Nunsmere Visit

Today I returned to Nunsmere where they have started the deforestation of a vast amount of land. It was a sunday so luckily there was no workmen around just dog walkers. I spent a good few hours walking around the huge site and couldn't resist getting a panorama of a section of it mostly for my own records of how the place has changed over the years.

I'm still sorting through the images to see which ones would suite this emulation project and I'll be posting the results shortly after editing them down and putting a few final touches onto them.

A New Direction

After initially wanting to do my project about shadows and the way the form I have decided to go in a different direction after stumbling on a new location which I think will give interesting results.

While on a countryside walk I stumbled on a patch of land where deforestation was mid-swing. I was quite shocked as I'd been going to this location for years and upon returning there was a vast patch where the trees had been cut down and logs stacked metres in height. 

I thought this was be a better subject to photograph as it's personal to me while containing similar links to some of Kawauchis work. I think it's quite fascinating how she looks at the circle of life for both nature and humans and it begs the question would they increase or decrease if the other didn't exist.

I'll be returning to this location armed with my camera and I will hopefully have a final series of photos that emulate the work of Kawauchi.

Initial Ideas

My initial thoughts for my emulation project are pretty vague. I've been out experimenting with other projects and on my travels I snapped this shot. I was drawn to it by the shadow and this got me thinking about Kawauchis work with light. What if I focused on when light met the dark eg. shadows.

I did a quick edit in photoshop on this image tweaking the curves to get it feeling like film and then finishing it off with a square crop and I'm happy with the shot I think the composition could have been slightly better maybe putting the shadow in the top 1/3 of the frame instead of half way down.

The only problem with this subject is that it's out of my control, I'm relying on sunlight which isn't always fantastic in british weather so it will be a case of trial and error to go out and shoot when the conditions are right and see what I can return with.

Emulation

After investigating Rinko Kawauchis work and focusing on her book 'Illuminance' I feel I've got a good enough understanding of her techniques and motives to attempt to emulate her work. 

To summarise:
She shoots on a 6x6 camera giving her a square image which I will have to adopt to get the same composition as her. Although I'm shooting on a DSLR which has a landscape sensor (not square like a 6x6) I will have to crop my images in post production. This will be challenging as I will have to compose my shots through my viewfinder while ignoring everything that's not within a square crop of the frame.

Her photos are always involving nature and how humans are interacting with the world around them. This only becomes apparent when you see the books as she lays images out side by side to show links or differences between them. I will put my focus more on the overall look of my photos although I feel I should make an effort to have a subject matter that links to her motives in order to push myself and have images that emulate her not just in style but in concept.

All of her work is colour and because it is film it has a very distinctive colour palette. There are always lots of feminine colours, pinks, purples, light blues and greens. The images she shoots seem to always be quite tight, she doesn't seem to like wide angle shots and prefers using a longer focal length to focus on small details. I will have to adapt this as best as I can with the equipment I have.

I already have a few ideas of where I can take this project. I want to challenge myself to have continuity between shots and not finish with 6 random macro shots as I feel this wouldn't reflect what Kawauchi is about. I will be shooting outdoors as I think this is where she receives most of her inspiration but with living in Manchester for uni there isn't much natural beauty so I'll try some shots in the city and then venture further a field when I return home for the christmas break.

Rinko Kawauchi

Rinko Kawauchi is a Japanese photographer born in Shiga, Japan in 1972 and is a very active photographer today.

She is currently working in Tokyo putting pictures together for her upcoming publication. Kawauchi has a very unique style which is half down to her choice of equipment and half down to her developed ideas and concepts.

She has experimented using 35mm, large format and panoramic cameras she prefers using a twin lens medium-format Rolleiflex camera. Kawauchi takes images of normal objects but she shoots them in a way that makes them look like there in a dreamland. The lighting is always bright and they are often very soft focus with the object of emphasis being sharp.

Her photos tends to be pastel coloured and she constantly uses the themes of family, human interaction alongside nature and the cycle of life. Her photographs always capture beautiful detail of the subject matter which makes the object look rather surreal and exquisite. Her photography has been compared to haiku poems as through her photos the subject is very clear and seems to provide a precise description of ordinary objects to reveal a hidden meaning. 

Illuminance

Illuminance was the first book that Rinko Kawauchi had published outside of Japan. As always the book was shot on a 6x6 camera giving every photo a square format much like the rest of her work. The title Illuminance is the scientific term used to measure light.

The photos featured in the book are a very unique style and easily identifiable as the work of Kawauchi as it combines contemporary photography with art in a way like no other.

Her work seems to be quite different from other photographers. Kawauchi focuses on small details in the world. The title of the book ‘Illuminance’ could mean she is illuminating parts of the world that we would otherwise ignore. She draws attention to the way light falls on an object to create beautiful pictures of objects or scenes that we would otherwise ignore. When you look at the photos there is a real sense of mystery about them as they are mostly up close to objects and you have to look at them for a few seconds to sometimes realise what has been photographed.

It is hard to see how the photos were created, some of them look like beams of light under a microscope and others are saturated scenes of calm forests. All with a common theme of light. Sometimes the light is reflecting off or through an objects and sometimes the ‘light’ in the photo is a flare from the sun.

Her photos show incredible detail and she has obviously mastered the skill of creating a scene from single objects using light as the main element.

However with the light comes the dark, Kawauchi has been known to focus on the circle of life and illuminance is no different. In several photos she uses circles and spirals which may literally represent the circles of life. There are several photos in the book that show how we as humans interact with the natural world around us. The photos seem to be in a sequence and each page opens a new idea.

These two photos are placed next to each other in the book and obviously share similar themes of nature. The lower photo could have many meaning for example how we as humans damage the landscape and forests for our own use but in contrast the top photograph shows how we live in harmony with other animals and creatures. Having said this someone else could look at the photos and see something totally different. This is what makes Kawauchis work so special.