Long Exposures : Sleeping Couples

Long Exposures Reveal Movements of Sleeping Couples

A German Photographer Paul Schneggenburger created this photo series, entitled "The Sleep of the Beloved", in which he features the movements and motions of loving couples as they sleep.  For each image, the photographer arranges a bed in his studio apartment, creates a backdrop of black sheets, lights some candles, and leaves for the night.  He sets up a long exposure on his camera that is open for six hours, from midnight to 6am, which documents the interactions and distances that couples experience throughout a good night's sleep.

I think this is a fantastic idea, and really works well with my ideas.  This series is not fully about dancers, which is what is my main focus, although there is a big connection to dance from the photographer and about the series, (below) but I thought it was great to include.  This is perfect for the 'body' and 'body movements' which were my exact ideas to begin with, looking at how the body moves in certain situations and capturing the movements from start to finish.  I would like to try something like this out in the future.  I works great for my visual style of working with the body and how the body moves.  I also am fascinated at how we move unconsciously, and what controls our body, this is research I have looked into in my Mixed Media project where I am looking at connections between the Body & Mind, how the two connect and interact together and how we move unconsciously.

Schneggenburger questions:

"What happens to lovers while they are sleeping?  Is it a nocturnal lovers' dance, maybe a kind of unaware performed tenderness, or does one turn their back on each other?"

Without having an outside observer, sleeping couples can't really know how they interact while they rest.  This project captures the blurry dance of arms, legs and bodies as couples unconsciously, and often intimately, move throughout the night.  Some people overlap, merging in the middle as a white blob of tangled bodies, while others remain quite separate, almost sedentary as they enjoy their restful slumber.

This is a newly created series and was held in an exhibition on March 8, 2013.  I think it is exactly what I need within my research and am so glad that I found it.  The images are so peaceful and show how different we can all be.

Looking at all of the images above, what I think is great about this series, apart from the fact it is exactly what I was working with, body, mind, movements and blur motions, it also shows how each couple is completely different whilst sleeping, which in a way proves a couple personality.  There is so much I can work on from here.

I would love to try this out, and if I had found it earlier I probably would have.  I am still working with a dancer and will hopefully create a similar effect to this series, but I will take into consideration his six hour exposure as obviously, with a dancer it wouldn't need to be that long.  I look forward to looking into more long exposures with people.

Long Exposures Idea !!

I've looked at dance photography, and have known my subject was going to be about body motion and movements for quite a while now, but, originally I was looking into dance portraits moved on from my on location nude's.  I briefly looked at dance portraits on locations, like Ella Ruth's dance portraits, but I figured this would be quite difficult at this moment in time because of the bad weather.  

Once I had moved on from dance portraits on location and figured that wouldn't work, I focused on dance and creative movements with motion.  I looked into the history of motion photography and thought that this could be really creative.  So one perfect way of showing great motion is: Long Exposure's!!

Long exposures can be used with any genre of photography as most photographers know, common examples are of star trails, moving cars at night, or long exposures of flowing rivers or seas that creates a soft misty effect.  Long exposures can create beautiful imagery using lights and natural light.  And quite obviously, you can change the shutter speed to whatever you like to test different effects.  But for my project I am looking at 'the dancer' therefore I was wondering what research I could find  for long exposures and dance connected. 

Dancing can be fast paced or slow paced but is movements of the body in motion, so this is a perfect for showing long exposures because dancer move in all kinds of positions and ways.  I typed into Google, dancers in blurred motion, as seen below, and it came up with some quite interesting images.  One's that I really liked the look of.  I have seen many examples and ideas that I will share.  The dance idea stays but I need to look into long exposures with people. 

My Final Project Idea 

As you can see from some of the images above, motions of the body can be slowed down and exaggerated by long exposures.  The movements are captured for however long the exposure is for, in a blur until the shutter release.  This creates a smooth, blurry vision so you can almost see exactly what the dancer has done.  This is the effect I am going to be working on and what I am planning to do as my final ideas.  I have refined my research base and will show in the next few blog posts. I plan to have one dancer and get the to perform some dance moves and capture them with a long exposure and see the results.  

Inspiration: Ed Flores - Dance Photography

Ed Flores is a dance photographer who once had a medical scare and then became a photographer, completely out of the blue.  He had to learn from scratch, and read everything he could find about the field, but then ended up just teaching himself.  He says that he looked back at paintings by artist Carravaggio.

"Carravaggio was an artist who used Chiaroscuro; shadow and light to add depth, emotion and drama to his paintings, I was completely mesmerised and I realised how much I love light and shadow". Ed Flores. 

 He then learnt to use light and shadows as a tool in his photography.  He says that at first he wasn't very confident in the field and would "flick through magazines and wished with all my heart that I could produce work like that", which is very similar to how I personally feel sometimes.  He worked with dance first in 1996, for Jory Hancock, Head of the University of Arizona Dance Departments and had a job creating a body of Dance photographs for a magazine.  He says seeing his work on magazine covers made him more confident.

"Nothing I capture can ever do justice to the line, grace, beauty and passion of the dancer." "Dance is my passion. It moves me, it drives me and it humbles me". Ed Flores.

 I personally agree with his love of light and shadow, it's definitely why I have such a love and interest into nude photography and the 'body'.  Light and shadow can be used to make the body look beautiful in many different ways.

I have included Ed Flores Dance Photography as inspiration, because I think that his images are beautiful, and as he says, the justice of the dancer is what shows the beauty and grace of the images.  Props including, dust, material, reflections and ribbons are jus some that can make dance photography really creative.   The reason also for including him and his images within research is for getting the idea of dance positions that look great on camera.  I will hopefully be looking into using a dancer to work with body movements within the contemporary and ballet dance, to get motion images so knowing what looks good is great to help for my shoots. Here are just some of his dance photography images below:

 He mentioned before, lighting is a great thing when in comes down to the body.  Working with body shapes using just lighting can be challenging but so creative and effective.  As proven in his images, he has worked with a lot of different lighting techniques.  I like how some have different colours and tones in the images whereas some are just on a plain white background to make the dancer stand out.  There is a wide variety of what can be done with dance moves, so capturing them at the right moment takes skill and time.

Here below are images similar to ones that I used in one of my first few blog posts and I used them next to images of mine where I used the material throwing technique shown in these four images.  I think it looks fantastic.  I had a small piece of material because my studio is quite small, you can tell that these studios would have a huge amount of space for the dancers to create such big movements.  I included these at the beginning of my assignment because I wanted to originally look at dance portraits and maybe connect a theme.  Now I will just be looking at the movements and concentrating on exaggerating the movements.

Because I now want to exaggerate the dance movements themselves, my images will not be static dance portraits like these images here. I will be concentrating on a different effect with slow motion, motions and movements.  Although these type of images by Ed Flores are beautiful, it will have to be something I try on a later date with a bigger studio space but they still will be a great inspiration to me and my work.
At least looking at dance portraits has made me realise that I could be more creative with the point I am trying to make for my project.

Thinking about a Title

Thinking about a title for this Major Practical Project is going back to the feedback e-mail that I received from my Tutor after my proposal hand-in.  I listed a number of bullet points from the e-mail notifying myself of what I needed to complete to get on track.

My Tutor mentioned how I am working with a very interesting topic area and that there is many different ways possible to go with a topic like this, but also mentioned how;
"firstly, spending some time thinking about a title is really important, as it makes a big impact of how the project is read".

He also goes on to say that I need to narrow down the research to refine my visual style within the work.  I have briefly mentioned this in previous posts but I am currently on the narrowing down process in my research at the moment.

My Project Title

So, I have throughout my research so far, I have looked at nude & body photography, dance photography and am starting to look further into motion and slow motion photography, so my initial ideas for a title are;
'Body Movements'  or   'Body Motion'

But I think that these initial titles are maybe a little bit too simple, so I might go for;
'Body, Mind & Motion'

The reason for this last option is because within my mixed media project I have researched and looked into the connection between the body and mind, this is something that I can link to this project.  I also think that including the words 'body and mind' is a way to make viewers think about the images more and think about how the body moves throughout dance, which is what I am trying to show.  So I think this last option is what I will stick with at the moment.
I'd like to think that with a title like 'Body, Mind & Motion', the whole project would be read as a study into the body movements throughout dance, the mind connecting with dance and the motion used within the process of dance.  These are the three objectives that I am trying to convey so therefore the title would seem appropriate.

How 'Motion' fits in with My Ideas

As mentioned before in my Inter-linking post, my ideas consist of Motion, Body movements & Dance.

The question of; How does 'Motion' fit in with my ideas ??
I have a quite simple answer for this and it has been proved with some of my previous posts on this blog about the history of motion photography and the body in art photography.  I also have post of how my ideas have moved onto dance as a theme...
Dance, is a quite obvious way of showing how the body moves - so therefore is a great way of showing this in both of my projects.  Motion of the body will be shown using dance photography and dance filming.  The dancer/s will perform movements that I will capture in my creative photography ideas.

My idea so far has come from watching a short dance film in my mixed media project.  I have looked at many dance portraits and looked into motion photography, so the next step is more research into more dance photography and slow motion dance movements.  The slow motion will be great for showing what I am trying to achieve so I will consider focusing on the slow motion side.

So, the motion fits in perfectly as my ideas are basically motion photography.  I will show plenty more inspiration of artists and photographers with similar work of dance photography, slow motion photography and working with motion within photography, with all of these I will also, emphasise on the body shapes, tones and movements that the body can make whilst dancing.

Inter-linking Module's

At the beginning of my first term this University year, I had already had lots of ideas for this project floating around my head, ideas that have developed throughout my previous two years.  But one thing that was mentioned to us at the very beginning was that we could inter-link our projects together to make it a bit easier for us.  I thought that this was a great idea for me as I already knew that it would help me a lot on research purposes.  Having a similar idea for both my Major Practical Project and my Mixed Media assignments means that I will have a lot of research to back both projects and therefore makes looking for artists and photographers with similar ideas to my own, that bit easier.

The Actual Link
My main idea for this project was to develop from my rather successful nude images I created within my first year.  The nude images were on locations, one set inside a house by a window and the other set in a garden.  I really liked them and thought that they were great for giving me my initial style of work as it is a genre I am very interested in. Anyway, I wasn't exactly sure that I wanted to create more nude images for this project or to just work from them to a similar style, so my ideas changed into looking into the 'body' and 'body movements'.  Working with the human body and its shapes, tones and movements with nude, so that I am still exploring the look of the body through a nude/artistic and photographic way.

So, the link between the two projects is that one is purely photographic, this Major Practical Project, and the other includes the works of different medias, Mixed Media Project.  So i've decided to use the same topic of 'body & body movement' for both projects but to have different outcomes that look completely different.  Because of body movements, I have looked into dance photography and linking the body in with dance.  This is one big link in the topic I have chosen as dance is also one of the main focuses as well as the body as a shape and movements.  Here are what the two outcomes will hopefully be, ideas may change along the way:

Mixed Media: I am creating a short dance film, including one or more dancer/s that will be filmed from different angles and compositions or from a still camera, to create a 2/3 minute film, showing slow motion movements of how the body moves.

Major Practical Project: I will create a series of roughly 10 images showing either dance portraits or working with motion and motion photography of how a dancer moves, and capturing them in creative imagery.

The two projects will link through possibly using the same dancer for both.  This shouldn't be a problem as both project's outcomes and final creations will look completely different from one another. The same topic and similar styles will help with research as I may be able to use the same artists work to show but use them for looking at different aspects, for example; watching a dance film could give me an idea for a final image in my photo project whereas, looking at a certain angle of a photograph could give me an idea for my film.

Creating two similar-ish projects will also help my professional side to my photography as it will help me to create my 'style' of work in 'Suzi-Rae Photography'.

Overlook of the Module Objectives

So, this is just a blog post to reassure me of exactly what I need to do and what I need to have for the final hand in for this assignment.  I like to have a list of everything so that I can scroll back and use it almost like a tick list so I know I'm staying on track.  I was only going to list the module outcomes, but I'm going to run through everything that I need to do from the original brief, in simple bullet points as it's much simpler to read quickly. =)

Assignment Context:

• Submit a Portfolio of normally 10-20 Exhibition Standard prints, relating to the set theme,
• Have a copy of all images on DVD/CD, photographed and processed by me, 
• Images demonstrating acquired skills relating to my advanced photographic practice, 
• Portfolio is an Open Brief with a Critical Journal as a Blog (this blog), 
• Brief is down to me, explore other photographers that have done similar themes,
• Acknowledge other photographers work in my Critical Journal Blog, 
• The marks will be given at the Sidney Cooper Graduate Show.

Critical Journal:

• A written Statement of Intent (200-400words max), 
• Supporting Materials,
• Writings / Jottings / Influences,
• Test Strips / Contact Sheets, 
• Any rejected work,
• A critical Evaluation of Portfolio (one or two sentences per image),
• Any risk assessment paperwork. 

Module Objectives:

• Demonstrate the ability to define and produce a focused and sustained practical project,
• Manage effectively my own learning and report on work-in-progress to both, group and tutor,
• Display conceptual, technical and creative accomplishment and skill in photographic practice,
• Show in writing a critical engagement with the relationship between theory and practice.

Module Aims:

• To facilitate my development of an extended, independent and in-depth piece of visual research on a Programme-related topic,
• To encourage me to further pursuit of practice raised by work undertaken earlier in the course,
• To provide a forum for the culmination of my practical learning experience, 
• To promote my self-responsibility, organisation and problem solving skills from early conceptualisation through to exhibition presentation.

_______________________________________________________________________

I know that each bullet point made in this post is achievable for me with the ideas I have.  I need to be focused and positive towards my time management and my organising skills to be able to complete as much as I can do.  The approx. 10 final images will be produced and ready on a CD as well, as I know that will be easy, and so far on my blog I have shown inspirations and examples of my ideas. I know I have a lot more to show and influential work from other photographers that have work similar to my theme.  One thing I do need to think about it how I will display my images at the end of year Exhibition and how many images I will show, but this is something I can think about once this project is complete.

A Statement of Intent was originally wrote out in my first proposal, but I have since had changes to my ideas and my final outcome will be different to what I mentioned, so therefore, I will need to write out a new statement.  My writings and jottings, will be documented along the way, I just need to remember to include everything that I have seen, relevant to my them and style of work.  Rejected work is also something I will definitely include, once I have shot my final images, I will include previous shoots and ideas that have changed.  Evaluations will be last about my shoot and how my planning up to the shoot worked out.

As far as the Objectives go, I think demonstrating and producing a focused practical project should be ok for me as I am really interested in the style, theme and path that I am going along in my topic.  Learning my own work-in-progress is something I have already done, showing both my group my ideas and talking through the 'body' research I have done already with Tutors.  Conceptual, technical and creative accomplishment will be something shown once the final images are completed and a critical engagement between the theory side to all my work and the practice side will also be something explained and talked about near the end of the project and after the final images.

I aim to be able to tick off each module aim, by the end of the project.  I like to think that I usually do, but for this major practical project I am definitely going to keep checking them to make sure.  Independent and in-depth research is something I am currently undertaking with my photography related topic of 'body movements', self-responsibility and organisation, honesty, could have been better, but this is due to idea changes, but the problem solving from beginning to end of project will be used, as i have already.

Like I said, I will keep coming back to these bullet points to make sure I stay on track and complete everything I need to.