Evocative and emotional

"I think that emotional content is an image's most important element, regardless of the photographic technique.  Much of the work I see these days lacks the emotional impact to draw a reaction from viewers, or remain in their hearts."        Anne Geddes

Time to choose a theme

On completion of both the Image Making and Contextual Imagery Units (both previously blogged -  ref:  Ruraltopia and The Role of Women in Photography) our major project loomed large towards the end of January.  Now the dilemma for me was not demonstrating the required project planning, technical and creative, critical thinking and evaluation skills but the added value which would be to focus on challenge.  So breadth, challenge and application of learning come into play in terms of progression and assessment of my ability to integrate and develop the skills learned, for this final project of my photographic journey.

Ideas, thoughts and exploratory work as recorded in my journal jottings led me to consider two themes which generated initial discussion with the course lecturer in order to negotiate a final project task.  Having explored the topic of Visually Evocative Images of Rural Decay and disappearing crofting traditions, I also photographed old crofting artefacts and used the images to conduct some research as to their appeal:-

rural decay

 

foot plough, peat iron and scythe

My crofting artefact pictures were inspired by the work of Werner Kissing (1895 Germany - 1988 Dumfries).  He was employed part-time as a photographer and writer for the School of Scottish Studies in Edinburgh and between 1952 and 1961, he produced thousands of images for a photographic collection mostly of ethnographic interest such as traditional crafts and life style, as well as collecting artefacts for the Dumfries Association. 

His earlier visits to the Western Isles included a film made in Eriskay (A Poem of Remote Lives) the images of which are well documented in the books, "A Different Country" and "A Poem of Remote Lives: Images of Eriskay, 1934", both by author Michael Russell.

implements on stonework

peat iron and turf spade

While my childhood crofting background and personal links with the location of the rural decay shots below, evoked strong emotions from me, I did consider from my research that perhaps the topic of rural decay could be viewed as rather cliched and not provide an adequate challenge for me in terms of added value in progression of my photography skills.

image with Gaelic text (rusted) from my home village

abandoned tractor on the family croft of my childhood.

Following on from the theme above, I explored the idea of representing human emotions involving image and text, in order to have a set of images showing the range of human emotions.  My research included looking at Plitchick's wheel of emotions (1980) and using 

perhaps a Gaelic phrase or simile to represent basic emotion, e.g. sadness is like the ocean; joy is like a flower, etc and perhaps show this in local contexts with indigenous peoples in Skye's crofting communities.  

I liked this creative idea by American photographer Adam Goldberg,

http://www.adamgoldberg.com 

where he superimposes two different but related scenes one on top of the other, which strengthens the emotion the image he is trying to portray.

This was my first attempt at trying out this double exposure technique with Adobe Photoshop Elements 13:-

Joy is cake

I still needed to carefully consider the local contexts I would use to portray the range of human emotions through 12 different images as I wanted to make others feel the emotion when looking at my images

I concluded that I still needed to respond to the challenge in order to make an impact on the viewer. Therefore, my quest for an appropriate theme was not yet settled with either of the above ideas. 

"Photographers mistake the emotion they feel while taking the photo as a judgement that the photograph is good".                 Garry Winogrand