea after watching a film we had about Waste. It consisted of the artist/photographer taking images of the people who worked on the landfill sites then re-creating/sculpturing the collected waste to recreate the images he had taken.
This has given me the idea of using food waste to my advantage to create a new subject/image. Looking at the artists beow i have found some interesting information which as lead me to another idea.
Specifically Gayle Chong Kwen's images have caught my eye, a few i have listed below:

Looking further into Gayle Chong Kwan i have found that a variety of her images consist of food and food sculpture. She is known for her Photographic works as well as her Illustrations, sound works and videos. This one set of work i found most interesting as she has created a wide range of landscapes using old food. Many fantastic Mise-en-scene landscapes are created into a fantasy world consisting of food produce.

The food she chooses to work with each look as if they are each a mythical land, all verging on repelling the audience. Cheese that has dried out, raw pasta to create buildings, old vegetables to create more in depth life like landscapes.

Each image has its own individual theme but all seem to have the similarity of being generally dark landscapes with a horizon line. What interests me about these images is the way she has sculptured the food to create an entirely new piece of work. She has taken a wasteful product and made it almost non identifiable and i would like to use this in my own work.

Moving onto another artist Nadege Meriau also known for using food as her main medium i began comparing her images to Gayles. Below are the images that i found most interseting:

NADEGE MERIAU

Looking at Nadege Meriau's images i have found them to consist of food like substances similar to Gayles images. However Meriaus images seem to have been carved out of Bread and Flora substances creating a den like image. I found that Meriau was trying to get a 'Worms' perspective on its life in which it borrows through the earth.
The images all seem very dark and none of them seem to resemble any kind of food. They look creepy in a sense and the colours are dark. Meriau combines flesh like foods and substances to create such drastic looking images, she investigates the way in which she can manipulate the chosen food and then photographs them.
Most of her work that i did look upon all seems very dream like and fantasy ridden, almost like she has taken elements of dreams and placed them together. She has created images which are close ups of landscape forms that have an immediate effect on the viewer drawing them in; each image holding a different absurd beauty.

My Initial idea

After looking at these images it gave me the inspiration to look at food waste. I couldn't help but notice the amount of food that is wasted in my household and have been thinking of ways in which i could represent this as a trptic.
My first thought was have three white plates one being a days worth of waste the second being a weeks worth and the third being a month. I could have piled up each amount of food collected each being a heap of unwanted decaying food.
From further development i think by arranging the food into a flat colour coded pattern on each plate would make each imagee seem attractive from a distance. The camera angle could be above the plates looking straight down onto the produce. Each plate will have different colours and/or textures bringing in decay and growth of mould over the food. It won't be until you are closer that you can see the absurd disgusting look of the food as further away the similar colours should make it more attractive to the eye.
I want to get the message about food waste clear, as a lot goes to waste in my household as well as many others and i want to try and represent this.


My Final Idea and Development
Food wise maybe a pattern of food wouldnt work, i was thinking from wasteful food maybe re-creating the food into another meal would seem repulsing as well as unappatiseing. It may influence the way in which we percive food to be, instead of having a plate full of the old unwanted food but a bowl or desert of some kind.


Desserts in general are made to be sweet and appetising after a large meal, however they go to waste generally because the person eating it is too full from the main course and/or starter. Normally ice-cream is a favourite of restaurants and will always make it onto the menu because of its sweet attraction and well known favourite of customers.
Below are a few images of deserts that i could find :

Looking at these desserts they all seem to be small appetisers, or cake like things. I think maybe staying with ice-cream may be best for me, as i think photographically i could change the way in which it is represented.

(Refer to images below) I've been looking for a certain type of ice cream, one that is a huge portion that would most likely go to waste, one with sauce or other extras sprinkled all over it. The look of the ice-cream dessert could almost look repulsing. The way in which the portion is oversized, the sweetness of the creamy ice cream is then covered with sauce or some other kind of sweet like sprinkles; even cream or cherries can be used to make the ice-cream more appealing. We also tend to eat Desserts after consuming a large meal making us force the dessert down, a sickly fullness we are left with after.

Concept

My concept is to display the the food we waste on a daily bases as a dessert, I want it to represent the way in which we see the food we waste and how repulsing it is to continue with the dessert after the huge amount of food we have already wasted.

Using waste food over a period of days, my trpitc being 'One Day, Two days and four days' worth of food collected, Ill put it all into one box and as the days go on it will all start to decay. The food i will use will be leftovers that i and other members of my family have wasted, I want it too look repulsing. However i think the way in which i display it will be important to how it is seen, recognised and understood. I don't want it to look like a pile of mouldy food! 

It being a dessert I'm going to re-create an ice-cream desert with the Ice-cream being the different sorts of food i have collected. I want to use fresh Whipped cream and also a cherry to represent it being a dessert and also how appetising it should be. The freshness of the cream and cherry will contrast with the off state the wasted food is in.

Below are a few images of some ice-creams which help me to explain the look of the dessert i am going for:

This image is a very simple chocolate ice-cream with an edible outer shell. I like the way the chocolate sauce has been dripped over it to make it more appetising as well as the white chocolate chunks that have been sprinkle over the top of the cream and the cherry.

This desert is more what I'm going for in my project. The amount of whipped cream on the ice-cream is sickly as well as the runny sauce dripped over  it. It is hard to even see the ice-cream because of the amount sauce. I real like the idea of having a cherry on my waste dessert as traditionally that is what is used. I also like the idea of having it in a glass like this image has, one in which the glass is also partially decorative to encourage someone to eat and choose that dessert in particular.

I found this image and particularly like the way the chocolate sauce is dripping off the ice-cream. I would prefer not to have it in a cone though, however the different textures of the runtiness of the sauce, the colours of the ice-cream and the harshness of the cone work well together.

Finally this image, very similar to the other images with the cream, chocolate chunks and sauce/cream. However it is in a bowl shaped dessert glass, which i think frames the dessert in a particular way. Instead of it being vase like it is more round.

I do like the way in which the desserts can be in glasses or bowls so i think my final image will consist of the food being in a dessert bowl. Below are some images i have found which has helped me to identify different shapes and sizes of dessert glasses:

Image one

Image two

Image three

Image four

Image five

Image six

Looking at these images i have found that each glass seems to have some kind of simple gesture, as in the glass folds, has extra detail in the way the glass curves. I particularly like image three, the offset angle the glass has and also the long and smooth texture it consists off. With my image i don't want the glass to be like image one, two or three as the shapes the glasses are made from are too busy and angular which may magnify or disrupt the viewer from seeing the food as it may warp the textures.

Final Idea/Photographic techniques

For my final mage i have collected food from which my family and i have wasted, it will be portrayed in a tall simple glass. I have chosen this glass because the shape will help each image look scaled and measured, also the simpleness will help keep the food inside the glass the main focus so the glass won't be a distraction.

I will be doing three images, One days worth of food, Two days worth of food then put in the same glass and four days of food. I want the background and fore ground to be very clean white with soft lighting. The third image will have whipped cream on top of the heaped food and a cherrie place on top of that. I think as the dessert will be finished a spoon should be placed in the image as if ready to eat.

I want the camera angle to be directly level with the vase and an equal amount of negative space on each side of the dessert. I will purchase a white sheet to cover the table so i have a very clean surface to work from. It will make lighting the subject difficult because of the reflections and the glass reflections also but hopefully the outcome will look better as the food will look out of place in such a clean environment.

In the long run id like my images to be presented in an Exhibition form as i think they would benefit most from being presented in this way.

My Shoot

Camera wise i was tied between using a Large format camera and a medium format camera. I decided on a medium format as i wanted to be able to use as many shots as possible so i could test shoot my film as well as re-shoot if i needed too. I wanted to try and ease my expenses, so i settled on buying four medium format films to use on the RZ camera.

• White Collar Armor 
• Four Medium Format Film
• RZ, standard lens (90)
• Two tables (for the vase to be place on)
• A white sheet (a clean surface for my shoot)
• Light metre
• Broncolor Power pack
• Broncolor head
• One exstention lead
• Possible large soft box
• Sync Lead
• Small Reflector

I ended up needing more materials than i originally planned for. The sketch that i drew up for my set i changed, i began using a soft box as a more of fill light but ended up removing the soft box and creating a corner with two poly boards which i then refelctcted the light off. 

I used my first film as a more of practise beaucse getting the light in the right place was difficult as the reflections on the glass made it harder in total. Below is an image of the set with the glass in the centre.

Set 1

My first roll of film:

ISO - 160

T - 500

Fs - 4

1) No reflector

2) Matt side of reflector

(Glass empty)

3) No reflector

4) Matt side of reflector

(glass is a quarter full)

5) No reflector

6) Matt side of reflector

7) Metalic side of reflector

(glass is half full)

8) No reflector

9) Matt side of reflector

10) metallic side of reflector

(glass completely full and over flowing) 

After this film i went and processed it to see how my negatives would have come out, and also to see how bad the reflections on the glass was. That is also the reason i didn't add the cream onto the food as i wanted to make sure that the reflections were minimal. Throughout the first roll of film i tried using the reflector to see what difference it would make to me film, a contact print below shows the outcome. 

First roll of film - Contact print

After looking at the images carefully as well as the negatives i found that each image had a thick strip of a reflection on each photograph. This contact print was slightly blurry but the negatives were focused, i didn't want to waste my colour paper to re-print this image, however you can see the strip of light and also the three step images.

 I tried hard to try and get rid of this reflection and ended up using a sheet to diffuse the light even more on my next roll of film. Below is a picture of the set for my second roll of film with the sheet:

Set preparation for second roll of film

My second roll of film:

ISO - 160

T - 500

Fs - 4

1) No reflector

2) Matt side of reflector

(Glass empty)

3) No reflector

4) Matt side of reflector

(glass is a quarter full)

5) No reflector

6) Matt side of reflector

7) Metalic side of reflector

(glass is half full)

8) No reflector

9) Matt side of reflector

10) metallic side of reflector

(glass completely full and over flowing) 

My second roll of film went really well, i already had an idea of how i wanted the food placed and used white rice as a better separation of layers towards the top. All of the food consisted of Peas, Carrots, rice, Potatoes, Bread, Noodles, broccoli, mince, salads, tomatoes, cucumbers etc...

I then went and developed my film and noticed the reflections are reduced hugely. I then used a whole other film to take the final third image using the whipped cream, a cherry and a spoon on the dessert being careful not to move the glass or food. 

Below are both contact prints:

Second roll of film - Contact print

Third roll of film - Contact print

As you can see from my third roll of film i took a few images with and without the spoon, the cherry and the cream. The final images that i chose from both contact prints are as circled. I am really pleased with all of the images i have taken. 

My final Three Images

One Day

Two Days

Four Days

Conclusion

I am very pleased with the images, the scans i have done of the actual prints haven't seemed to have the same colour proportions as the prints i have made however i am pleased with he final outcome. I am happy with the depth of field with each image though it would be nice to have a better range and variety next time. I think the food in the glass is repulsive and looks as i wanted it too. It was a slightly messy shoot as the food smelt and obviously you can see for my third image i dropped parts onto the white sheet to give it the careless character that I think it needed.

If i were to re-do these images i would try my best to eliminate any reflections on the glass and also change my focal point. It would also be nice to try a large format camera. 

I did struggle to print these images as there was so much colour contrasting with the white background i found it difficult. In future i need to practise with colour correction and try different camera angles to see the effects i am making. Overall i enjoyed doing this shoot as well as the preparation before hand. 

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Critical Appraisal: The Commission

My series of images is about the amount of food we waste daily in a household, the amount it adds up to being representing as a dessert. I chose to portray it as a dessert because I wanted the attraction we associate desserts with to contrast with the repulsive look of the rotting food in which we waste. I used the amount of food, A day, Two days and four days as a small example of the mass amount we waste on a daily basis. I think that my Series of images will work best in an exhibition.

I was influenced especially by the photograpgher Gayle Chong Kwan who sculptures food into new landscapes. I was able to expand on my ideas after researching into her fascinating images. Also Nadege Meriau's images widely influenced my ideas as both photographers manipulate the way in which we view food, which i wanted to do also.

The way in which i have found waste to be is a kind of opinion. Where as objects can be re-used or recycled waste will rot, after wasting an amount of food we still move onto dessert whether or not we will finish it. Waste is seen differently over the world in different countries and cultures.

I was torn between using a medium/large format camera because of the depth of field they both allow. I chose medium format RZ ISO 160 because i felt i had more control over the camera and i also felt more confident with it. 

With this Commission i found that I was more organised with booking out the studio and printing my images, and found that there was no mad rush nearer the date of the hand in which had given me more time criticise and finalise my work.