Inspiration

I find quotes, words, lyrics very inspirational and have always been able to visualise easier with text involved. So I decided to look into quotes about roadtrips, driving and journeys for inspiration and also that could potentially be put with some of the images I intend to shoot.

"All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware." - Martin Buber

"The road of life twists and turns and no two directions are ever the same. Yet our lessons come from the journey, not the destination." - John Williams Jnr.

"Too often travel, instead of broadening the mind, merely lengthens the conversation." - Elizabeth Drew

"No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow." - Lin Yutang

"A journey is best measured in friends rather than miles" - Tim Cahill

"Too often we are so preoccupied with the destination, we forget the journey" - Anonymous

"I hoped the trip would be the best of all journeys, a journey into ourselves" - Shirley MacLaine

"Journeys end in lovers' meeting; every wise man's son doth know" - William Shakespeare

"Life is a journey that must be traveled no matter how bad the roads and accommodations." - Oliver Goldsmith

"One always wonders about roads not taken." - Warren Christopher

Below is the inspiration spider diagram, I'll start exploring more of the photographers and inspiration sources now. I will also be going on a short road trip to experiment and make some images. I'm travelling to London on Friday and intend to make a series of stills from this.

Further exploring my idea

Here's another spider diagram where I further explore my idea of Journeys/Road Trips. I thought about the general concepts of the two things but also tried to come up with some initial ideas of what to photograph and make videos on. The ideas are in boxes. I've photographed it and included it below. (Click to make bigger)


I'm going to begin looking at inspiration for the project and photographers. Firstly, I'm going to sit down and do another spider diagram of the inspiration I can come up with and then I'll start exploring things more thoroughly.

Ideas

The next project was set to us yesterday. The idea is to develop on the things we've learnt or to get ideas from the mini-project we just undertook. The purpose is research and development and so to begin with I did a spider diagram of the initial idea that most interested me and a couple of others that are more rough. I did it in my notebook while I was in the library and then photographed it to put on here.



The next thing I'm going to do is take the title of Road Trips, Journeys and do another spider diagram that explores the idea more thoroughly and then also an inspiration hunt, looking at songs, videos, photographs that inspire me and will help me.

I have several initial ideas that I can experiment with as well.

Feedback...

The point of watching the videos made from the swapping materials exercise, was to learn something, to find inspiration and to get us to think. So I’ve typed up a few of the notes for each one (though I‘m waiting to watch the rest when they‘re posted on blackboard).

Debbie/Alex/Olivia/Jo :- The video was still images of a person’s journey to university and they did a short, quickly edited piece using about six of the stills and mixing in text. I liked the use of text to add a meaning, though at times it was so fast it looked like subliminal messaging for cigarettes as the word cravings kept flashing up and then an image of a cigarette bin. I think the intention was more for quitting smokers but I didn’t really see it that way. The sound (a heart rate) was also good but I thought it could have been better used. For example if it had sped up when the video did this would have been better.

Bryony/Greg/Robert:- This group was given a video to edit. The footage they received wasn’t the best. One guy had to film it all himself last minute and so he’d gone to the park to do so. This meant the range of shots was pretty wide, but it didn’t really have a narrative. The group decided to edit the footage together but concentrate more on the sounds. As it was all natural things and footage of nature they went for industrial sounds. I liked the idea of the contrast, seeing and hearing two things is good but a wider range of sounds would have made me like it more. There was one brilliant use of sound though- the noise of an aeroplane taking off when on screen you could see pigeons flying.

Hector/Faye/Alex/Ant/Adam:- This group also got video to edit. They had a wide range of shots of a girl and a boy walking around and used these cleverly to create a different narrative. Their sound was crucial to the project. Using just one word, experience, to create the entire soundscape was really clever and helped to build up tension. You had the feeling that something was going to happen and someone was sinisterly following. The only problem they had was their footage didn’t really have an ending but I quite liked the open ending, it meant you could pick your own conclusion as to what happened to the characters.

Alex/James/Lizzie:- They were given the stills from the previous group. The idea from the stills was bridges but the group picked up on one of the random photographs left in there of an old man cycling. It basically made it a really interesting video and my favourite of the ones we watched. The idea they pulled from such a simple idea was very original and not one that anyone expected. They used text to help build an amusing and inventive narrative. The editing itself was also good but pretty simple; it was more the idea and the text that made it so good.

Swapping our transitional spaces images

Ok, so we showed our images to the class and briefly discussed our ideas before swapping with another group (Jade, Alex and Vicky) and exchanging our images for their video footage. They had warned us that they didn't have that much footage, and we were having problems getting a time when we could all meet up, so we decided on Monday to edit it.

When we got to the footage there was around three minutes, but the problem was it was mostly a continous shot of a person getting up in the morning and half of it was a retake of certain shots. We began to think how we could edit it and decided to use the fact that they'd re-filmed certain shots and that the continuity wasn't right.

The idea behind our edit was to show that there was more than one person in the house, it was the process of several people getting up and finding different things. We implied there'd been a party the night before and that they were remembering certain things and regretting certain things. The overall result we got wasn't really a finished piece because we ran out of time. It's a piece I wasn't happy with and it was strange to have not had the control over what was shot and the lighting.

It was an interesting experiment to swap material with another group but I prefer being in control of the thing I'm going to edit by having filmed it and shot it myself.

The video to go with the sound project

Here is the video that me, Dani and Jan produced. The still image running throughout the video was taken by Jan and the sounds we collected/recorded ourselves.

Sound Project

We were also given a sound project to do. A thirty second clip based around sound. As that is the important aspect of the project, we decided from the offset to concentrate on that and just use a still image for the thirty seconds. Wanting to create a contrast and disorientate the viewers, make them thinking about the sounds we chose a tranquil reflection photograph shot while out on location. Then we recorded lots of sounds you’d usually find in the city and just several that we heard near the place we made the stills.

The sounds we recorded (as it‘s still based on transitional spaces) were:-

A van that was moving things, creating loud, banging sounds
Leaves crunching under foot in the park
Joggers in the same park
Ducks
The waterfall area on the river
A cleaner set up by the river
Traffic on the road above the river, next to the park
People talking, walking beneath a canal bridge, echoes
Footsteps
A dog walking through grass

Using nearly all of these (not the dog walking through grass as the sound had talking on it) we created a soundscape that contrasted the photograph, barring two sounds. But the layering of typically city and urban sounds with these created the desired effect. When we showed it to the group the feedback we got was that the waterfall sounded too much like static, but we had considered that at the time.

The video is to follow.

My photos for the group

During the weekend I did a lot of travelling which gave me the perfect opportunity to capture my images. I went home to Grimsby and also to London and below are several of the images I’m contributing to our group’s 20 from these two journeys. This first one (and the second) is from Grimsby, a disused, run down car park in the centre of town.




The next was taken from a motorway bridge on my journey back to Leicester. The road is the M180 in Lincolnshire and I liked the slight curve of the road and the Grimsby skyline in the distance.



This third one was taken on the tube on my journey to London. It’s more abstract but I really liked the way the light was coming in through the windows and doors and blinding me as the sun began to set.



These last two are from a scrap yard in Grimsby that I had to visit. It’s more of a metaphorical addition to the theme. The idea was to symbolise that isn’t only us who experience journeys. That the transport we use also has its own journey. This could one day be the end of all of our cars or perhaps even one of my parent’s old cars could be in here.



Between the three of us we now have twenty images to swap for some video, which excites me as I have no idea what to expect and means we get to edit down some video and create our own take on someone else’s work.

It will also be interesting to see how people use our twenty images, whether they find the pictures to mean the same things, link to each other in the same way or if they’ll come up with an entirely new meaning for them.

Discussion

(A slightly late entry due to the loss of internet for four days, thanks Virgin Media). Meeting with Jan and Dani to discuss the ideas was interesting. Each of us had our own separate ideas but the one we came up with was a compromise that suited all three. We were thinking more in terms of location at first, intending on keeping a set of images limited to one location. We went to the Cemetery on Welford Road and made some images, but we didn’t take as many as we wanted, so we went away to think about other locations.

Below are several of the images we made at the cemetery. The idea was to show the use of Graveyards and Cemeteries as transitional spaces. Not only are they a transitional space for someone who’s buried there, the place between their passing or the space between life and death. They are also transitional spaces for those who visit it. This particular one has walkways through which people use as a cut-through, giving it many uses.




Because we didn’t get as many as we would have liked, we began to think of other ideas or of extending our ideas to fit the theme. The result we came up with was journeys in general. It still fits into our theme of life and death but under the premise of journeys.


The physical journeys we take.
The emotional journeys we take.
Places we visit or use on the journeys but that we wouldn’t otherwise, or that we don’t pay attention to.


We each decided to contribute several images to the total due to places we were visiting at the weekend. My next post will be looking at the inspiration behind mine and the images themselves.

Ideas

For the project I'm in a group of three but our plan was to go home and each come up with an idea or several and then tomorrow to share and discuss them after our lecture and pick one. I'll report back on what happens on that front.

My ideas would be slightly different if it was to be filmed, but as we are doing still images that will be made into a video, I tried to think more in terms of photography and a sequence or a related theme that could be turned into something poetic:-

1) Man's impact on transitional spaces:- This could be looking at graffiti, or notes, or even things like chewing gum on the floor. It could also be things that people leave behind. Newspapers and magazines left on buses or trains as well as litter and anything else. I've seen wallets, jackets, books and more left behind in transitional spaces.

2) Transitional spaces reflecting emotions:- The journey of still images would follow a person (male or female?) on their journey to somewhere. It will be a journey that uses varying transitional spaces and the purpose of their journey is to meet somebody. They have a letter from someone important to them that at first they don't want to open but gradually begin reading and it changes their mood (idea is for the worse but up for discussion) and this is reflected in the transitional spaces which begin darker, more scruffy and run down until they end up somewhere abandoned or severely run down.

3) The differences in transitional spaces:- The way that for us electrical lines aren't a transitional space and are something which provides a service. Yet for birds they are something to sit and rest on. So my idea would be to look at the alternative transitional spaces. Humans also find them and it could be interesting to look at places that wouldn't normally be considered this.

The inspiration for this came from a walk and seeing birds sat around. My next job is to draw up some thumbnails for the above ideas (and scan them in) and discuss my ideas and see what my group have come up with and come to an agreement.

Begining research!

The first thing I thought of when the project was explained was a music video from one of my favourite bands. It's particularly relevant as they made it from still images as well as video. It is sort of stop animation style but it's the parts that feature transitional spaces, like the roads and the car park that I'm particularly interested in.


I have also taken screencaps of my favourite parts below...


The top two are from a scene where they basically filmed the clock and slipped the camera in and out of focus and then sped it up post-production. Obviously the clock isn't really transitional space but the process of how they filmed it interests me.

It gave me the idea that you can track time in a transitional space by filming it for an hour (for example a train station or bus stop) and change the focus or possibly even angle to explore how the transitional space is used.

The final three screencaps are the ones that interest me most. As I travel and drive a lot I spend a lot of time in those kind of transitional spaces:- cars, buses, trains, motorways and the service stations that line them. I have previously experimented with achieving a similar effect to the ones they get in the video, which you can see below.

They were taken during a period when I had to go to Hull hospital every day for three weeks and to pass the time I experimented with light trails and the transitional spaces available. They were deliberately shot to be astract and not focused as the days began to blur for me and the journey became so familiar, I became so blasé about it that nothing stood out to me anymore and it all just passed me at 60 miles an hour.











Because there are still many other types of transitional space to explore and more ideas I am going to continue searching. However, travelling and the transitional spaces related to that do seem to inspire me most, so this is something I may come back to.

Transitional Spaces

Ok, so the first project was set today. It is a video project on 'Transitional Spaces'. I shall be working in a group and we will be taking 20 still images, before swapping the idea with a group who have filmed something, they will then take on our project and we will edit and make something from theirs.

Firstly, what do we mean by 'transitional spaces'? I decided to see how it was defined first. I took the words apart and looked at transition first,

I believe that transitional spaces are places that we use frequently but that often don't hold much importance for us. They are places we use to reach a destination or to accomplish something. Examples of transitional spaces include lifts (elevators), motorway service stations and everyday places or things like car parks, buses and even cars.

Something that fascinates me with transitional spaces is the fact that you don't really think about them, they don't seem important and you don't tend to consider them a part of your day, but they're an important part of life. The things we do in them and the way we pass our time in them makes them more than just spaces. By using them we give them character and make them places rather than just spaces. Often if the space is a private one (such as a car, or a room) we end up making it reflect us as people and our passions.

The idea that we have an influence on the transitional spaces (the things we do in places, graffiti, chewing gum stuck to furniture etc. and things left behind in transitional spaces, eg. newspapers left on trains) also works both ways. Sometimes it is the transitional spaces themselves that have an effect on us. For example, a bus that is late or doesn't show up inconveniences us and we could end up talking to a stranger or altering plans, getting a drink or doing some shopping while we wait for the next bus.

While researching this I came across someone who's instillation project makes use of transitional spaces. They set it up in the Siemens World Headquarters in Munich and people walking through the lobby come entrance set off the instillation, bringing up photographs on a big screen. You can view this project here.

Now that I've considered what transitional spaces are, I can research on the idea and come up with my own ideas for still images that can be turned into a video.