Project Proposal [2,000 words]

Photography: Creative Proposal

• Paragraph 1 -Your choice of brief and style of photography (and why).
• Paragraph 2 - Your idea and the inspiration/context for your idea (eg. you may have been inspired by a particular photographerʼs work).
• Paragraph 3 - A summary of your research to date on your chosen theme, both into the work of other photographers, and theoretical research. Include a bibliography at the end of your proposal.
• Paragraph 4 - Demonstration of the awareness of the ethics of representation.
• Paragraph 5 - Evidence of technical experimentation. 

Appendix including:

• Production time scale (this should be broken down week-by-week).
• Camera equipment you propose to use.
• A brief budget (itemise individual items, and include total; do not forget items such as complimentary prints). 

________________________________________________________________________

- What I'm going to do.
- How I'm going to do it.
- My method/approach and why
- Don't forget prints (three of them)
- Styles and inspirations (use photos)
- Discuss aspects of photography in relation to your prints. Ethics, Denotation, Connotation, Representation

Photography Project Proposal

My creative project will be a following a portrait/documentary approach to photography, where I aim to tell a personal 'picture story' (Bate, D. 2010, p.46) of my father. I want to capture his identity that I have interpreted as his son; I shall follow his everyday and leisure activities as an eyewitness. I shall also be incorporating aspects of lifestyle and personal photography to my autobiographical array of images in order to enhance its visual narrative in order to create trust between photographer and observer since "storytelling photography relies on a blend lifestyle and documentary approaches to shooting in order to capture authentic moments." (Roa, E. 2015) I want to have some editorial control over the construction of the images in order to produce my own personal interpretation about my father's character to my audience through visual elements and codes within the images, being wary of their authenticity. I chose these combined styles to approach the project because I have a strong passion for filmmaking and documentary storytelling and I want to further explore "the creative treatment of actuality." (Grierson, J. 1966) coined by the founder of documentary film, John Grierson. As a photographer, we can choose to manipulate reality in order to express certain meanings and ideologies about a subject through the semiotics and construction of the misé-en-scène. The aspects that I will creatively alter for the project are the components that define portraiture photography, an approach to photography that I have never attempted before, so I thought it would be good to challenge for myself in this field.

The main purpose of my photography project is to trigger a vast array of thought and discussion for the viewer about their own father and their interpretation of how capturing someone’s everyday activities can shape an understanding of their identity, with regards to the class and culture of the human subject. I've chosen the focus for my project to be on my own father, as I believe when other people observe this, it can be perceived as voyeuristic. I will take up the role of being the 'eyewitness' to the events that occur in my father's life during this project as this will reinforce the concept of voyeurism and create a contract of visual trust between photographer and audience since the aim of documentary photography is "to make the spectator into an eyewitness." (Bate, D. 2010, p.59) The images that I shall capture will be personal to my family and me by taking something from the private sphere into the public gaze. Therefore, these images will serve a ‘visual pleasure’ to its audience because photographs “which depict a normally private or taboo activity and a subject apparently unaware that they are being photographed, are more explicitly voyeuristic.” (Sontag, S. 1979 p.11-14)

"Portraiture is more than just a picture, it's a place of work: a semiotic event for social identity." (Bate, D. 2010 p. 67) The essence of symbols and signifiers in my project will be vital in connoting characteristics and creating assumptions towards my father’s character. The elements of portraiture that I shall control as the photographer is the selection clothing and locations that will also play a crucial to the representation of my father’s character since “clothes signify something about a person’s identity, though the context in which they wear them – that can also be influenced by the setting – also infers a message about the depicted person. (Bate, D. 2010, p.78). With regards to the location presented in the image, settings provides context for the viewer. For example, I will be using locations such as my home, my father’s workplace, pubs, parks, leisure centres and so on to contextualise my father’s identity because “the location and foreground figure form a relationship, a juxtaposition that is crucial in framing how we see them.” (Bate, D. 2010, p.79) Therefore, I shall have to carefully select locations and possibly gain permission to shoot in certain locations as well as being wary of the garments my subject chooses to wear. The connotations and denotations formed from the elements within my images is an essential part of creating my desired narrative of my father’s identity. I will aim to selected fundamental signs and symbols within the settings and construction of my photographs which will make simpler to decipher when observed by my audience. Composition will be important in forming a relationship between observer and the observed on my project. I have attempted a range of long and medium shots which are visible in my test prints, however I want to attempt a more close-up angle in the shoots to make a more personal connection between myself and my subject that will in turn, create a closer and friendlier relationship between subject and observer by being positioned. On the other hand, I realised that by doing this, it takes away from the visual narrative construction I want to manufacture as the focus of the images become more about the face and expressional elements of portraiture photography – I want a cohesive balance between all these elements

One of the inspirations for my project to focus on my own father came from Richard Billingham's book Ray's A Laugh (Billingham, R. 2000) This photographic chronicle is about Billingham's family that have been torn apart through poverty and alcoholism. His camera closely follows his father Raymond, a chronic alcoholic living with his wife in a tower block estate in Birmingham. The photos capture reality with no pretence, however, they possess a formal awareness using symbols and metaphors to construct meaning from the misé-en-scène within the location, through what the family own, how they dress, the objects they hang on their walls or pile up on tables, their furniture and ornaments and so on. Occasionally, the image construction can be seen to tell a picture story about Raymond. Take a look at Appendix 1, it's a photo of Ray sitting on the edge of a bed, his head downcast, the ever-present bottle beneath him with a door key and some unwrapped slices of bread laid just out of reach: "this is his life sentence." (Haughey, A. 1997) This technique is something I wish to infuse in the construction of my own images to tell a story about my father and his lifestyle through the misé-en-scène.

Appendix 1 - Raymond in Ray's a laugh [Billingham, R. (2000)]

Another one of my inspirations for the project was the work of photographer Tina Barney and her book Theatre of Manors where she also, like Billingham, photographs family and friends in their homes. However, Barney's subjects are rarely ever smiling and tend to have sombre expressions in comparison to the subjects in Billingham's work, subjects also tend to have a direct gaze with a strong awareness of the camera, thus the images appear to be part-artifice and part-spontaneity to the viewer. What inspired me about Barney's photos is not whom she photographs, but how she constructs the image around the subject. She creates a navigational space in her images where as a viewer, we are invited to enter the space with our eyes and navigate the room around the subject, looking at objects on the shelves, furniture and ornaments and relate those to the subject(s) she is photographing. I want to emulate this portrait photographic technique used by Barney into my portrait-documentary project and create a navigational space in the various settings that I shall be photographing my father during his everyday activities to connote certain ideologies about his character. I will force the viewer to make assumptions about my father’s character via the four elements of portraiture stated by David Bate "each element affects another in the overall potential of the meaning." (Bate, D. 2010, p.73) For example, look at Appendix 2, it of a photo from called "Mom's Dinner Party (Barney, T. 1997, p. 43). Here, the subject is placed in a dominant central position in the frame, yet are eyes are drawn to look around the room and we begin detect tentative clues and construct stories about the central character. Similarly in Test Print 1, I used a similar style of approach with the composition, with my father placed central in the photo, yet we are more attracted to look at his clothes and surrounding rather than his expression. Creating meaning through misé-en-scène and semiotics will be a key style of approach to my photographs.

Appendix 2 - Mom's Dinner Party in Tina Barney: Photographs : Theater of Manners [Barney, T. 1997]

As my project focuses purely on my own father, I have to be aware of how I represent him to my audience, and the ethics behind it. I want to creatively inform my audience about my father’s character, being a part of the middle-class British population, whose life may be unfamiliar to them. My project could be interpreted as a criticism, celebration, reform or support in terms of how I visual exhibit my father’s identity; however, this is also dependent on the viewer’s background in how they engage and understand the meaning of this project. In some of my photographs, the subject will express an awareness of the camera since these are personal images and they have been “specifically made to portray the individual as they wish to be seen” (Wells, L. 2015 p. 138) In fact, the images will portray the individual from my own understanding of his identity, showing my father from a son’s point-of-view. The semiotics within the images will connote meanings that could be perceived differently amongst viewers. For example in Test Print 2, you can see my father in a science lab/classroom setting wearing a lab-coat, engaged in teaching a lesson. However, other viewers may observe and deconstruct a totally different meaning from the photograph – he could be seen as a doctor or a technician or something totally different altogether. I will have to be wary of the connotations that could be composed from the misé-en-scène and what and the different perceptions they could produce.

I intend to yield to a deep and meaningful insight into my subject’s life, revealing his identity through his everyday activities, positioning myself as an eyewitness to the events. Everyone has at some point had a father or father figure in his or her lives and these photographs may generate different feelings for different people as well as different ideologies regarding my father’s character and personality. Viewers may be able to identify with his lifestyle, others may question it, but this is all depends on the cultural context. My audience will be forced to gaze into my subject’s personal life and construct a story about his character. Overall, I hope to construct a personal, positive narrative of my father by documenting his lifestyle in portraits. They will serve as memories for me and the rest of my family by capturing my father in his day-to-day and leisure activities, which according to Jessica Thomason “will not only depict what his life looked like, but what it felt like.” (Thomason, J. 2016)

Bibliography

Barney, T. (1997) Tina Barney: Photographs : Theater of Manners, Zurich: Scalo

Bate, D. (2010) Photography: The Key Concepts, Berg: Oxford, New York.

Billingham, R. (2000) Ray's A Laugh, Zurich: Scalo.

Grierson, J. (1966) The First Principles of Documentary, in Forsythe Hardy, ed., Grierson on Documentary (London: Faber & Faber)

Haughey, A. (Winter 1997) Ray's A Laugh: Review in Source Magazine: Issue 10 [Vol. 3 Number 4] 

Roa, E. (2015) Storytelling, Available at: http://www.littlefishphoto.com/storytelling/  (Accessed: 10th March 2016).

Sontag, S. (1979) On Photography, Harmondsworth: Penguin

Thomason, J. (2016) What is "lifestyle photography"?, Available at: http://jessicathomason.com/what-is-lifestyle-photography/  (Accessed: 14th March 2016).

Wells, L. (2015) Photography: A Critical Introduction (5^th Edition), : Taylor & Francis

Appendix

Production Time-Scale
Easter Break:

My father will be going away to the Isle of Wight with my mother for a few the first week of the Easter break before he heads off to the Lake District to do the Annual Hills and Ales week trek with a few of his friends during the second week of the Easter break.
During term-time, the only days I can commute to and from London to carry out photo-shoots is on Wednesdays and weekend. This is due to academic and employment commitments for both my father and myself. Therefore, I aim to go back to London once a week a carry out a photo shoot with him. Frustratingly, my father isn’t available for a majority of the weekends from the Easter break until the end of term. Thus I will have to travel and carry out a majority of the shoots on Wednesdays.
Week 8: 4^th – 10^th April

Wednesday Shooting Only – Location: Home

Week 9: 11^th – 17^th April

Wednesday Shooting Only – Location: Pub

Week 10: 18^th – 24^th April

Weekend Shoot – Location: Outdoor Activities

Week 11: 25^th – 1^st May

Wednesday Shooting Only – Location: Family Outing

Week 12: 2^nd – 8^th May

Wednesday and weekend – Any reshooting can be done this week

Budget
My project will force me to commute to my home in South-West London for every photo-shoot; therefore I'll need to book trains in advance to save money. If I do travel to and from London once a week, it will cost me just around £10 per return journey.
In regards to possible props needing to be purchased, my father said he would cover the costs to an extent. For example, one of my shoots will take place in one of my father's favourite local pubs in which he shall be drinking ale, another may take place at my local leisure centre which admittance will need to be paid. My father will cover these expenses.
With the prints for the final assessment, each A4 print will cost around £1.50-2 and when the time comes, I will have to decide whether to print it via the university's resources or to use an external printing provider where I will have to also pay for the post and packaging for the prints.
Overall, I assume to have a budget of £50 for the expenses of the entire project.

Equipment:
None of my shoots will need the use of a studio setting, since life events do not occur in a studio I will be using natural lighting from the locations in which my shoots take place. However, I may use a flash gun and light meter for certain shoots that take place indoors and increase the amount of artificial light in the scene, but I will shall be wary of the amount of intensity I use with the flash as I want the settings to appear natural.
I have my own DSLR - Nikon D40X available to use for the shooting, but I shall be using a Nikon D7000 mainly - If I am unable to book out the D7000, at least I'll always have a back up camera. I will also need a tripod for the camera when shooting.

List of Equipment:
- Nikon D40X - Nikon D7000 - Basic camera tripod - Nikon SB-800 Flashgun

- Memory Cards/USBs - Light Meter