NO VACANCY INN
"NO VACANCY INN" is the creative lovechild of London raised DJ Acyde and New York native and creative consultant Tremaine Emroy. The duo spend their time flying all over the world hosting parties for brands and designing clothes for their own brand, aside from being involved in the party scene they act as consultants for household names such as Stussy, Frank Ocean and most recently they helped co-ordinate the release of Kanye Wests newest project "YE". The NO VACANY INN was established as the duo's attempt at re-creating the pre internet sensation of consuming culture from places such as record shops and vintage stores. After a few years the creative hub has positioned itself as the heart of culture in the digital age. For me both ACYDE and Emroy act as large inspirations when it comes to the way that they approach creativity, they both are so involved with street culture and art that just sticking to one form would be counter productive, this resinates with me a lot and has shown me that it isn't a bad thing to not stick to one art form. |
NICK WAPLINGTON
Waplington is a British artist based in London and New York, his career has spanned over 30 years initially starting as a photographer. In 2014 he became the first living British photographer to have a solo exhibition at the Tate, since then his artistic platform has expanded to paintings and drawings. Part of the reason why I am attracted to the artist is that he has been able to create a fluidity between all of his different interests resulting in him being able to literally create whatever he pleases. Each project that he has completed is almost entirely different to its predecessor, this type of versatility is proven in the contrasts between his project with the late and great Alexander McQueen where he acts as a documenter creating a a bank of pictures showing the creative process during the final show by McQueen and his project "The indecisive memento" which in many ways was an ode to Cartier Bresson's "The decisive moment". Waplington once stated that his practice is what ever he can do in the space of day, this resinated heavily with me. |
Over the summer and in recent months I have been experimenting with new processes inspired by the works of the Japanese abstract photographers such as Diado Moriyama and Miyako Ishiuchi. I was initially attracted to their works due to the raw and rough nature of the images. I read an article stating the influence of Moriyama's fascination with the dark underbelly of Tokyo, in his fifty year career his works have shaped the style of street photography.
The almost lo-fi and grainy black and white photographs paint a dark and moody image of a city often praised for its vibrancy and bright tone. This specific genre of Japanese photography was spawned in an attempt to explore the changing cultural traditions in a post war Japan. Ishiuchi approaches photography in a similar way, her photography is dark often with high contrasts creating a feeling of welcome change met with the natural feeling of nostalgia and a desire for past times. I wanted to expand my photographic styles past simple portraiture and documentation, I began my process by looking how I could translate the works of Moriyama into my photography, I used my phone as the camera and started to obscure the subjects by zooming in extremely close, to differentiate my experiments from the catalyst I took the photographs in colour, I also feel that by doing this I made the images personal to me (relating back to my interest in colour photography). I plan to continue this process using 35mm film, to truly capture my desired process in photography |
A selection of images by Diado Moriyama and Miyako Ishiuchi.
|
This is my favourite image out of the collection, aside from the purpose of this project the image is being used as the cover for my music groups upcoming album "Floating Minds". The colour gradient acts as the state change for the image, dark blue into light. The composition of the image also is a large factor in why this is my favourite from the set, the position of the handshake provides a balance between the colours. I edited the image in photoshop and enhanced the colours to create a waxy and euphoric feeling. |
This image taken from Kleins's photobook "Life is good and good for you in New York", it shows a collection of young children gathered around a small tree.
The main focal point of the image is the shirtless boy sporting a hat in the middle of the image, his extended arm covers the face of a child behind him, surrounding him the majority of the children are smiling or striking poses apart from one boy to his left who appears to have been caught not paying attention and one boy to his right whose face is hidden by the central boy. The shadows caught in the photograph are deep blacks contrasted by the bright white school shirts sported by many of the children sitting around the bottom of the photograph. Klein's image shows an almost youthful excitement and innocence, the joyful expressions clearly depict this. |
The concept of denotation in photography allows us to view an image purely at face value ; the subject of the photo is purely as it seems within the context of the image.
An image of a clown walking at face value is exactly as it seems without drawing connotations. |
To draw connotations from an photograph you would have to look deeper than the pure face value of the subject.
Connotations may provide more social, cultural, historical or personal meaning to the photograph. |
DENOTATION: The image shows three hands digging through crates of Jazz, Soul and Funk Vinyl records. The names of the genres are written on red and green cards.
CONNOTATION: To an observer the image could recall memories of listening to similar styles of music or in fact digging through stacks and stacks of Vinyl at a record shop. STADIUM: The Stadium of the image are the three pale arms and hands and the bright red and green labels scattered throughout the entirety of the image, the arms appear from the left hand side. PUNCTUM: The Punctum of the image is the written genres scribbled onto the red and green coloured cards. The genres could possibly bring about joyful and cathartic feelings for an observer allowing them to recall fond memories. |
For the last year and a half I have been creating small zines in and out of school, for the photo book element to the A-level course I created mock up zines showcasing my images in order before I actually got the book printed, I have predominantly have used my own images up and till now.
My most recent experiment saw me combine my photography with other interesting pieces like a word search. The result of the experiment was a zine titled "INERTIA", I chose this title because I feel as if it reflects the content perfectly, the idea of resisting change is something that I feel my generation claims to reject. |
Jessica Haye and Clark Hsiao are photographers based in LA, the couple met whilst studying photography at the art centre college of design in Pasadena. The art produced by the collaboration often explores themes of intimacy and family life, they also shoot lookbooks and commercial campaigns.
Haye and Hsiao's photography captures their family values and morals, a common factor within their images is that children will often be the subjects, this captures a certain innocence and lack of understanding of the world. The photograph embodies a child like innocence and carefree state of mind, many of these themes are explored through "Blonde". After doing some research I learned that the girl in the photograph was a family friend of Haye and Hsiao, she sat in the back of the family car on her way to visit her own late mothers memorial service. It becomes clear that due to her age she is unaware of the situation fully, overtime as she grows out of her youthful innocence . The image taken by Haye was credited as a creative stimulus for the 2016 Frank Ocean album "Blonde", after over year of writers block he was able to create an almost perfect album in response to the image. In a letter seen in his Boy's Don't Cry zine he speaks in detail about his connection to the image. |
"Hot Mess" is the creative lovechild of photographer and musician Noah Dillon and Model Luka Sabbat. Within the collective Dillon handles the photographic side of the project whilst Sabbat is the artist director. Since 2016 the duo have curated exhibitions in both Los Angeles and New York displaying their photography and installations. The duo first met online when Sabbat claimed to want to work with Dillon, the result of the collaboration is a collection of images and installations that often are fairly abstract in narrative and structure. |
Whilst on our visit to the Brighton Photo bi-annual I decided to shoot images for my final project. The combination between the oversized suit and the beautiful beach perfectly captured the essence of my project.
My personal favourite image taken on the beach was a landscape shot in which the subject stood almost directly central in the frame. The background of the photograph captures multiple shades of blue across both the sea and the sky. The expression caught on the face of the subject presents an array of interpretable emotions, just by looking at him you could potentially see pain or confusion. |
ROE ETHRIDGE "NEIGHBORS"
Ethridge's photo book "Neighbors" is a collection of the artists work spanning over 15 years, the style of the book captures both his conceptual and commercial works. The photographs often are deadpan, cold and candid reflections of American family life combined with both abstract iconography and farm animals. The book causes the mundane to appear as peculiar and unsettling, the subjects of the photographs are often friends or family of Ethridge tying back to the title of the project. Roe Ethridge has a portfolio of similar projects such as 2016's "Shelter Island". I was first drawn to the book because of the style in which the photographs were taken, I am greatly fascinated by the ideas of family that are explored within the book, the deadpan style of the photographs allows one to think back into their own lives to similar events. The combination of both original photography and found imagery also is a point of influence for me going into my personal project. |
Noah Dillion
Noah Dillion is a photographer and musician from Colorado most known for his part within the Hot Mess art collective. He personally defined his art as "Nature meets city. Isolation meets the antonym." He has been involved in commercial projects with fashion and sports brands such as Virgil Abloh's Off White as well as Nike and Northface. The photographs often take on a surreal approach towards typical fashion photography, visually the images are rich in colour, texture and concept, his most recent project follows him creating fake billboards for designer fashion brands and placing them in strange and obscure locations. |
This was an image displayed during Dillion's first "HOT MESS" exhibition in New York. The image is seductive and surreal, I can infer that it was taken in a warm location, most likely Los Angeles due to Dillon often residing in the west coast city.
The model is positioned slightly off centre in the image, she is photographed wearing only underwear and a long black jacket, the colour of the clothing creates a disruption from the blue tinted white walls that take up the majority of space within the shot, a further disruption is the running Dog which moves from the right side of the image to the left. |
What can you see in this photograph? The image consists of two pages from the "Red Sky" zine. The left hand side shows an image of tree taken from behind a window, the pale grey sky is distorted by a wave of red that envelops the majority of the image. Above the image is a short statement. The right hand side of the page is built up of three images of a model posing in and around a surreal setting. She is wearing a work place attire, this ties in with one of the core narrative points of my project. |
Andy Warhol (Burger)
Initially, my exploration into the incorporation of the pop culture images was purely experimental and surface level, at the time I was focused purely on aesthetics and not on substance, however over time I began to think about how much of an impact advertising and “pop” culture has had on us as a society. I began to view my abduction of seemingly unrelated imagery in a similar way to how I interpreted the famous performance art piece by the late Andy Warhol where he is seen to simply eat a hamburger. To me the sarcastic yet genius video represents the consumeristic views of our Western society, my zines act almost as a guide through our culture of consumerism, predominantly the entertainment that we have the ability to consume through means such as the internet. |