The Final Project For my final project I will have pictures of my own photography (pictures of magic tricks) hanging from string in which my hands will be filmed underneath doing a selection of real magic trick in which, for the finale, i will be using stop frame photography to do an impossible trick. To give the video a stop frame effect i will be rendering the video in frames as JPEG pictures in which i will delete some of the frames inbetween every however many frames and increasing the time length of each picture. I want a completely dark background in which only my hands, the tricks and maybe a very feint view of myself can be seen. Although it is obviously edited and ignoring the random floating orb, the hands in this picture are how i wish for mine to look in the video.

To make my hands have this effect i lit candles around my workspace in which the light's radius only lit up my hand and the tricks themselves. I got my mum to take a picture every couple of seconds and then put them all in order so this switched quickly and seemed like a video and added some music to add to the magic/eerie mood.

My idea is to photograph illusion. As a child i loved magic and wanted to be a magician myself so i learnt a lot of the basic tricks found in magic books etc, One of these tricks was how to make the emotionless face of the Queen on notes smile or be sad. I decided to photograph this stage by stage without showing the creases that have to be made as a magician never reveals his secrets.

I think both emotions can sybolise different feelings about money for example, when she smiles it symbolises the happiness people experience when they get money and the strive people have to get it. But the picture of her frowning could show how many people feel that money is the route of all evil and is ruining the nature of peoples dreams and lives and that there is more to life.

Illusion My idea is to show how through photography, we can mislead the eye into believing things are, what they're not. I will be touching on magic and the whole career and history of illusionists, comparing the the old illusionists who started off the trade e.g. Houdini, to the new illusionists of today e.g. Derren Brown and David Blaine. I started off my project by doing some studio photography of normal everyday objects available from most classrooms, i then adjusted the Depth of Field and aperture to blur the picture so i could then add it to another picture off the internet and make it blend in as a different object. Firstly I photographed a banana up against a black background as I planned to mask this out later. I made sure the photo was sharp and the best I could get it. I then decided the shape almost resembled a flame so I blurred out the main details of the banana such as the bruising and stalk to amplify the flame effect. After I had done this I found an un lit candle on google images and masked and pasted the banana in the place that the flame would be. I all I actually feel this worked very well as I have tricked quite a few people into believing it was just a picture of a candle.

Rabbits and Advertisements

As a small task set out by my teacher, I had to model the developing nicely hoodie and make it to do with photography.My approach to it was to make it almost humorous with a slight hint of cuteness as a lot of advertisements use cute animals etc to advertise their products.

An example I thought would be good to copy was an advertisement by a beer company in which they used a obviously fake polar bear to engage viewers who see the advert to talk about their company. The polar bear is an interesting idea as it is performing human tasks which a polar bear wouldn't do, for example smile or drink beer. To recreate this, I decided to use my sisters rabbit, with the idea of advertising my school's photography company "developing nicely". I had previously bought a hoodie from the company so I placed it over the rabbit to give the idea that it was wearing it. I then placed glasses on the rabbits head to give the idea that it was reading a newspaper article and used a photography based picture with a rabbit involved so my rabbit would be interested in the picture. I placed the rabbit in the bath so the background didn't detract attention away from the rabbit. I am very pleased overall with my recreation however I felt this photo had too much shadow and not enough of the hoodie was shown.

 I decided to re take the photo and feel I overcame the obstacles I faced.

People and Places

People and Places (shop/store workers)
My idea is based on how certain people feel and present themselves when at work, we asked the shopworker whether he/she would allow us to to take a picture of them and then, if a yes, would take a portrait picture of them from the exact spot of where we asked them. The picture being taken from the same spot, (the spot where we asked them whether we could take the picture or not) gives the photo's some similarity and so that the only contrast of the shopworkers, was what they are doing and their expression and presentation of themselves. We also took a picture of the outside of the shop to show all the photo's are real and to show what the worker does and why he/she pulls the expression he/she does in the picture. This can lead questions of whether the worker enjoys his/her job and is happy in it or not. I was inspired to perform this experiment to a photo I had seen in the past of some workers outside a shop in the 1930's. I felt this was a good opportunity to show how things could had changed.

 I believe this first photo worked well due to the people sitting at the outside table being shadowed out. This creates an almost ominous mood to the cafe even though the outside seems perfectly fine.

From analysing the photo I took of the female worker, I feel the image gives off the impression that she has quite a tiring job due to her facial expression. It looks as though she is trying to smile but cannot bring herself too, I also believe this mood is given by the womans bags under her eyes.

I believe the next photo I took worked well as it is jam packed with items in the picture as well as just the shop. I also feel the car blurred out as it is moving past looks interesting also. The  photo of the two workers worked really well as although they seem to stereotype nice old women, they are surrounded by unlikely items you wouldn't expect someone like them to have such as countless cigarettes and alcohol. Although they are old this gives an impression that they are surrounded by what the urban youth could be stereotyped as using.

Animals in Motion

This project is of the exam section "Animals in Motion". This is me taking my dog out for a walk in Blandford Forum, taking pictures of the various wildlife. This is in motion as we are walking the dog, which involves travelling, so not only are the animals moving, but we are too.

The Meeting Of Freinds

Waiting for Dinner

Archie's walk

Man's best friend's enemy

Contrast

The Fight

Ducks

Scenary

horse

birds

Martin Parr Research

Martin Parr (born 24 May 1952) is a British documentary photographer, photojournalist and photobook collector. He is known for his photographic projects that take a critical look at aspects of modern life, in particular provincial and suburban life in England. This ties in with the topic of people and places.

You can tell he his particularly interested in people and places by looking at his blog where he frequently posts updates about his views on different places. "I sometimes think the traffic is bad in London, and when i'm in places like Beijing and Dubia i know it's best to avoid rush hour, as your journey may take double the time. Moscow though, tops the congestion league by a mile. Even though it would be quicker to walk, Muscovites just sit tight, grin and bare it. Wrapped up in a womb-like cavity, away from the crowd, they can sit for hours. No wonder there are so many expensive cars here, as so much time is spent in them!" - an extract from Martin Parrs Blog.

Finan Mckinneys Photography Projects