A time line of perception

I have displayed my images like this as they create a time line for the viewer to see how the images were put together by others. The idea is that each 'timeline' creates a story all using the same images which changes the perception of which we see the story that has been created. I think this way of showing the pictures is fun and still easy to see. When deciding how to display the images I wanted to ensure that they were close together and this shows especially well with the 9th image along as there are 3 of the same image consecutively going downwards. This is similar with a couple of the other images also. Perception changed from person to person and here it is obviously that even by changing the order of images a whole new idea or story in a time line order has emerged.

The Game Begins

I created my game of snap by printing off 10 pairs of pictures. I then cut them up to separate them so my participants could re order them. One by one I asked them to put the images in whatever order they saw fit, whether this be a pair or a trio or a larger set of images. I got some intriguing replies that has changes the way I have perceived my pairs that were first created. I wanted to have a variety of people to create the pairs/ groupings so the perception of the pairs would hold some significance as I could generalise them to many people.

I firstly asked a teacher to put the pairs together. Obviously his perception of how the images should sit would be different to that of a student or younger person. He put most of the pairs exactly how I put them. As he was doing it thought he did sit and ponder over a couple of images and where to put them. He told me that he was putting them together purely by composition and not by colour or any other elements.

This set was done by a year 9 girl. She literally look the grouping idea to an extreme and created almost a montage of images. She sat for a long time before placing the images together that meant that although it took her a long time to create her final grouping it does show a lot of thought. Her large amount of grouping was down to the fact that she said hse wanted to create a story of the images as they all fitted together one way or another she said.

This set was paired by a year 9 student. He paired the images quickly but they are very different to the original pairings of mine. He said he was focusing more on the colour of the images and how people matched and the environment matched.

This grouping was a a 6th form student. She got worried that how she grouped the images would not be right, although there was no right or wrong answer when doing this. She created an interesting group of images  with a seeming middle group and outside groups around it. She told me she was looking primarily at the people in the images and how she would see them in everyday life. Her pairings are quite busy.

This grouping was done by a 6th form student. He paired the images much like the original pairings, however still changed some with creating the groupings of 3. The 3's are interesting as they seem to be the pair with an added extra on the end that adds to the style of the image.

This pairing was made by a year 11 student. He paired the image in larger groups which seemed to created a sort of montage, even thought they were not close together. His justification behind the images was that by looking at the environment he could create a story in his mind of how these people could potentially meet. This again creates a sort of story style.

This set was created by a 6th former. Her take on the images was that they all sat in pairs and there was no other grouping for them. She spent again a long time deciding which images went in pairs and has created a seemingly pretty straight forward conventional set of images, however her pairings are the most different to the original set.

This experiment enabled myself to see how others had different views to the way in which I have paired my images. 

Contributing Ideas

As I was doing the images of people I realised that really they are just performing everyday tasks that actually seem to be quite boring. The images are not styled to deal with any particular concept or idea they are just there. With this in mind I came across the project called 'Exactitudes' the mundane of my images corresponds well with the creativity found in this project.

From this I have decided to make my images fun. To create a sense of meaning the these 'boring everyday tasks' so I going to create a game from them. I have researched potential games to create and I think a game of Snap or Picture Pairs will be my best bet. The creation of the simple game will reveal if others see my images how I do, and if they make the same decisions in placing them together. This may create a higher sense of purpose to the images and start questioning other people's judgement.

A quiet beach

With relation to my previous posts with pairing images together I visited the beach to see if I could capture some more interesting pairs of people, or objects. It happened to be a very quiet afternoon at the beach so the amount of people around was sparse however the people that were there seemed to be very isolated in their own worlds.

I find this image particularly quirky with the style of the two images. The way in which the two men and talking intensely with the two older people in the second photo seeming to be listening to the conversation from afar.

This image is also quirky in the composition. The fact that the men are pretty similar in height and build already makes the image a pair, but they way they are walking does so also. The colour of the older man on the right also corresponds well with the green beach hut behind him.

As well as visiting Bournemout Beach I also visited Southbourne Beach on a much more pleasant afternoon, although the age range of people there was not very varied. I took many images to try to capture the ideal afternoon for an older person.

When photographing I did notice that there were many people out with their dogs. Obviously owners of dogs have this task of taking them for walks and the beach that particular day seemed the perfect place.

I found this man very amusing. As I first walked down he was awake in his sun chair just inside his beach hut and gave me a bit of a glare when he saw my camera so I decided not to get too close. However on my return he was fast asleep so I got a very fun image of him asleep. I think these 3 images perticularly work well together as the left and right image seem to follow on from one another with the joining of the beach huts.

Hair and Makeup has begun

I took some pictures on my day at Rock Challenge. This is a dance competition which always includes fantastic hair and makeup so I tried to capture some of this going on. It was interesting how people sat and seemed deep in thought as they were getting their hair done even thought so much was going on around them.

Both the girls seem to be unaware of what is actually going on to their hair is this because they are prepared for what is going to happen or is it because they cant move out of the position they are in?

These two images are quite amusing. I was going around after the hair and makeup had been done to try to capture some of the finished pieces. I asked these two people to get their picture and the expression they have given is very different. On the left the girl seems to be posed according to her character almost, with a solemn look on her face where as the bee has a fun look, just like a buzzing bee.

children+art

I visited the 'developing nicely' exhibition that my work was displayed in at Poole lighthouse for a talk with some year 5 children from a local primary school about our work and why photography is important. I really enjoyed getting a perspective on my work by the children as it seemed to add branches to my work and leave much room for improvement after what they had said. The way they look and perceive images is completely different to how the adults at the exhibition prior to that day saw my images and they rest of the images displayed. As well as this, the way the children used the exhibition space was more of a playground and I tried to capture this through a few images.

I put these two images together as they seem to be quite significant. The way in which the girls are pushing the wall could be interprated in different ways, do they like the images they are seeing? Are they attempting to create a response to the images? Have they taken notice of the images? Are they just messing about? The second image shows the boys looking at the photo, they are extremely close to the image which is different to how adults would look at pictures as usually they take a step back rather than look so close up. Why are they so close? Does it change the way they percieve the image being so close?

This image is also quite entertaining as the girls picked this image as their 'favourite picture' out of all the images on show that day. When I asked them why, I recieved answers such as 'this shows the man fighting back' 'the swear words are very bad' ( reference to the image that was above this photograph). 'The riots were important to us too'. The way in which the girls are standing in front of the picture is interesting as if the men turned around would their expressions be similar?

response to the arcade

After looking at the arcade and the types of people there I realised that really anyone can get caught out, young or old. It a crazy thing that can make you loose your money or gain an awful lot. Back home I tried to create something that would show what a continuous loosing gambler may look like over time. Portraits were the main focus throughout my coursework and I used technical lighting skills to create different styles of images. When creating my visual response I was well aware of other addictions that are current among the population for example: smoking, binge drinking, drug abuse to name a few.


This image has been edited by simply adding in the images behind and carefully rubbing through to the top image. I think this first experiment has turned out quite well however if I create another one it would need to look a bit more professional, however I do like the way the roughness makes it seem very busy and uneasy with the facial expression. It is obviously very
exaggerated is the style as the face has a very strong expression that perhaps may make it seem a bit gimmicky.



This second image has been less obviously edited. I have just desaturated the image and taken out a lot of contrast also lightened up the image after doing the other editing. I think this has worked well as the style of the image is very cold seems very stern. The smoke also adds movement to the image to create some more emotion. This image has not got such a heavily gimmicky style as the one above but seems to have a more stylistic finish to it.

A thought on the arcade

After visiting the arcade in Weymouth I remembered that there is one also in Bournemouth down on the seafront. I went down to visit that one with questioning gambling and why people do it. As I was there I thought I would have a go myself and changed a pound up into two pennies. I used the 2 pennies in the machine and slowly started gaining some money back. I won back approximately 60 pence I think, so not the lot but over half. I then used this again as I thought I may win back more but I lost it all, well I did win back 2p. The buzz you get from winning thought does seem to over run the loss of real money. I had previously looked up some facts on gambling in Britain and came about these facts:

Over 50% of adults in Britain gamble at least once a month.

73% have gambled in the previous 12 months. This figure goes down to 48% if the National lottery is excluded. Problem gamblers are most likely to be male, single, in poor health and have a parent with a gambling problem.

At the arcade I took more pictures but this time with the motive to find people that may be, or become addicted. I know that I was only in a small gambling arcade and this was not a casino but people still seemed to be changing up an awful lot of money.

These three images particularly caught my eye when thinking about how pairs can be made. The difference between the young and the old seems to be outweighed by the concentration on their faces when deciding when to slot in their money. I put these two images together on photoshop to try and create an atmospheric peice to both compliment the images and to question why the two people are there.

Why does everyone visit the arcade?

When in Weymouth I visited the amusements arcade as well as the seafront and in there I found some quirky characters. As well as that I suppose one main question to ask is why are these people in the arcade? Are they there to enjoy themselves? Is it all for fun? Is it serious? Do they have an addiction?

This first image is relatively calm in the style. It was difficult to take pictures inside the arcade as the manager had already told me off for taking pictures so I had to use the 'camera on hip' technique yet again. This meant that many of my images were blurred as I could not look at the focus or the camera itself too much without being caught out. These two image have focused themselves relatively well and the first one shows a strong foreground. They work well together because it could seem like the girl in the left hand side is looking at the man on the right. This could add emotion to the image also as the reasoning behind it could be sinister or purely fun.

Developments of finding similiarities in people

After my trip to London I wanted to find some more people that would possibly be doing the same sort of things. Obviously London is very busy and people don't stop moving and working and so on. I thought about where I could go to find people that may still be similar in activities but far more laid back and calm. I finally choose to go to Weymouth, it is the last stop on the train from Bournemouth station so it would be far enough away for me to find some strangers, hopefully doing some intriguing things.

This first combination is of two people each walking their dogs. It seems to be a great coincidence that they also both own the same type of dog which makes the image similar. The left image was taken round by the harbour and it seems to be the dog walking the woman rather than the woman walking the dog. The right image also seems to show the dog guiding the man in the right direction as he plays on his phone. Both of the people seem reliant on the dogs.

The two images were both taken at similar times on the seafront. These two are very different compared to the pairs I have put up already however I still think they work very well together primarily because of the way in which the girl on the left is standing. The slight lean onto the hip makes the two images very similar.

This image seems to have some thoughts and reflections in it. This is seen y particularly the woman on the right however also the boy on the left seems to have his head just in one mind, looking for crabs. The way in which both people have their back turned leave their actual emotion and thoughts to the viewers decision which makes the images far more interesting.

These two images has emphasis on the colour blue. The man is wearing a blue top that matches the blue on the pole and the blue of the sea. The woman is wearing a blue jacket that matches the blue of the bus stop and the blue of the car. This makes the image slightly more humorous as the pictures that were only taken by chance have created a pair.

Same movements make everyone similair

After the intriguing images on the underground I sat outside a coffee shop for some time in the afternoon. Again using the camera inconspicuously so as to not draw to much attention to the camera and so I would capture less static posed images.

These two images put together make my favourite for the day. I think they sit very well together as the actions are the same and the facial expressions are both very amusing.


The images are also a good pair, you have the man looking in but briskly walking so his image is slightly blurred however the woman is still and on the phone so still busy.

After sitting outside the coffee shop I went into a couple of other little shops and took some pictures of the passers by. These two woman could be worlds apart but their stroll is similar and the way in which they both carry their posture makes them seem similar also.

This image is quite different as its almost a flip over to the other side. The left is a man upside down and the right is a magician on a ladder holder up his batons. They both look to be in the same sort of position also, making the composition effective.

The underground movement

When down on the underground I realised how much of a confined environment it was when the trains stopped and the people were changing, so for this reason I used the 'camera on hip' technique and hoped for the best when taking pictures. I changed my zoom and focus to ensure the images turned out alright. Some the best images are just as the train is coming in, the looks on peoples faces were very amusing and this image in particular stands out as both the men are doing the same pose. I again put these two images together in photoshop along with the map of the route I took behind and changed the opacity slightly.

This next image is also put together in photoshop. Again I think it is quite amusing as the distorted man is right by the door in the top image and then in the bottom image the man is looking from the other side of the carriage and he is only just captured in the image.

These two image I think also sit well together. I man with his cello is looking right at me and then the woman with the sahri on is looking completely away. The types of people that use the tube are a very diverse range of cultures and attitudes and this image seems to define the divide that is easily brushed over because of the business of the tube.

Strangers in London

I went to London for the day and used this time to 'find some strangers' I wanted to photograph these strangers doing their everyday tasks and I hoped to find some quirky images. Two places I found particular interest in were the underground and Covent Garden. The amount of people on the trains and the types of people was amazing. I used this opportunity on the underground to look at how movement of people and pace can effect the photograph. I also sat outside a coffee shop in Covent Garden and photographed the passers by. Probably the best things that I found out of photographing the passers by was that many of them were very similar in their actions and expressions. So perhaps its the similarities in people that are intriguing rather than the fact that they are strangers.

This image was taken in Covent Garden near to the shops. I have put the 2 images together in photoshop as I thin they sit together in quite a fun way. On the left the street entertainer seems to be a statue, with no movement however on the right he has moved and has a certain rapport with the child.

This image is also quite interesting as the man is staring right at me. At the time he did look very angry prior to and after the photo was taken so I made a swift exit. The woman however does not seem to take much care in the image being taken and seems to be more interested in the birds.

This image begins to show some of the pace of London. This man was advertising on a bike with seats attached at the back. He did shout at me for taking the image as he rode by but I think the image stands well alone as well as in a group.

These guys were sitting outside having lunch, one noticed I was taking pictures and soon they were all looking, which may have defeated the object of images of people doing their own thing but I still think the image is fun as they are all on the floor and there are plenty of chairs behind them to sit on.

This image is also very intriguing. I think what works best is the fact that the picture of the woman in the show advertisement is directly above the girl with purple hair's head. This add some dynamic to the image and can also add some humour.

We can't know everyone!

After taking the pictures at my church I realised that although I knew most of the people there, in fact many of them were also strangers. With over 7 billion people living on the earth the minority that I know is extraordinary. I think I have a pretty decent group of friends and acquaintances however obviously these people are mainly people that live in Bournemouth which is a relatively small town. Strangers can change the way you perceive the world as they create a new opening to what you already know or believe. I want to find some strangers and learn different things about them. I have thought of many idea's in relation to Stephen Gill's images of the headphones and also the billboards. There can be a quotation or some text to title the image. When doing this I am obviously going to have lots to consider, firstly where will I take the pictures and find the people. Secondly how will I approach them and when doing so, how can I get them on my side to feel comfortable being photographed? Opportunities for places to photograph will be; cinema- what film are you watching? shopping in town- whats in the bag? bus drivers- whats your destination? I am very interested in creating an outcome that not only develops my understanding of different people but also has a selection of society to compare with one another.

Strangers or Friends?

Going with the idea of perceptions of people, I went to my parish church and on that particular evening they were doing the church inventory so there were plenty of people around available to have their picture taken. I asked numerous people, some that I knew and some that I didn't. Some didn't mind their picture being taken, however some were very embarrassed at the proposal and declined my request, often for reasons such as they 'hadn't done their hair' or 'they weren't very photogenic'. I did however manage to take photographs of some of the people that were around. The first image was taken at the back of the church behind the alter. This man is the parish priest, Father Robin. When I approached him to take his picture he was very welcoming, however the one poignant thing he did say was 'how will they know who I am' seeing as he didn't have any robes on or his usual 'collar'. This started me thinking about how to display his portrait. I used the black background and added text onto the black background rather than onto the initail image. This makes it seem like a TV screen perhaps. I then needed to focus on the style of font used 'How will they know who I am?', is written out in italics as this particular font seemed to fit the style of image. The font was very important when creating the image as the wrong font could completely give off the wrong perception of the image and the person in the image.

My next image was of a gentlemen that I was familiar with from seeing him around the church when I was younger, however I did not know him by name or anything about him. I merely asked him for a snap and he posed how he wished. He has his head slightly downward showing that perhaps he was embarrassed or wasn't completely happy with the picture being taken. He seemed like a very quiet man and got on with what he was doing without talking to the other people around. After taking the images I asked my dad to tell me some information on the people I had photographed as he knew them all very well. He said that he didn't know much at all about this particular man and he would always sit at the back of church by himself, but he never missed a Sunday. His name was not on the electoral roll either but my dad said his name was Edmondsham Potherwaite, but that was all he knew.


Before I knew this man's name I created this image. I knew nothing about him at all yet he agreed to let me take his picture in an environment with many other people around.

After speaking with my dad I created this image. The first image of the priest was a quote from him, however I think it is much more fitting in this image to have the quote from my dad as I didn't know anything about this man and had to find out from another source.

This gentleman I know very well and when I was younger he would always speak to me about my future aspirations, this being Law. He is a very interesting man and can always help answer questions about Law. He reassured me that university would be fine as long as I kept my head in the game and he offered to give me any help I needed. I already knew his name and his occupation so the conversation was merely a social one.

I also know this lady very well. I have known her since I was very young and again she always speaks to me at church and I have helped with many things under her management. As well as helping at the church her regular occupation is a primary school teacher at a local primary school.

Combinations of groups

Stephen Gills work is very intriguing in the sense of design and how the images are quirky yet still seem to hold a message. His project 'trolleys' captures the essence of the older women around the estate in London however Gill uses this advantage very sensitively. He ensures the woman are photographed with much respect creating a status aura around them. Gill works in series, often recording scenes that, as he suggests, are 'so familiar and obvious they fall below the threshold of people's attention.

Gillian Wearings work is very influential and sparks different thoughts and emotions from the viewer. She created a collection called 'signs that say what you want them to say'. She walked along the street and asked random people to write down how they were feelings or what thy wanted to say, she then photographed them with their sign.

This first image is very thought provoking primarily because the guy seems quite young in the image , yet he looks as thought he lives just by himself probably in a youth hostel.

This image is one of the slightly more famous images in Wearings collection. This gentlemen was on his way to work when he was stopped by Wearing. His text on the paper is very intriguing as it could have many different interpretations. These interpretations have been questioned by others and Wearing challenges social stereotypes and assumptions, and often works in collaboration with members of the public as a means of 'interrupting the logic of photo-documentary and snapshot photography.

This image is also a bit different from the rest. It is seemingly a middle aged couple that are out getting their shopping. Perhaps they have stronger things on the agenda than to just get dinner though with the sign they have written.

One idea that I am looking to develop is the general idea of perception in day to day environments, for example, when people are listening to head phones the music that they are listening to may be completely contrasting to what they are wearing or what expression they have. I have been researching into perception, and the combination of perception vs reality.



I firstly found this image on the Internet, when I typed in perception. The image is very intriguing however I could not find any background in the image so presumed it was many a film cover or some form of advertising. From finding this image I then looked at Barabara Kruger and her feminist images which embody text.

This first image Barbara Kruger explores feminist theory through artistic expression. Her continued use of black and white imagery combined with red blocks of text derive from her background in art and design and her previous careers designing and editing magazines such as Mademoiselle and House and Garden. Kruger voices her concerns over feminist issues through bold images and text and, she is able to gain the viewer’s attention in a manner that differs from many other artists. In much of Kruger’s work, she reveals concepts with such an impact that the viewer is forced to further consider her or his own opinions and perceptions in relation to these issues.

This image has very high impact with the contrast of the grey and red text over the image. It is raw but still visually shocking and very deterministic in the stylisation.

These image fit well into the ideas I had for my exam piece. Seeing something not quite as it seems is what I really want to use to create a meaningful image or set of images.

I have had a long think about how I can grasp this idea and create some images out of it. One idea is to photograph the person and then get the story of their true lives, not just what we see.
As well as this, changing environments to perceive people differently.