Travelling to London for the university was my first long-term venture outside my own city Birmingham, I was not sure on what to carry at the start of the academic year which ended up in me spending unnecessary spending money on moving stuff I did not use once in my time attending Central Saint Martins, so I put together a list of twenty-six items I am not leaving without the next time I settle in the city of London and organizing them in various ways using some of the aspects from the LATCH organization system (Location, Alphabet, Time, Category and Hierarchy) using a digital photobook.
With how my week 3 project went I decided to take a step back and simplify things, so I removed everything I found to be unnecessary. Removing the coloured lighting was my first thought as it could take too long to find what colour worked with what objects. The second thing to go was the voiceovers, I felt that if it is going to exhibit the object it should do most of the speaking, ‘show, don’t tell’. Last was the whole concept of making a separate short video for every object, it was not needed and the effect I was trying to create with it needed a camera with a little more power to be recorded to the quality I wanted it to be, also the editing and rendering time would be too much with the time I had.
What I am keeping is the lighting and studio setup. Without colour the black backdrop would not look as well as a white backdrop with lighting, I want the light to bounce all over the objects, illuminating them. I used sheets of A4 and A2 paper to build the white backdrop and also made two white podiums to assist in holding up objects, the idea behind making them white was an effort to not remove as little focus from the objects.
I thought about using Photoshops ‘Merge to HDR Pro’ feature but I found it to be limiting without a way of suspending the lighting as I was using both hands in operating the lights and after doing some experimental photos I found that I could not to make it work with the method I was using, I had no time to research and revise my method so I dropped the concept.
My thought when taking the photos was to treat the objects as if I were selling them online, I tried to show their merits and make them as appealing as possible. My second thought was to make the photo look reasonably interesting, this meant using shadows and highlights to create an interesting contrast and playing with the positioning of the objects. I looked at a lot of apparel sights and even pop opened the old Argos catalogue to get an idea of how they show off the features of an item, I found that most take multiple photos which were not attractive to me, I wanted to fit everything I can in one single photo like I did with the first week but on a per-object basis.
I used a digital contact sheet with the help of photoshop.
Editing was kept to a minimal, I wanted to see what could achieve with a phone, camera, tripod, 2 desk lamps and paper. Cropping was the only editing I used, I had the photos cropped into squares to control the space and to hide any unwanted things in the frame.
Pre-Crop
Cropped
The theme of these set of 26 objects are the same as week 3,
objects that are personal to me, small enough to fit in my mini studio and I will
be taking with me to London. I did make a few changes with some of the items
because of size or accessibility to the object like my phone which I was using
to take the pictures or my wallet I simply can not find.
The revised list:
Alarm Clock
Bookbinding Kit
Cocoa Butter
Durag
Earphones
Family Photo
Flask
Glasses
Headphones
Iron
Keys
Lucky Watch
Mini Canvas
Mini Tripod
Mouse
Clipping Kit
OFFBLACK Tea
Pencil Case
Piggybank
Sketchbook
Skipping Rope
Slippers
Student ID
Toiletries
Tv Remote
Xbox Controller
Outcome
I was not sure on how to present photos on an online open exhibition so I settled for a digital photo book, with objects sorted into categories, I will come up with the how I will categorise everything as I edit the photobook. Below is only the cover, I am really not a fan of the title font, other than that the rest I’m happy with. I will add a full PDF after I have slept. I noticed that 17. Clipping Kit is out of place.
Caption
Ismail TNI Sansui
26 ITEMS
Traveling to London for university was my first long-term venture
outside my own city Birmingham, I was not sure on what to carry at the start of
the academic year which ended up in me spending unnecessary spending money on
moving stuff I did not use once in my time attending Central Saint Martins, so I
put together a list of twenty-six items I am not leaving without the next time I
settle in the city of London and organizing them in various ways using some of
the aspects from the LATCH organization system (Location, Alphabet, Time, Category and Hierarchy)
using a digital photobook.
The 13 new Items are based on things I interactive daily and have a deeper meaning to me. Items 14 to 26 are the added items.
Glasses
Doorag
Dressing Gown
Flask
Laptop
Alarm clock
Earphones
Ironing Board
Slippers
Wallet
Lucky Watch
Phone
Cocoa butter
Toothbrush
Desk
Bag
Dark Knight Poster
Book Binding Kit
Keyboard Mouse
Camera Stand
Headphones
Office chair
Skipping Rope
Vests
Mirror
Nail Clipping Kit
Audio Recording
After testing all the recording options I have I found that simply using my phone was the better choice, it has an app that is capable of isolating individual voices in a conversation, very useful when I’m working with one mic and I want to make some edits using Adobe Audition.
Film Recording
The visual representation of the exhibits(items) will be through a video recording of each object illuminated by shifting coloured lights within a dark room and black backdrop. I felt that still, images were a bit boring hence the recording, the lights were inspired by a previous project where I did something similar but for the purpose of photography.
images of the previous project:
I would like to have photographs of each of the items as a thumbnail for each video but to also serve as a typology set on a white canvas, which could be the web page background.
Sketch of typology on website and website concept:
Process
I’ll use to lamps with coloured translucent objects to create the light show, I want a dynamic and intense shine and glow to radiate from the object so ill be holding the lamps really close to the item and also moving them around franticly to get a blend of colours. Each item has its own texture and behaves differently when reflecting light so this method will be adjusted to suit each of the items.
Photo of the lamps I am using:
I am using a camera stand to hold my phone still while it records, the stand will be adjusted depending on the size of the item so I will have to organize them in order of size to minimize the number of adjustments to the camera’s position.
Photo of my tripod:
I’ll be using the slow-motion program on my phone’s camera to slow the movement of the lights and make the shimmering last long. If I had more time with this, I would record each object from multiple angles and have fade in transitions which I will now use in transitioning between items for the purpose of the project.
Quick Revisions
I have removed the ironing board and have replaced it with my iron, they both have different functions but I feel the iron is more essential to me as the iron does not need the board to do its job, it is also much easier to manage.
Photos of ironing-board vs iron:
I initially had my family members present in the description’s audio recordings, but I found it hard to keep them on the subject and having multiple voices took away from the calm atmosphere I was trying to produce. They did help refine my questions and build my recording confidence.
The recordings are being edited I will have one item recording up before the whole video because of render time bare with me. I’m also adding the audio tests on a SoundCloud link to an unlisted playlist.
I’ll update this post with my process by the end of the week, this is a trilogy of posters inspired by infographics and classroom textbooks like Edexcel. The posters are designed to be viewed both online and as a physical print.
