Peephole images

So above is a contact sheet of the images that came out fairly well in my peephole shoot. Some are better than others, but overall i feel that the shoot went quite well, and I've managed to obtain some interesting images. I have included my three favorite shots separate from the contact sheet below.




One of the main problems i had while shooting was exposure. It was difficult because the only light i had was coming in through a tiny hole in the middle of my card, however with use of a tripod i managed to rectify this. Another problem was getting my models to ignore me and go about their personal lives, which was hard and so in some cases there wasn't any real sense of authenticity within my photographs.

With the image above I don't think it worked particularly well in relation to my initial idea of watching someone looking at the internet who thought they were alone.




This image here is certainly one of the best from the shoot as i feel it worked very well in capturing the idea of voyeurism and viewing someone in their personal and private space.




With this image it has much more of a feel of realism about it, as when shooting it i was just playing around with the camera in the room where someone was in and out of sleep, and so he was unexpectant of the photo.

Drawings

I've decided to experiment and shoot images to do with peephole and voyeurism. I want to intrude on people's personal and private spaces, looking in on them at time when they think they're alone. Of course this will be set up and fictional, but I want to try and make it as realistic as possible, by having my camera at all times to shoot when people are least expecting it.

It is important that I plan my shoots for the brief so that I know exactly what I'm doing when the time comes. These are just the drawings for my ideas that I have uploaded, and they show how I've thought about using an actual keyhole for my peephole, but then decided that it would be too tricky and I couldn't get to all the places I wanted due to keyholes being on doors!



The drawings above show a couple of ideas that I've got for shots; someone lying is bed and a couple kissing. I want to use a piece of black card around the camera lens to create the effect of a peephole.

Intrusion/Voyeurism

After briefly touching on the idea of an intrusion of personal space, i wanted to look at this in more detail, and perhaps look at the idea of voyeurism.

Voyeur - 'A person who derives sexual gratification from observing the naked bodies or sexual acts of others, especially from a secret vantage point.'

I came across this series of images called Peephole, by photographer Jorge Vera...



The photographer has used a fish eye lens as to create the impression of a peephole.








Personally, i think that creating a peephole in this fashion has not been very effective as it blatantly looks like a fish eye lens. However, i do like some of the outcomes he has produced especially the bottom two here. Despite the fact that the people in the shots are aware of the photographer, i still think they work well as an intrusion on privacy and their personal spaces.

These are very useful to my research, and experimenting with peephole photography could be interesting. It could be interesting to take a more voyeuristic approach to it, so as to really view a personal space.

Francesca Woodman

I've never looked at the work of Francesca Woodman previously, but i feel it lends itself to the idea of a personal space. What, in the above two images has forced these people to hide away like that? They have curled up into their own tight, private spaces to hide perhaps? The composition in the two images is fantastic and really works well with the idea that the people are hiding away in their own intimate bodily space.




The image at the bottom here looks amazing! The whole composition of it and arrangement of things within the frame works really well. There is something particularly striking about the chair in the foreground, and it really adds something to the surrealism of the image.

I almost feel like with these photographs I'm intruding on the personal space of the people in them.

1st shoot

 Unfortunately the images for this shoot were accidently deleted and because I wouldn't have used them for any finals, shooting them again was not a priority.   

They depicted a person stood in a corn field, with the whole image being taken up by the corn and in a small part was the person.  I used negative space to make them seem tiny and in their personal space when compared to the emptiness of the rest of the image.

I've decided not to follow on  down this route.

Some inspiration

I recently watched the film 'blow', which is a really good, and in one of the final scenes it pictures Johnny Depp stood alone (virtually) in a prison yard. It just seemed so relevant to what I'm currently in the process of shooting; a person alone, in a vast empty space. This is a really good shot.

Thinking back...

...to last year, I've already shot along the lines of Personal Space in two of the week long briefs we did at the end of term.



I shot a lot more for the brief but this was the main image. I don't really want to shoot anything similar to this, along the lines of trapped personal spaces.



There are certainly aspects of this image that i shot which i can use for my current ideas. The small amount of space that the person takes up in comparison to the surrounding area within the frame really puts him out of place, but also defines his personal space.