Roman Phoenix Ray

Following my presentation, it was discussed that I need to think more critically about my approach to fields and frames.

I was given ideas of, taking photos of Roman and Hannah and their relationship, especially because she didn't feel this sudden rush of love everyone had talked about, its been a struggle and Hannah felt she was the only one feeling this way, but after posting her feelings on Instagram saying that she does now love him completely, so many people turned to her and told her that they had felt the same way.

She also felt because she knew the sex of Roman there wasn't going to be any surprise to when he came out, other than what he looked like. Roman has had this massive impact on our family, in a way giving my mother a reason to sort her self out.

Another idea was photographing items that represent Roman and be more abstract in my approach, because photos of babies had already been done by almost everyone.

So the question is how do I intent to make it different?...

I guess that with more tutorials it will come out a bit more clear my intentions to what I intend to produce. but in any case having a go at trying 35mm film especially with the dark room workshop on Monday the 19th. But I also wanted to continue with my DSLR because of Pro Tools advanced photography.

A lot of my photos I didn't want them to be posed because I felt that 'in the moment' is obviously more real but real emotion and you can see how they felt in that moment.

Following from photographing his representations or possessions to see if that could tell more of a story, I didn't want to loose my passion in my idea, but i'm almost too close to it as well to have a critical reflection... However I know what I feel looks good and what doesn't.

Learning about Lightroom I can create both collections and catalogues to decide which ones work and which don't and also showing what I have done to Rosie in tutorials. However I am limited by this in terms of analogue film but this is easily solved by digitising them or scanning the negs in to my computer or even scanning in the processed images.

Developing idea

Following my discovery of Memories composed it got me thinking about family. Following from my portrait series of Hannah and bump 'Then there were three'













I wanted to further this and take photos of Roman in the classic family photos like this ->

I either want to take photos of Roman individually, take photos of Roman and put them in an order which almost creates Romans face, or take photos of his body like photoshoot of baby Kellen by Memories composed 

Memories Composed 

Roman

I've still got to decide how I want to lay everything out, but I wanted to follow on from my bump shoot. 

I want to try and shoot using 35mm film 

Memories Composed

Memories composed is a blog written by a women called Sarah, she has 4 children.... unfortunately her youngest passed away, his lung didn't develop correctly in the womb and he had a cleft palate.

After many tests the doctor came back with a scan of his lungs, the doctor explained that at this point he would be unable to recover from the damage done to his tiny body. His oxygen levels had been at a low level for too long and he was not going to be able to handle the rigor of the machines much longer.

Sarah and her Husband Josh knew there wasn't really any decision to make. After some discussions with the doctors they decided that they would place Silas in Sarah's arms and slowly take away the machines that were helping his lungs function. Eventually the room cleared and it was just a few of them left, Sarah doesn't write much more which happened on that sad day other than the prayer Silas' grandfather said.

Her family took some photos of those moments they had with him.

All of this made me think about how short time really is, its infinite but also too short. My sister which if you remember from a previous post when I photographer her, her partner and soon to be son when he was in the womb. Hannah was given a 5 year window to have all if any children before the medication she'd have to go on would cause her to become infertile, and also being told she might not be able to have children... but she had little Roman who turns one soon.

It also made me think about me, I also when I was in the womb my mother thought she had a miscarriage, but because it was a Sunday she wouldn't be able to find out until the Monday.... it was then discovered that there was a similar sized pocket next to me, which suggested that I had a twin... But 7 months in to pregnancy the umbilical cord clogged up and I was getting what I needed to grow, this meant i was very small, when I was delivered I was blue and wasn't breathing, before anyone could get a proper look at me I was rushed away the moment they got me to take my first breath. I then spent the next week or so in the neonatal intensive care unit as I couldn't keep myself warm. Once my doctors were confident that I could keep my self warm they let me go home, weighing a very little 4 pounds.

Its at this time that you realise how important family is and the family photos.

Pull and Push before Cohesion - The shoot days 27th and 28th November 2017

I really enjoyed doing the studio shoot, I got quite a few comments on my camera work... however I didn't think what I was doing was really that amazing... I was following direction of Joe and Savina, and added some of my own ideas as well, again quite late in to the stage.

We ended up scrapping the shot list and re wrote it as we filmed the dance. Which wasn't great put gave us a chance to do unplanned shots as well.  The set was beautifully made and with Paige going back and forth from Basingstoke to get the fabric for the curtains, which she also sewed together.

I really enjoyed being digital tech, I thought it was a great opportunity to show both myself and others what I can do, it was almost a boost of confidence and a sense of purpose.... I really struggled with ideas for what I wanted to do after university and if being a digital tech is what I want to go into, it was a good opportunity for me to have a go and see what it was like and the responsibilities behind the role.

I did however feel I was slightly taking over Savina's role, unless it was purely just giving my ideas on how we could accomplish something, then I wasn't.

Joe, Savina, Suzi, George, and Ollie, all worked super hard during meetings and behind the scenes to get the idea all together, with regular updates on a group page, scheduled meetings, and google docs was set up for all of us to have a look at, add our own research, and read what was already done and see the whole idea slowly coming together. I don't think any of us really saw it in a bigger picture in terms of filming until we actually filmed it and set up the set. I certainly didn't feel it felt real until we were there and doing it.

Alice and Suzi did a nice dance and worked together in tandem to get the dance piece flowing, After being let down by acting students (understandably because they have their own work) Alice was nice enough to step up and help us out, which was really appreciated, we had one more dancer in mind but again due to her work load, with time ticking away and getting closer to the studio shoot we needed a solution fast, so Suzi stepped in and helped us get the dance choreographed and filmed.

Paige did a great job of doing the actors make up and putting the set together! she worked really hard to get the work done.

George was superman of the studio shoots, as he was first AD for our studio shoot and sound mixer for the second group, this left him in a difficult position because he was head of departments for both groups! He pulled it out the bag though and did a fantastic job of both roles.

Ollie and Luca were on sound, although not necessary on set unfortunately not being able to be as active as originally thought, they helped out in other roles too. They both helped on clapper board, Ollie doing a fantastic job of it, he was right on the mark for all of it and spoke clearly for us to get it marked correctly.

Hollie was on lights, and she did a good job of that making sure all light were primed and ready.

Tensions were very high, with very very minor spats, mainly just a bit of bitching but nothing to be concerned about, as we all worked together to get the job done, and speaking from the camera point of view it came out beautifully.

Some equipment wasn't charged over the weekend therefore when we came to shoot day, it was a bit of a rush and slightly stressful to find batteries that were working.... After setting up the camera, and then coming back to it on shoot day, finding out the settings had been changed, although not a major problem, it wasn't the best thing to happen. This came as a moment of learning to remember next time re check the settings on the camera to make sure its all as it was before.


It was really interesting to do the studio shoot and I got quite high praise from everyone about my job role and how I did.

Dance Film

I looked on youtube to find some dance videos, these are a few of my favourites I found.

Medicine 

I really enjoyed this piece by Zack Benitez and Priscilla Villa, Directed by Charles Baldassarra, and performed by Zack Benitez and Tamara Marthe. It started off with a POV of Tamara as she is laying on the floor in a warehouse and stands up disorientated and sees Zack. It then switches to an OTS of Tamara. I liked this shift because it was subtle and fluid. It tells the Story of a man struggling with an illness ad a women trying to support him through it. However he struggles to carry on the fight.

The Dance is very connected with both Dancers being in close proximity for the first three minutes of the piece, it Then shows the woman trying not to loose him however, he fights back and pulls away. It becomes a fight with a very beautiful transition from a jump from Tamara in to an embrace and she is now wearing a patience robe. As if to show the fight for them to stay together and battle the illness has caused both of them to become ill.

The camera starts with long takes, the Dance starts off slow and then picks up more pace through out, as if to say the illness is becoming stronger. The operators and Directors chosen angles some times loose the subjects face, but it does give you the opportunity to see the whole body.

The camera is always moving, both following the Dancers and moving around them as well. The facial expressions of the Dancers also helps strengthen the story, and almost shows them in pain.

Each movement flows to the next, with strong lifts.

This helps give me a few ideas of the certain angles to choose from as they range from close ups to wide shots, which helps give me variety in the piece, The Camera is almost a third partner in the dance, it helped show me people working together as a duet, which is going to be part of my piece.

Wicked Game 

Wicked Game was choreographed and performed by Travis Wall and Amy Yakima. This piece was performed on So You Think You Can Dance S10E15

This piece is about two people fighting each other although they are in love, Although this is not specifically a dance film, it shows the strength in the movements which helps show the conflict between the two subjects. Because its a tv show the camera doesn't really move behind the Dancers. The angles are mainly two person shot, tracking, wide, low and high.

The moments flow from one to the other. They are strong and in control

I really enjoyed watching this piece as it helped give me ideas on the conflict for my piece.

It starts with Travis approaching Amy from behind and finishes with the two embraced, as if to show the audience they spent so long fighting that they finally gave in and fell in love.

The Dancers very rarely leave each other side, however they use the space around the well. The Takes are quite long for a multi cam piece, however this helps give the audience at home a real feel for the atmosphere the dancers are trying to produce.

Identity - Deflation

Following today's presentation, things have been left quite a bit up in the air for me.... which is fine but it's not great.


I was given lots of ideas to go about improving my work, and i'm proud of it.... I understand people want to make it better so the university can be proud of my work... and also just push me to do more.


A few ideas were filming the fingerprints which were left in macro and then putting sound behind it, almost giving the fingerprints and identity.  Although feeling slightly deflated about it all, I do plan to make it something the university is proud of.

I have quite a way to go until the installation in the new year, which isn't very far away, it's just going to take reflection of the work and my piece, and considering where I want to go with the piece, as well as following the ideas of others to try and make it better.


If anything I can say i'm proud of it and I like it and its something which i'm happy to present in the exhibition.... but obviously I need to aim for a good mark.


So even though i'm feeling deflated about it all, I understand the process of it all and just keep trying.

Identity - Maps and Networks

IDENTITY 

So.... After a very few stressful days of trying to get things done, my original idea was around family resemblance and how eyes can look like our parents and siblings.... However no idea how I was going to convey this.


So I then changed it to how we are all connected through our eyes, as well as differences, such a colours and shapes, whether we wear make up or not.... but after shooting, and making it I really wasn't happy, again I didn't feel it made any sense, and was it going to make sense to the audience... I was very stressed and on the verge of crying.


Therefore, to get the work done and have something I'm proud of, Paige helped we come up with a new idea, which was an original idea anyway, on finger prints and identity!


So I drew a really big finger print on a big mounting board in pencil, and then went over it with black ink felt pens.  Then I went to Facebook to ask for help from fellow students to come to the library and stamp their finger prints on my big finger print, in different colours.


My idea came from the idea of identity and having our own individual identity, There is this idea on identity fraud, people taking names and using them on passports and other forms of identity, to steal peoples identity, however you can't steal someones fingerprints and make them your own, and that's why its so personal to people, because no two fingers prints are the same.

It was also a sense of trust for people to do this for me, because its quite a thing to give someone your fingerprints and for them to be on display.

I did have a few people say no when I asked, and a few people weren't really up for it, but I did have a good turn out with lots of helpful people, especially a few in class.

Research 

Fingerprints are used as a form of identity for Police, when you get booked for a crime, they take your picture and finger prints and its on a database forever. Crime labs find fingerprints at crime scenes and then then put them in a system to see if they can find someone who matches.

Some places use fingerprints, for cars, banks, businesses, organisations, to get in to places.

Our fingerprints are everywhere, on our phone screens, laptops, that shop door you opened, the table you rested your hands on, objects you've held in your hand, like coffee cups, pencils, and pens. Although its easy enough to remove your fingerprint from a surface, its almost impossible to remove your fingerprints from your self. Even are toes have certain swirls and lines which we can be identified by.


We use out fingerprints to open our phones, and pay for things.

Fingerprints are even more unique than DNA, the genetic material in each of our cells. Although identical twins can share the same DNA -- or at least most of it -- they can't have the same fingerprints. They form from pressure on a baby's tiny, developing fingers in the womb.

All of the ridges of fingerprints form patterns called loops, whorls or arches:

• Loops begin on one side of the finger, curve around or upward, and exit the other side. There are two types of loops: Radial loops slope toward the thumb, while ulnar loops slope toward the little finger.

• Whorls form a circular or spiral pattern.

• Arches slope upward and then down, like very narrow mountains.

The technique of fingerprinting is known as dactyloscopy. Until the advent of digital scanning technologies, fingerprinting was done using ink and a card.

There are two different types of prints. 

• Visible prints are made on a type of surface that creates an impression, like blood, dirt or clay.

• Latent prints are made when sweat, oil and other substances on the skin reproduce the ridge structure of the fingerprints on a glass, murder weapon or any other surface the perpetrator has touched. These prints can't be seen with the naked eye, but they can be made visible using dark powder, lasers or other light sources. Police officers can "lift" these prints with tape or take special photographs of them.

There are records of fingerprints being taken many centuries ago, although they weren't nearly as sophisticated as they are today. The ancient Babylonians pressed the tips of their fingertips into clay to record business transactions. The Chinese used ink-on-paper finger impressions for business and to help identify their children.

Identifying children

Chinese and Babylonian business transactions

Fingerprints weren't used as a method for identifying criminals until the 19th century.

Sir Edward Henry, commissioner of the Metropolitan Police of London, soon became interested in using fingerprints to nab criminals. In 1896, he added to Galton's technique, creating his own classification system based on the direction, flow, pattern and other characteristics of the friction ridges in fingerprints. Examiners would turn these characteristics into equations and classifications that could distinguish one person's print from another's. The Henry Classification System replaced the Bertillonage system as the primary method of fingerprint classification throughout most of the world.

When fingerprints came in, detectives would have to compare them manually with the fingerprints on file for a specific criminal (that's if the person even had a record). The process would take hours or even days and didn't always produce a match. By the 1970s, computers were in existence, and the FBI knew it had to automate the process of classifying, searching for and matching fingerprints. The Japanese National Police Agency paved the way for this automation, establishing the first electronic fingerprint matching system in the 1980s. Their Automated Fingerprint Identification Systems (AFIS), eventually enabled law enforcement officials around the world to cross-check a print with millions of fingerprint records almost instantaneously.

That changed in 1999, with the introduction of Integrated AFIS (IAFIS). This system is maintained by the FBI's Criminal Justice Information Services Division. It can categorize, search and retrieve fingerprints from virtually anywhere in the country in as little as 30 minutes. It also includes mug shots and criminal histories on some 47 million people. IAFIS allows local, state and federal law enforcement agencies to have access to the same huge database of information. The IAFIS system operates 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

Koalas have them too. :) 

Even in death, our fingerprints stick around, which makes them very helpful in identifying bodies.

When apple created a sensor to unlock you phone in 2013, for the Iphone 5s, people could unlock their phones, A techgrunch writer decided to commandeer a cat and used its toe pad to create a new profile to unlock his phone, he wrote "and while it encountered more frequent failures than did a fingerprint, it was able to unlock the phone again repeatedly when positioned correctly on the sensor.”
Although apple claim to be the first it was first developed in 2007 by Toshiba and then publicly launched by Motorola with the Motorola artix in 2011

Wartime vigilance meant that the FBI was collecting more prints than ever before, from soldiers, foreign agents, and military suppliers, as well as draft dodgers and potential spies. By 1943, the collection included more than 70 million prints. To manage the explosion of information, the agency moved to a big warehouse (nicknamed the “Fingerprint Factory”) and hired and trained thousands of women to sort prints 10 hours a day, six days a week.

Our fingerprints are developed while we’re still in the womb and are unique based on our movement, location in the womb and composition of our mother’s amniotic fluid.

There are some diseases where people are born with out fingerprints these are called; Naegeli-Franceschetti-Jadassohn syndrome (NFJS), Dermatopathia pigmentosa reticularis (DPR), and adermatoglyphia. NFJS and DPR cause a range of symptoms, most much worse than smooth fingers. Adermatoglyphia, on the other hand, has just one indicator: no fingerprints. It’s sometimes referred to as “immigration delay disease,” for the trouble it causes people trying to cross borders.

Chemotherapy patients may lose their fingerprints.

Synopsis:

I want to create a large fingerprint surrounded my lots of little fingerprints to show how no two fingerprints look the same and the uniqueness of the fingerprint itself. How we use the fingerprint to be identified as a person, in paying for objects, unlocking phones, cars and accessing bank accounts

Treatment:

Theme is to show different fingerprints on a big mounting board, covered in colourful fingerprints.

Structure of my piece will be a large mounting board with a large fingerprint surrounded by little fingerprints.

I plan to show it using bulldog clips and then hung on the wall, to show how fingerprints were shown and stored before computers. Using black ink for the big fingerprint as well as a few fingerprints being black to show how they use to be stored and how times have changed with colourful fingerprints as well.

Evaluation

How it may progress – I could do one specifically on families, and do a family tree, I can further it on with finger paintings and how we have progressed through the years, I can also look at it from a digital perspective and looking how fingerprint identification has developed over the years and how it can be used.

What have I learned – Start earlier and attended more tutorials to try and crystallise my idea, so I don’t feel so disappointed with the outcome and have to change my idea very last minute. Use a tripod to make sure that the images are still and don't cut corners when it comes to the digital side of filming. 

I feel much happier with my fingerprint project, it was an original idea anyway, I just wish I followed it through right at the beginning so I wouldn't be in this position, and being so late to the game.  I wasn't overly happy with my family resemblance idea.

Not a lot of people turned up to help me with my piece but a few people came and helped out for me to get my desired outcome, it was mostly the class which I'm really thankful for