For these selection of photos i was asking the question, 'Are you happy?'
i then followed the question up, after getting the response, 'Why?' and
'is this effected by an urban environment?'
Here are the results i got.
This is Adam, he lives in London and is moving to bath in the summer.
I approached Adam as he had a friendly face and was dressed in a formal attire. After greeting myself i asked him the question 'are you happy?' His response,
'happy. i think happiness is something that you choose for yourself. My version of happiness? yes. Where i am in life and the opportunities that i have been shown, im quite content.' after his response i asked; 'do you think that living in an urban environment effects your happiness?' he responds
'moving away from one urban space to another really brings you out as a person, you learn how to love yourself. I am building on myself and im more than happy to do so.'
Here is Tim, after Adam i decided to focus on someone of an older generation. I ask Tim the same question and his response was 'i am happy yes. I have everything i want.' I asked if an urban environment effected his emotion, as he had lived in the country and in a city, he replies 'it does effect your happiness. I think for the better. In a built up environment you have everything you need.'
This here is Alex. When i asked Alex if he was happy or not he said 'Yes, id say im happy. Im in a good place in my life, im surrounded by good people, my girlfriend and i are in an healthy relationship and while im in the RSPCA i like to help all living beings.' We continued to chat about his love for the RSPCA and after a little conversation i asked him if he thinks an urban environment will effect his happiness. He said 'I think it does effect it, i live on the edge of bristol. But i would love to live in the country as i wanna have loads of animals and children.'
Here is Hannah, She is a student at bath university. I first approached her because i thought she had a friendly face. We ended up having a bit of a chat in which i asked the questions. She said 'im extremely happy, i am lucky because of the uni that i go to. I also have found my long term friends which is nice.' When i asked if the urban environment would effect her happiness her response was ' i do, i think the freedom you can get in the country is unmatched however theres just so many things you can do in the city'
The next series of photos are people who agreed to have their photo taken, but didnt have the time to answer some questions.
These people were to busy for their photo to be taken, however from the looks of them they look like they were having a good day. In which i can assume they are generally happy.
After conducting this social experiment/ report, i can confer that the general populous of an urban environment is, within a majority, happy. Although most of the people i asked refused to have their photo taken. I am going to deem it down them being busy during work hours.
reflection
Because of the lack of compliance with people wanting their photo taken, i didnt fully get the result i was hoping for. I wanted to have a way bigger report on the matter, so if i were to do this project again i think id allow myself more time. I also had a analogue roll that didnt develop. That set me back a lot as most of the photos that i had planned on using were on that roll. So aswell as giving myself more time i will also allow myself to take more photos on the same thing on different rolls.
Although quite a bit went wrong on this project, i did have quite a responsive conclusion as everyone that did agree to have their photo taken did conclude that they were happy.
Ethical intent
although a bit 'cheeky,' to go up to people and ask for their photo, i do think it is more ethically acceptable to ask than to take it without asking. I did tell each person that i would be using their photos on my wix website for my collage course, and they all accepted. From this i can conclude that i have correctly used ethics in my project. Thankfully i wasnt asking any ethically incorrect question, i was simply asking if they were happy. I suppose this might offend people if the answer was no, however i didnt come across this problem as they all said yes. I didnt really have a subject criteria, i was photographing anyone i saw. this allowed me to have a range of subjects, allowing equality to come within my work. i have a range of nationalities which supports this fact.
Environmentally i also think i was acceptable, i took all my gear when i left, and i didnt get in the way of anyone. I used road safety which is another example of me using an environmentally friendly way in taking photos.
In terms of darkroom work i did dispose of the chemicals in the right containers, I.E. The fixer in the fixer disposal, and the developer in the developer disposal. Nothing that included chemicals went down the drain. I could have asked more environmentally friendly questions. however previously stated, i didnt have enough time. And if i were to redo this project i would allow myself more time to complete stuff like also asking, does the noise pollution effect your happiness.
For my next part of my project i wanted to focus on shape with concealment. This is where i would add my surrealist feel to my work and where i can experiment with what works and what doesnt.
Concealment
Firstly im starting off with shape, this is because its the easiest way, in my opinion, you can also make random patterns in shapes. Which allows me to look at two technical processes, pattern and shape.
Theses are my first two edits with the idea of concealment using shape and pattern. I think moving forward i would like to use less of the pattern to give a more simplistic look.
This is the photo i was going off i think i successfully achieved the same aesthetic. and will continue to try and follow Baldessaris work.
Here is the more simplistic look to the Baldessari inspired piece. I think i prefer this one over the more pattern styled ones. it also resembles Baldessari's pieces more.
I think if i took more than one person at once, then it would look more like Baldessaris work.
This part of my project is inspired by John Baldessari. I like his use of shape to hide the subject. However i think moving forward i am going to add abit more than just shape.
Film Photos
A large part of this project was the analogue side of it. as well as the digital photos i also took analogue photos.
here are two photos that i took to replace the ones that didnt develop, sadly these were the only two people who accepted to have their photo to taken. they sadly didnt have time to answer any of the questions. so once again if i were to do it again, i would leave myself more time.
annoyingly it is the only 2 portraits taken, i wish i was able to have more than two but these are the only two that agreed.
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Practical skills
Here is an example of me experimenting in photoshop. I started with the first pictures of the flower leaves and made an inverted pattern. And then i made it into a larger pattern that gives a spiralling effect. and then added an old edit on top. I then changed the hue and saturation to make it a little bit darker and changed the colour to red.
I think this made it look a lot like an album cover. I am currently enjoying playing around with patterns and i think i might try and look at using them further.