Project Proposal Working Title How to be a photographer in a global pandemic-2020 Topic/theme My theme was primarily intentionally portraiture. However, due to the current global pandemic COVID19, I decided to take portraiture in a documentary style. The topic will be based on the lockdown in my home due to the virus but continuing to keep on top of being a student. The topic will be about adapting my life during these uncertain times to stay motivated and keep on top of my work. This will be achieved by documenting my life andadapting skills, techniques and ideasin order to continue working on my intended beauty portraits. During my research and experimentation process, an element that I enjoyed the most and I have apassion for is the studio portraits, both male and female. The female portraits in the beauty genre were something I have always wanted to play around with and create my own version of. The male portraits I created have an important deeper message about male masculinity that I feel is important to share. This is because following a body of research, I found that men were photographed in a certain way which emphasizes their masculinity. However, it is not often that you see a male photographed in a more delicate, gentle way, so I would like to voice a opinion that I do not think is heard enough. This emphasizes the fact that men are expected to be tough, but I want to show that it doesn’t have to be like that by breaking stereotypes through softer colours, unconventional poses and delicate props. I still want to create this style of work, but it will be harder to achieve during the pandemic. I am therefore merging the 3 ideas together by shooting beauty portraits both male and female along with documenting my life to share with others via social media and online sites. Context and audience The context of my work is based around COVID19 and the effect on me as a student and my studies. The intention of this idea is to show that life goes on despite the struggles in the world and working with limited resources. This will be very personal and intimate as it is encouraging me to stay positive and keep moving forward. I hope this concept encourages others going through a hard time to keep working towards where you want to be, despite anything holding you back. Although things may not initially go the way you had planned them, you can still create something you are passionate about and proud of. I will be shooting beauty style portraits with both male and female models, while also documenting myself doing so and experimentingin order to fit in with the COVID19 topic. My audience will be quite broad. The beauty style images alone which I will be photographing will be examples of the work I have adapted to create. My audience is based around the general public. I will be posting my work on Instagram and my blog, with the intention for others to see it and be inspired. People will see my work by following my photography Instagram page. The work will also be displayed on my blog, where I will use both my personal Instagram and my photography page to promote it to my followers. People will see digital copies of my work on both my blog and Instagram.
During this time, it is easy to fall into the negativity in the world and allow yourself to lose motivation in being productive and being creative. I hope other photographers, and other creatives look at my work and it encourages them that they can still work from home and create something that they didn’t think they could, given the current circumstances. The people who will see my work will be other photographers, and people who have an interest in photography/art and all publications will be done on my Instagram and my blog. Approach and Methods In terms of materials, I plan to use my iPhone camera to photograph my process and daily life. I will then use my DSLR and studio lighting equipment (beauty dish, diffuser, triggers, tripod) to photograph other types of images. As I have a mobile printer, I am interested in printing my process images from my phone onto paper to create a polaroid style, as I have previously worked with polaroid's in my past work and enjoyed the process and the look of the images.
As I feel as though I am trying to set a good example to others and help to motivate them to try doing something creative, I want to explore more materials also. I will also try using online editing software that others can access (both paid for and free) to edit their images in different types of ways. As well as digitally being creative, I will use resources which I have at home, and other creatives also might have to create something. I will experiment with things like lumens, acetate, gum bichromate, collage etc... This will help to give diversity in what others can take inspiration from. This will be shown in my testing and experimenting process. My main theme which I will create my final piece in will be portraiture, alongside my documentary process. I will try to experiment in the main ways that people can work from home, with the resources I have. Due to my final idea being a combination of all 3 of my ideas as I will be photographing beauty style portraits (both male and female) while documenting it during COVID19, I am going to continue research and experimentation on all 3 of my initial ideas.
Access to locations or studio I do not have access to a studio now. However, I do have generic studio equipment at home which I can use to create an at home studio. I have a light source, beauty dish with diffuser, triggers, tripod, reflector and my DLSR which I can use to make a small studio set up. I can either use plain walls in my house as the backdrop, or I could use the white side of the reflector as a plain backdrop. I do not have the access to other locations to shoot with, so I am limited to how I work. I can use different rooms/background inside my house. I can also shoot in my garden/front garden for a location style shoot. I will be limited to space, but I want to show all possible options of where to work. Time & budget My work must be completed by the end of May/early June. This is enough time for me to show my experimentation process, while also creating a final piece using the method that I enjoyed the most. I will keep on track with my planner in order to ensure all my work is completed in the given time frame. I also need to allow time for feedback and making changes accordingly. As I have most of the materials I need to work with already at home, I do not think I will have to work by a budget. I shouldn’t need to buy anything more than what I already have or account any money for fuel/parking as I will be working from home. If I need to buy any more materials and resources, I will order them online, but try to keep the costs to a minimum. This will make it more achievable for others to recreate. Research references I have massively been influenced by the Six Feet Photography Project (@lifeatsixfeet) to document daily life affected during this pandemic. The project also inspired me to be part of a community.This is important as being at home all the time means I spend a lot of time by myself, which leads to be feeling segregated from the outside world. Being part of a community is useful as it does not only inspire me to keep working on my photography work, but it reminds me that I am not alone.I will send them some images I have taken which they can use to publish on their Instagram or website.This could benefit me as it would be promoting my work and my page to a broader audience, while also supporting their cause. Their work which they publish on their page has inspired me in my documentary style. Also, the name which they go by has also inspired me. I plan to photograph “six feet” away from myself to fit into the topic of social distancing. I have found angles and poses which I can incorporate with this concept on Pinterest. I am also inspired by my peers, my college tutors and others I follow on Instagram. As we all follow each other's accounts on social media, I can see work they have created at home and the materials in which they are using. As they are in the exact same situation as me, I know that I can also create that type of work. For example, when I see that someone has just created a lumen, it reminds me that I have photographic paper and it is a very sunny day, therefore I can create my own style lumen too. This is the type of motivation I aim to pass onto others.