Wimborne turns on the Christmas lights ☼

The competition winners

This photograph is quite comical in the fact that both the mayor and winner are wearing red outfits with the black components as the whole reason behind the fact that the mayor wears this outfit is to give status and importance within the community and so by having the winner dressed like this, it almost overthrows the whole importance of the Mayor's role.

These 5 photographs are of the competition winners.
The mayor set a competition to the local school's in which was to "Document what you love most about christmas" through a painting in which the mayor and his wife then chose 4 pictures of what they thought were the best for each age group and then the four winner's were invited to come to this event and recieve a congratulatory scroll from the mayor and then they had the priviledge of turning on the Wimborne Christmas lights with the Mayor, town cryer and the scouts.

I was very priviledged to be invited to this event as Wimborne is such a tight-knit community and everyone knows each other, so this was a very special event for me as it's so different to that of Bournemouth and how I was brought up within Bournemouth.
This event also really boosted my confidence within myself and my photography as I went on my own and made my own contacts. Some of my photographs were then used within the Wimborne local newsletter.

Invitation from the Mayor

While carrying out my 'Wimborne in Bloom' investigtion I met the Mayor of Wimborne. He was very interested about my project and the reasoning behind it and so he invited me as a private photographer to take photographs of the 'Turning on of the lights' event in which the whole of the community of Wimborne gather together and start the celebration of christmas. From this my photographs would then be appearing in the wimborne community newsletter as a documentry of this event. 



This photograph above is quite fascinating with the warm hues and tonal ranges within it linking to the warm colours of Christmas. Another element of this photograph that catches your eye is the children who are all looking at something beyond the photograph which almost gives that sense of tension behind it as you don't know what their looking at. Because of the mystery of this photograph I decided to experiment with turning the photograph black and white and changing the brightness and contrast which would bring out the irony of what you cannot see.

I have also lightened the girl's face to the left of the photograph as I thought that this would work well with her being the element of the photograph that you look at first and it helps in balancing the photograph out.

I found that these three photographs worked really well together as they all have a common factor. At least one person within each photo is glancing to the left of the image. As well as this, you then have the colour elements of the photographs in which are all quite similar within the three photographs, with the last two having the dominant red tones and lastly the fact of why the people are all present within this one room. All being there to see the mayor.

I wanted to place the mayor as the second photograph out of the three because of the fact that all other beings are there because of his presence. They are all there to Turn on the lights and be there for the church.

Wimborne in Bloom

A community is not just where you live, it's a place where people support each other, a sense of a friendly neighbourhood and the people and environment around you that make you feel happy, safe and content. It's a sense of belonging and mutual interest.
A community is a place where people come together, work towards common goals and draw strength and identity from their surroundings, beliefs and each other.

These are the factors of which I wanted to capture within the photographs below.

Church atmosphere through the community

While I was looking through artists in which I could become inspired by, I found these rather intriguing photographs of Martin Parr's 'Working men's clubs' series.

The exhibition was one of four commissions for ‘Imaging the City’, in which he responded with his usual documentary style, and gently satirical take.
I found that the images were both an interpretation of Martin Parr's famous personality and an introduction to the modern day men's club.

 "It’s the dancing that I really like," says Parr. "Regardless of age, when those familiar numbers are played, up we all get, shaking our bodies and waving our arms, singing along."

“Our mutual pop history is part of our DNA. Often bands bring their own lighting to dramatise the stage show. With whirling colours and flashing lights, the heady combination of four generations dancing together was, for me, the highlight of this project.”

These photographs, to me, really show signs of a community and the way ours in rapidly developing into an ageing population. I am so intrigued how our elder population get excited and become enjoyable by the simplicities of life such as bingo or having a jig on the dance floor to the familiar songs of their generations.


This theory is something that I would like to explore into and study more about, as well as communicating and interacting with the elder generation through the church atmosphere and the mixing of myself who is from the youths of our community with the elder generations in which is very rare to see.

Not one church is the same

While venturing around different churches and their surroundings, I found that these four photographs worked really well together as they showed a good architectural surface of which really intrigued me. Each church is created in completely different ways and yet people still associate the familiar buildings as churches no matter what shape, size or surroundings.

The church is not the buildings, but the people who gather to worship. However, the buildings say something about the worship held within, and about the original intention of those who founded them. There are, and always have been, different buildings for different worship 'purposes'.  Cathedrals for the focus of worship of whole regions, to small chapels for simple ordinary prayer. Some church buildings had political importance, some not. Just by looking at these examples of different architectural buildings, you will find a range of diverse and unique witness to faith.

I decided to experiment with both the way I was standing and how I held the camera as well as using the light around me. For example in the photograph above I created almost a misty atmosphere by the way I reflected the light off of my camera lens and to take the photograph I decided to kneel on the floor in order to get a light abstract appearance to it.

This photograph in particular really caught my eye due to the angle at which I have taken the photo, by experimenting and using both the foreground and background. The gate works well and makes the photograph balanced as it of similar shape and angle as the clock tower of the church in the background. The blackness and colour of the gate also makes the church and church doorway stand out more from the background of which is another element of this photograph that I like. 

Playing with light

Here I was looking at how I could play with the light in the church and how the different dyes within the stained glass windows reflected onto the different brick works and surroundings.

I'm on my own

Moving on from the soliloquy task I decided that I wanted to delve into different possibilities of which could become a future project.
In preparation for a final project I decided to almost go back to the beginning and experiment with some of the visual elements such as lighting and composition.

Final soliloquy image

I have chosen this photograph to represent my soliloquy project that will be shown at our photography exhibition at the Lighthouse in Poole.

Choosing my own soliloquy image

Looking back through my Manchester photographs and my 'Rooting through the cobwebs' series of photos I found a selection of images in which I thought would work perfectly for my final soliloquy image and link well with the 'To-morrow and, to-morrow and, to-morrow' scene.

I don't feel that the two images above have a good contrast and if I were to use these then I would probably change the brightness and contrast to give a harsher tone in order to link better with my chosen soliloquy. I feel that they are too soft for the soliloquy I intend to use and so for the Macbeth scene I would want a much more dominant, almost harsher appearance to both the contrast ad model's face.

The four photographs above are present in my Manchester collection.

The contrasts between the harsh light on the model's face and the deep black background are a feature in which I found really striking and linked well with the terror and irony on Macbeth's emotions. The facial features of the model are also quite grotesque with the two images above in which give almost a wicked sense to them as though the devil is showing through her soft face. She has let out the horror of within.

The shadow on the above photograph is lovely and gives a softness to the appearance of the photograph, however I can also give the feeling as though there is someone else lurking in the darkness, which made me think of peter pan and how his shadow is always trying to get him in trouble, almost as though he has an evil twin

                                               

- much like that of Macbeth letting out his inner devil and evil emotions within the scene.

I love the photograph below as it really links to Macbeth and the fact that he is becoming nothing.

The light on my great nans face really shows that factor and it's almost as though shes going into the 'light' to the beyond. The way she is sat and her facial features show a shock of horror as though something has happened as well as her clutching the remote in a way that no-body else can have it. The way that no body else could be king if Macbeth wasn't going to be.

I like the way she is sat with her belongings around her in situe as well as the subtlety of the flower pattern on the cushion to the left hand side of the image in which links to funerals.

The photograph below has real potential for this task due to the way she is shaking her fist as though she is angry, almost as though she is shaking her fist to life and the fact that she has beaten it.



Although I am really fond on the Manchester photographs as the top of this post, I have decided to take this soliloquy task to a deeper level. I found that the Manchester photographs of the model work well on linking to Macbeth's scene on the surface but I felt that they didn't really have any meaning behind them. They linked more due to the visual elements and contrast values.

I felt that if I used a photograph of my great nan, this would link much better to the soliloquy in question with an emotional value, the photographs don't just scratch the surface, they link to Macbeth in many ways including both mind and spirit.

Rooting around the cobwebs

I remember when I used to play with these when I was younger but now they are dusty and unused. Her whole house is deterierating just the same way as my great nan is.

Macbeth's 'to-morrow and, to-morrow, and to-morrow' scene is very much about the fact he is becoming nothing.

This series of photographs are almost a symbolisation of 'becoming nothing'. I took inspiration from my great nan for these shots as she is now 93 years old and she has many illnesses such as dementia and arthritus in which have caught up with her in old age.

I hadn't seen her in a while and so when I went to see her I immediately associated her presence as the same a Macbeth's.

Her speech is slurring and she is becoming quite violent vocally and in the way she speaks to you.

When looking through out photos of her, to me, I can see that she is just a shell of her former self and is 'becoming nothing' in a sense that she has lost her personality as well as her former being in which she has almost now turned into a juxtaposition of herself.