Sentimental Toys

Here is a contact sheet of various photos from the sentimental task. The task started with a couple of people bringing in their sentimental objects. What I am pleased about in this specific experiment is that each individual  brought in completely different sentimental toys with completely unique stories to go along with it. 

Sentimental

The following photos are apart of my second attempt of the sentimental toys experiment. With the previous photos turning out well although quite orange, the next were photographed I chose to use the studio lights. The photos were a lot more successful and the overall tone in the photos were even.

So the next photos show each person like previously and their sentimental toy. These certain individuals each have different objects which they feel have a past attached to.

Toys- Experiment One

Below shows a selection my first experiment images along with the memory they shared with their sentimental toy. Each person has a completely different toy and story, this show's the uniqueness and individuality between characters and their past they have experienced but also held onto, whether good or bad.

This was an initial test on the idea I have in mind about photographing people and their sentimental toy or object. The images taken in this first experiment had very odd lighting resulting in orangey looking images. Apart from the technical lighting problem, the images turned out the way I wanted. With simply photographing them and their toy with their story written down too.They have a connection with each other when choosing a cuddly as their sentimental toy, this seems to be the most common and popular toy we hold onto and take everywhere. Cuddly toys especially teddy bears have a blank expression on their face specifically for children to place their own emotions, character, personalities on it.

Toys- Kids Favourites

On my Friday nights, with volunteering at a youth club, the kids are aged from year 1 to year 6. From looking into the idea of toys and childhood, I felt it would be most appropriate to ask the kids to write down there favourite toy, why and then their own interpretive drawing of the toy. When you are this young you have no recollection of real sufferings in life and every little thing is the best thing in the world. With asking them to write and draw their favourite toy, shows their innocent child-like life through their funny looking handwriting, spelling and simple reasoning.

I got an estimate of 17 favourite toys, each different, each with a different reason, name, and toy. Below are a couple of examples scanned in:

Here on the right this child's favourite toy is her teddy called Rosie. On the left their they love their favourite because it is interesting; 'intiristing'.

On the right their favourite toy is called Bibble because it is where their tooth is.

Even from those few examples you can see their child like innocence with their favourite toy mainly focusing around a Teddy and the reasons like because it's where I put my tooth. 

Each drawings were individual and unique, this project has helped give inspiration for further experiments; child like ideas compared to the older mind, or even the concept of holding on to something in their age, links to the idea of will that same toy be their favourite in 10 years time. 

Thoughts and Ideas

For my next experiment and following on from my previous one, I wanted to focus on the link towards childhood and memories. The idea of holding onto the past or even linking an object with a certain memory making it somewhat sentimental.

Ideas such as photographing people with an object which is sentimental to them, for example a cuddly toy, blanket, jewellery and so on. And also asking them to write down a memory they have had with this object. This is the idea of picking at their past of which they still remember, or choose to remember.

When asking people near my age, they have more of a chance to remember a story from their past compared to children aged 4-10. With volunteering at my church on a Friday night, I help out on a club with children just that age. This can give me the opportunity to use them and their unique ways of thinking and explaining. As well as opportunities to try a small experiment on them.

Photograms Developed

After completing the first set of photograms, they stayed linked to the main idea of childhood, linking the objects to possibly memories, although further through the first experiment I began testing the light through transparent objects and the light exposure of these.
I then re-visited the dark room and made a list of different ideas and developments I could make using similar objects from before. Some ideas were to double the exposure of the original time, place the paper into water and expose objects image through moving water, move the object across the paper when exposing to the light, solarisation; when the print is exposed to sudden when in the developer, scrunching the paper before exposure, and brushing the developer onto the paper once exposed.

An example of these experiments were stuck into my sketch book shown below:

From the images also, you can see the comments I wrote along my prints. These show the amount of time exposed to light and the result from it. Each one is different and experimented in different ways and for different reasons.

Childhood Projections

The idea of photographing the childhood projections on the individual is to combine both the person with their past and memories. Asking the individual to think back to as young as they remember, brings out memories some people thought they could not remember.

Chip 'n' Dale

My Little Pony

I liked this idea, but felt it could have been improved with more experiments, I feel it links well with the idea of the connection with memories and your past. 

Tim Noble and Sue Webster

British-born and -based artists Tim Noble and Sue Webster skilfully skirt the boundaries between beauty and the shadowier aspects of humanity, playing with our perceptions as well as our notions of taste. Many of their most notable pieces are made from piles of rubbish, with light projected against them to create a shadow image entirely different to that seen when looking directly at the deliberately disguised pile.

       

Tim Noble and Sue Webster take ordinary things including rubbish, to make assemblages and then point light to create projected shadows which show a great likeness to something identifiable including self-portraits.The art of projection is symbolic of transformative art. The process of transformation, from discarded waste, scrap metal or even taxidermy creatures to a recognisable image, echoes the idea of 'perceptual psychology' a form of evaluation used for psychological patients. Noble and Webster are familiar with this process and how people evaluate abstract forms. Throughout their careers they have played with the idea of how humans perceive abstract images and define them with meaning. The results is surprising and powerful as it redefines how abstract forms can transform into figurative ones.
Their work derives much of its power from its fusion of opposites, form and anti-form, high culture and anti-culture, male and female, craft and rubbish, sex and violence.

The idea of looking into artists/ photographers such as Tim Noble and Sue Webster, helps show other examples of artists which have experimented with ideas that I am focusing on such as shadows. The ideas produce and work they create is very inspiration and can help triger my own ideas and work.

Man Ray

"I paint what cannot be photographed, that which comes from the imagination or from dreams, or from an unconscious drive. I photograph the things that I do not wish to paint, the things which already have an existence."

From my photogram experiments in the dark room, Man Ray is an artist which shows his own trial and errors from film photography. He himself experimented with photograms, he produced his first one in 1921.
He claimed that he discovered this technique through another accident in the darkroom, it seems like that his exploration was prompted by a fellow artist.
Man Ray produced major works in a variety of media and considered himself a painted above all. He was also a renowned fashion and portrait photographer. Aswell as being noted for his photograms, which he named after himself 'rayograms'.



Man Ray is a perfect artist example of using the dark room to produce a different style of images. Being in the dark room shows a more tactile hands on way of photography. With handling sensitive dark room paper, and especially for photograms, placing items on the paper in the dark and exposing it to light. This gives a chance of experimenting with different items, light and time. Man Ray explored techniques in the dark room numerous of times and came up with the name 'rayograms' with experimenting in the darkroom, it gives me many opportunties to develop ideas.  It is very much a more traditional way of photography, on the other hand can be quite raw in how the image turns out.

The following links lead to my own attempts of photograms and the experiments I completed:
Photograms

Photograms

I began ,when experimenting with shadows, with shadow prints also known as photograms, this is produced with in a dark room and photo sensitive paper, way before the likes of digital photography. I felt like going back to square one to experiment with light, exposure, objects and shadows. The following images were my initial experiments when focusing the majority on the objects chosen. I wanted to focus on shadows, but also link to the idea of childhood; so finding toy objects small enough to be used for these prints.

I used objects such as toy wheel, Lego, star, My Little Pony, and Barbie, when using these in my prints they created great shapes and outlines of the toy objects which is what I was aiming for; to show and link to the concept of childhood. Although they were great shapes, the objects also created one blocked colour, meaning all white, due to being a solid object there was no tone. This then led me to find objects, of which are not linked to childhood,but can be used due to their transparency to create more tone on the prints. I tried varied objects to experiment with light and exposure; with the objects being solid will create two tone prints but when working with object such as jars or flasks will then allow the light to shine through the object creating more tones.

Below are some original prints I completed:

Annette Messager

In the 1990's, Messager began to work with soft toys, a replacement for the real taxidermy birds she used in the 1970's. In Fables and Tales, 1991, the soft creatures are cruelly squeezed between piles of books.




"Messager's work can be obvious as well as secretive and strange."


"But despite its childlike themes, there is nothing innocent anywhere in Messager's work."


In Messager's work, 'things you cannot look at properly become all the more intriguing.'


























'I like to tell stories... children's stories are monstrous,' Annette Messager has said, and much of her work of the last four decades is based on toys and  childhood. Remains II (Family (II), 2000.


Messager is known mainly for her installation work which often incorporates photographs, prints and drawings, and various materials.

Annette Messager's work which is based on toys and childhood has inspired me with a variety of ideas that can be independent experiments. The idea of asking younger children to record down their favourite toy, and doing the same but with asking teenagers to record down what their favourite toy was and a memory from their childhood could be a beginning to a larger experiment. This idea can lead into creating a response from their memories, creating an installation with the notes and the toys could be one example.


I personally have many memories of which I can recall fondly, but I can't specifically remember what my favourite toy was. But if I think back hard enough I'm sure I could scrap something back to the surface of my  memories. This could link to the idea of projections, projecting their past onto themselves, like bringing their memories back to life. When asking teenagers my age, they too struggled to remember what they were most truly fond of. But if thought deeply, then projecting their favourite toy onto themselves can bring that part of their childhood back into their life, personality, being their portrait.