Laurent Chehere

Lauren Chehere

For this photographer i would take images of different types of buildings place them onto different skies and then add different types of stairs connecting to them with people walking up to them or climbing up using more magical stairways such as the ones that Joel did above.

 

           

In this image, your attention is first drawn to the house, specifically the fire as that is the brightestpart to the image. Your attention looks specifically at the rails that the fire is blazing over which are leading lines up to the top of the banister and you see all the steam and the different shades of the fire making you feel warm but yet definetly exstinguishing the danger in the image All the smoke into the sky makes you look and realise that the hole background of the image is sky, and that the house is somehow floating. The eyes then draw back to the house to investigate the rest of it, where you then see the next window on the right where there is fire inside that hasnt blown out yet like the on on the left. Your eyes then fall down to see the remaining two windows and discover that they dont have any sign of fire, which means there could be poeple inside who dont know there is a fire. This gives the viewe a sense of worry, but yet as it looks so magical it is a dimmed worry. You then see the bottom of the house once you get to the front door, as the steps lead down to second ladder. A small section down the ladder and it appears to have been cut so that if there was anyone inside they wouldnt be able to escape. You realise and imagine its dimensions and what it would be like if you where on the ladder. There are a few features in this image that do escape your eye as the center piece is so extrodinary. For example as your attention is so fixated on the house you dont notice small features such as the wires coming out the left hand side of the house, and the bird cage in the top left window. This brings in a hole new feeling of sadness as you realise there is a bird in there caught in the fire. The smooth tranquility of the feeling makes you almost ignore the fact there is a fire and makes it less serious.There is a lot of urgency in this image such as the ladder and the birdcage in the fire, but its almost drowned by the magical presance of there being a house in such a beautiful sky.

This emeans that once you have seen all the key features your eyes go back and look again to see if there is anything else you missed, and potentially even zoom in, as you may not even notice the bird unless you zoom in. The image captures what looks like a fleeting house in the sky and gives a sense of  it just floating smoothly through the sky despite the destruction inside the house itself. The ladder on this image is not overally obvious to the viewer but the fact it is cut in half makes the image even more tense. This is much more intriguing to the viewer than just adding a ladder and not doing much too it. The sky shows a contrast, as the top of the sky looks warmer, lighter and happier where as the bottom looks darker like a storm or a storm is brewing. This is odd because in the house shows the most danger that you would assume the darker clouds would be covering. Downstairs is where there is potential danger bruing, just like what could be said for when explaining the clouds at the bottom of the image. Also the fact there is a break in the stairs shows danger as there is no way out from the fire thats about to come. In this image you imagine what it would be like to be standing at the front door and looking down at the ladder that has snapped, as if tehre is no way out. Also you would imagine from this perspective what it is like to look down and be so high in the sky with no way down, and no way to be safe. You also imagine it from a perspective of being the bird and being trapped, imagining the chaos of that room compared to the more tranquil settings outside the house. This image has a shallow depth of field as the feature closest to the front shows more focus and even though there is nothing else in the foreground to steal the focus. This then leads to the image following the rule of thirds as the photographer wants your attention straight to the house and not to the smaller details like the wires or the ladder, the house in the sky is your key focus for your eyes to be drawn too.

There are a lot of leading lines in this image, as there are ladders and wires and rails allthrough it which lead your attention to the next most key feature. For example when you look at the fire the rails that it is burning into draw your attention up and down the fire, to then lead into the smoke over the top of the house. This further allows your imagination to run wild, as that smoke should resemble the chimney not a massive destructive fire in the house. Is that how it is fuled to fly and its got out of hand? how was the fire caused if you are in the sky away from any problems or danger? your mind wonders with questions. The fact the house is at a slight slant in the sky makes it appear to be unstable, which then relates to all the danger in the house as you can see it could all just crumble very soon. There is a lot of texture that the image allows you to imagine as there is a great deal of focus on specific parts. One part is the sky as it looks so smooth, and makes you imagine how it would feel to in relation to temperature as it looks like it gets colder as your eyes travel down the image. You can also imagine the heat and texture of the fire as it is quiet aggressive against such a lovely house which emphisizes it even more. As there is such focus on the side of the house and underneath you can imagine the rick work of the house and the underneath, as it looks extremmely heavy from its shadings. The repetition of the fire in the second window upstairs shows that its spreading and adds a lot more tension to the image and imagination as to what will happen next.

 

Images i have taken

 

Here i am displaying all the separate images i have taken, before i put them all together in photoshop.  As Lauren Chehere uses random but mind capturing images in hers such as the circus tent, i wanted to add my own unique 'random' touch to the image. I found that an icecream would look extremely effective as it has the bright colours and would blend against any type of sky well. It is also something you wouldnt imagine to see floating around the sky even in your imagination before seeing the image. I plan to photoshop someone in the window who is looking down at the ladder that i will again photoshop from the open window. I will then cut out all the background and put it against one of the below skies i have photographed. I plan to try each of these against different types of skies to see which looks better than the other, and also what makes the image look more realistic, as the content of the image is already slightly unbelievable. I also took a photo of the castle at Wollaton Park that i will crop around as best as posiable to remove the parked cars and trees that are placed around it. I am unsure whether this will work as the castle may be too unfocused and taken from a to far distance for it too look effective. However this may work in may favour and look extremely good, i will discover this when i photoshop the images togetehr later on. Again, I took a picture of a passing wedding car that i feel would look very good in the sky, but i am unsure as to where i would place the stair case as there is no open door or obvious place where it can be attacthed too. However simerlaly to the image of the castle, i will mess around on photoshop to see if it will work. For the image if the building with the birds above, i feel this will be very good to use as it is already against a clear sky, but i have plenty of faint smooth clouds i can add to make it seem it is a lot higher up than it looks. The birds also wouldnt be expected to fly that high in the sky which is also odd. All i would have to do for this image is to add a ladder, which i will try both metal and wooden and establish which looks better in the image.

Here are potential sky background photographs i have taken that i think would look extremely aesthetically pleasing, however there is a risk with using a few of these. This is that they will take all the attention away from the center piece like the icecream for example, which i will attach a staircase coming from. I feel that each one is breath taking as i have manipulated the sun against all the dark clouds and clearer ones. Some of them have extravigant  focus which make them even more entreging and magical to see. As you can see the smooth curves of the images, your eyes just gently and delicatly follow the leading lines they have which guide you to the next cloud. I tried not to make all the images the same as if they where all of the same coloured clouds over and over with no variation, it wouldnt give me much choice to use it against the images i have taken above. I want to try and put the darker clouds against more derilict and abandond buildings or structures i find and then the lighter ones against the lighter more summery skies. These photos where all taken at around the section of the day between the hours of 3-5pm, so they where still very vibrant. I tried to get a variety in the coloured clouds and as much focus as possible so I had some outstanding shapes that can make the viewer imagine the texture of each cloud.

Finished Response 

Here is a display of all my final pieces from my response to Lauren chehere. As you can see they look very collaged and 'unrealistic' compared to Lauren's  so my aim for my next development is to experiment with filters and see if it has any effect or improvement on the image. As you can see, i photographed the most interesting and bizarre objects and put them into a sky filled with clouds. Each image of the clouds is in excellent ficus so it really allows you to imagine what they must feel like. I found that i couldn't get my hands on a rope ladder which was the biggest disadvantage to the response. Instead i used a wooden ladder that i felt still added that never ending magical feel too it even though the rope ladder would have suited the images more. I feel i have used a different scope of objects in the sky instead of just buildings which made the image seem more shocking and intriguing. As the point of the image is to not necessarily have a direct message, the objects such as the boat make the audience still consider why are they up there, are they going to be able to get back down and what the atmosphere must be like there. The ladder indicates a leading line to the object, but as it is so inferior to the larger object in the sky you don't notice it straight away. The intention in which i went for was to make the viewer question how it got there and then look around to find anything that would link them on how they actually got there. Some of these images already had shading on so i felt i should leave it in to add a more dimensional effect to the image. However others don't so i felt that would be an improvement i would have to work on in order to make the image appear more realistic like Laurent's. 

Development Of Response 

Here i will show how i have developed my response images. The first selection have been developed by the addition of a filter. This was made in the retro brown shades that somewhat make the images look a little more magical and realistic in a sense. However, I feel they still don't have the correct lighting to add the correct shading to both the object in the sky and on the ladder. As you can see from the original Laurent Chehere images, that hers have shading and look a lot more realistic despite how odd the image actually is. Her images have a lighter feathering around when it was cut out so that they image isn't so strongly cut and direct. She also uses darker skies rather than such light blue ones, which I have adjusted here with the filter. However, they do not look natural and I should take some more darker skied images where the sky isn't so blue. I've come to the realisation that she also match the sky to the environment and colours that are within the object in the sky so that they mould well together and don't stand out so much. Therefore, in my next development i will make the skye more suited to the actual lighting of the object so they blend in a lot better and look a lot more effective. 

Further Development Of Response 

Here is my further developments where i have improved the background to make it a lot more suited to the object that is in the sky.

For this image i decided to try a darker sky, and change the position of the ladder. I realized the size of the ladder was so small and unrealistic so i made it larger and coming from the top of the screen instead of below as if she has gone away from where she was to sit peacefully on the bench. I also changed the contrast and brightness on the image below which made it look more autumnal, matching excellently to the top of the tree leafs you can see in the left hand corner. This sets the scene more and also makes the ladder look more apart of the image and more realistic. However i didn't change the contrast of the first one as the sunlight is coming straight down on to the model so she would be brighter rather than darker. Therefore to develop further, i have created these two images which match more to the bench in the sky and are just as effective, if not more.

For the first image of the model in the boat, i left the brightness as it was as again the sun is glaring at her from that angle so she wouldnt be darker. I have changed the sky image as it is less busy which is what Laurent does. After creating this image i considered the ladder and how i could manipluate the clouds to make the images look better. Therefore for the second one i did yet another background, copied and paseted a wave in the clouds and fitted it at the bottom of the ladder so that it looked like the clouds where just floating everywhere, making it more believable for the audience to look at. I also moved the boat so it was further down. I did this as it looks like it is on a wave which will take it further and further up. I trhought this added a strong familiarity with waves in water and how it would carry the boat across a lake. This would allow the viewer to make a connection and imagine the perspective of the person more. For the second image i also consided rule of thirds as the boat is further down and not in direct eye line. However, as it is the brightest thing on the image it is
still the first thing that is seen.

For this image i decided that the chinese hut looked ebven more outstanding when it was against a darker richer blue as it really illuminated the curves and features of the building. With this image of the sky, it almost darkens as it gets lower which in some of Laurents pictures do the same. I also thought i would manipulate that in Laurents images there is a cut in the ladder. These two together give a sense of danger but yet the sky and the actual building are so smooth and relaxing you dont really feel any imediate notice to it. For the second one i tried it against a more orental lighter blue that i felt again had a connection with china and the outfits that are worn. Further more, I decided to do what i did to the images above by cutting the sky and adding a cloud over to show the constant movement and add more realistic effects. It also hides the top of the ladder which attaches it to the building so it simply looks like the ladder has broken and is falling down. This isn't noticed immediately as i have placed the hut in the center so that it is the first thing that is seen in the image.If  i was to develop these images even further, i would potentially try different types of staircases to add my own flare to the image. This is because i feel it could potentially make the images better instead of them all having the same wooden step ladder. I could also make more varied objects in the sky that may look more realistic than the ones i have chosen. As i pointed out earlier, Lauren uses the correct sky to suit the colouring and lighting of the object she is placing on it. I never really considered this when i was taking my images. For example a house that was taken in a darker lighting with a darker less blue sky in the background may look more realistic than the bench image for example where the sky is extremely bright blue and the bench doesn't really blend amongst it. I would also add a model like Laurent does in some of the image, which may set the story even more and allow the image to imagine perspective more of what it is like up there.