Illustrated Project Proposal

• Landscape
• Documentary
• Film/animation

My project is going to be based around urbanisation and its effects. As I live in a very urbanised area, I can use my area a lot as an example of the effects of urbanisation, as well as showing the way of life of the people who live in the area. As well as living in an urban environment, I live around 10 minutes away from some very rural areas, which have little urban development on them. I plan to get pictures of these places which will strongly show the difference in urban development between regions that are only a short distance apart. Additionally, while my area is urban, I live around 20 miles from London, which is an extreme example of urbanisation. I could show images of London as a comparison between a small level of urbanisation and urbanisation on a large scale. With the project overall, I could display a sense of what urbanisation is, what it does to change people's lifestyle, and what the differences are between rural areas, lighter urban areas and heavily urbanised areas.

When it comes to what I am going to be doing for my photoshoots, I aim to incorporate many different styles of photography, including some ideas that mix to the medium of video. I already have two shoots ready to use, which were taken over the summer. I plan to use these shoots to make two stop motion animation videos. While these both involve rural areas, I would also like to make stop motion animations in similar style involving different levels of urban areas. In addition to these shoots, I also intend to use documentary as a base point for a lot of my work, as well as incorporating landscapes, as I feel this is a good way to document the urbanisation of an area.

The main goal for this project is to create a short video project, which will consist of sequences of stop motion animation created from my stop motion shoots, as well as still images taken from my documentary and landscape style shoots.

Throughout my project, I plan to incorporate multiple techniques. One of the main techniques I am going to be using throughout is stop motion animation, which will make up the majority of my video. I also aim to shoot in a documentary street photography style, attempting to incorporate multiple exposure, multiple flash and slow sync into these shoots. Finally, for my rural un-urbanised shoots, I will be heavily incorporating landscape photography.

Inspiration
Anna Delany
Anna Delany is a New Zealand Born Photographer based in New York City. Her images mainly focus on urban environments, usually in poorer areas. One of her main themes in Urban

 
 

This image is a documentary style image taken by Henri Cartier-Bresson. I am not sure where this was taken, but it can be assumed it is some sort of political protest regarding a war. This image inspires me as it has captured a moment that tells a story, which is what I would like to achieve for my documentary work on the effects of urbanisation. I also like the way this photo was taken; it inspires me on a technical level as well as the way it captures a moment. The image is framed so that the protester's face is positioned into the top right focus point of the rule of thirds composition rule; because of this composition, you are immediately drawn to their face and the flower they're holding. I also like the way the soldiers are framed; the first soldier that's pointing their bayonet directly at him is out of view, meaning you can only see the threat to them but not the source of the threat. I also like the tones presented in the picture. Due to the use of black and white, there's a large tonal range presented in the picture, with strong tonal contrast between the light tones of the protesters clothes and the clothes of the soldiers, which creates connotations of the soldiers representing evil war and the protester representing hope and peace.

 This image is a street photography style documentary image; it has been taken in urban environment and shows a teenage boy doing a wheelie on a bicycle while some other people in the town watch him go past. The picture is in black and white. The image has been taken using a high shutter speed, as the boy on the bike was moving fairly quickly and has been frozen in the frame. It has also been taken using a wide aperture, as the boy is sharply in focus in the image, and all the people in the background are strongly out of focus. Because of the use of black and white in this image, there is a wide tonal range presented in the picture. There are some light tones show on the pillars and on parts of the window that the sun's shining on, as well dark tones shown in the shadows. I like that a narrow depth of field is used, as I feel it creates connotations of the people watching him in the background feeling as if they are disconnected to him, as he is young and they are adults.