Thursday 14th April 2011:

I wanted to explore photography further and really like the work of David Bailey. I especially like how he captures emotions and I also like the use of black and white. I wanted to look at these aspects further when taking my own photos, and so decided to look at the victim, the bully and the consequences of being bullied (eg: self-harming and drinking). I tried to capture the vulnerability of the victim and how they perceive the bully within my photos.

I also looked further at my research into anti-bullying campaigns, etc, where words had been written onto the victims faces and photos taken of them holding up messages. I wanted to explore this further and so wrote both the insults and then the emotions felt, onto my face. I also wrote words onto pieces of paper and held these in front of me in some of the photos. I think that these worked out well and are quite effective. This may be interesting to explore further. I could perhaps write lots of words onto my face to show the degree of pain and the amount of bullying that is going on and I could also consider using words and photos like these within my final piece.

Some photos had an interesting effect where there was more light creating a larger contrast between the black and white and hiding more of the detail in the image. I think that this is really effective and perhaps shows the contrast between the bully and the victim and also it helps to highlight certain parts of the photo which could represent certain aspects of bullying being more important than others, and that some victims/bullies are more vulnerable to bullying. I also particularly like the images with the hands as the focus of the photo – this also looks effective because they seem really bright in the image, emphasizing the ‘I surrender’, ‘stop’ actions.

There were also some photos where the brightness of the screen (as I took them using my MacBook) would highlight my eyes, but make the rest of my face just white without my other features showing. This was quite effective and gave me the idea of using an image like this and then writing ‘Lost your voice? You’re not alone…’ to be aimed at the victim who can then contact my organisation for help and guidance, etc.

I then looked back at my research where I looked at David Bean’s anti-bullying campaign. I liked how he had used shoes and shoelaces to spell out ‘there is a victim in every bully’. The shoes could either represent ‘being in someone else’s shoes’ or perhaps the shoes and laces could represent the bully tying the victim’s laces together so that they fall over. I also like what he has said as this could represent that the bully is also a victim and that they also need help (which is what I have been really focusing on). However, it could also be representing that for each bully, there is also a victim, which they bully, etc.

As this was only for experimentation, I decided to only use one pair of shoes and to write out just the word ‘victim’. I then took photos (also using different effects). I think that these have turned out well. I feel that the black and white photos look better than the ones in colour (perhaps, because the shoes are pink, which won’t relate to all of my target audience). However, perhaps I should’ve somehow added a dot above the ‘i’s’ to make the word easier to read.

There are some effects which have turned out better than others. I especially like the ‘comic book’ effect, which I also think would attract my target audience well.

I also like the ‘x-ray’ effect because it makes the image stand out. It could also be representing the fact that sometimes you need to look beyond the obvious to see the problem/cause of the problem, etc, and I feel that this image shows this well.

I also tried the ‘mirror’ effect, and experimented with this by trying to create a heart shape out of the shoes, to perhaps show that what the bully says can really hurt the victim and create strong emotions inside them, such as feeling unloved, etc.

I also experimented with shaking the camera so that there would multiple images of the same thing. Although you can’t read this very well, it created an interesting effect which I could perhaps use for something else not containing words.

After experimenting more with photography, I feel that I would like to explore this further and perhaps use it within my final pieces. I like how it makes everything more realistic and you can capture exactly what you want to. This is important for an anti-bullying campaign because it needs to show the reality of this issue.

Also, today someone saw my prepped page with the handprint on it, with the words from the book coming through. They thought that this within itself was effective and that perhaps I could try something similar but have the emotions and insults behind the hand so that these were readable. This sounds like an effective idea which I could experiment with in my sketchbook and perhaps consider as a final piece idea.

Target for today: Take photos of self, inspired by the work of David Bailey and previous anti-bullying campaigns, to represent the victim, the bully, the consequences of bullying and take photos inspired by the work of David Bean and his anti-bullying campaign.

Target for tomorrow: Create a page in sketchbook looking at research and handprint with ‘stop bullying’ and create a double page in sketchbook looking at eyes and words and how ‘eyes are the window to the soul’ to show how emotions can be seen through the eyes, etc.