Exercise 16: Exploring Function

The task of this project was to start looking at spaces/rooms/buildings with a view to their use. How will a person/people use this space, what is the purpose of the room? I chose to photograph the yoga studio where I studied in Edinburgh(see my previous post regarding this exercise).
I found this exercise harder than it first appeared. I went there thinking that I had to take a series of photos of the studio, which was relatively easy. Upon rereading the task, I actually should have gone with the aim of taking _one_ photograph of the area to reflect it's purpose/use. In hindsight this makes sense - we need to have the skills to capture the use of a room in its totality, not to seperate it out into chunks (which was a fun process too). Anyhow, I did take one photo which I feel captures the space (or part of it at least) though is perhaps not the best one I could have taken if I had the opportunity again. I will try this exercise again with another room... In the meantime, here is the photo which I feel captures the lightness and fresh feeling in the studio.

From Yoga_Room

Study of a Yoga Studio

For 'People & Place' I went to photograph at the Yoga Studio I studied at in Edinburgh, called 'The Yoga Room' (link here). I took a series of portraits of Rowena doing her yoga practice, and also took a kind of a portrait of the studio itself. It consists of 3 main areas - the lovely, light filled yoga studio itself, the changing areas/bathrooms, and the entrance area for sitting and relaxing before & after class.

I feel like I have managed reasonably well to capture the essence of the studio in this set of photos. I found over exposing the photos slightly helped to capture the light airy feel of the studio, and I really enjoyed capturing some shadowy images - I was very lucky on the day of the shoot to have a bright sunny day. If I was still in Edinbugh it would be great to go back in winter and photograph the studio as it changes a lot; Rowena puts up fairy lights and obviously it is much darker outside when we are practicing.

First, the entrance area:

From Yoga_Room

From Yoga_Room

Next, the main studio area:

From Yoga_Room

From Yoga_Room

From Yoga_Room

From Yoga_Room

And finally the bathroom/change area:

From Yoga_Room

From Yoga_Room

From Yoga_Room

It was interesting to take photos of this room which is quite familiar to me, and also now (more than 6 months later) to look back and still 'feel' the essence of the lovely practice area. I hope you also can get this feeling from my set of photographs.

Thankyou to Rowena for letting me take these photos.

Magnum Magnum

I picked up a copy of Magnum Magnum before we departed Edinburgh last August. It's a mammoth book of very high quality. It's layout is quite unique, with each Magnum photographer choosing 6 photographs taken by another Magnum photographer. This means that the photos chosen are not necissarily really well known photos, which results in a fascinating in-depth review of some of the best 20th century photographers work, each with a small history of the photographer and a short essay by the Magnum member choosing the work.

To look at photographs and feel your heart quicken, and almost bring tears to your eyes. That is what some of the best photographs in this book did to me. That and laugh out loud and wonder in amazement how the photographer 'saw' that photo _and_ managed to capture it on film/ccd. Incredible array of photos, from the banal to the heart-wrenchingly passionate.

Can art change the world? (this is a quote... I just finished last night watching the final episode of Simon Schama's 'Power of Art' - awesome awesome show) I certainly believe that photographs can and have changed the world. Debatable for the good or not however. I remember reading an account of somebody who first saw (I think it was) Lee Millers photographs taken in Germany at the end of WW2 and was struck by the violence and destruction of humanity and forever remembers the moment he/she saw the photographs. Now (21st century underway) we see the destruction of a town (I'm thinking here of the Brisbane floods and QLD cyclone in the last few weeks) online, on the tv, radio, twitter, facebook constantly recorded and viewed around the globe - the same of the recent Egypt demonstrations. Are we now dulled to such images of destruction and does it now mean that the photographs (and other media) hold less sway over us and make us actually feel _less_ now than ever before? Nonetheless, even though I've been exposed to the average level of images that a person has, I was still moved by many of the images in this book. It shows the good, bad and ugly (and some funny too) side of humanity, all captured by a brilliant set of women and men behind their respective cameras.

Well worth a read.

Floods and Cyclones

I thought I was coping fine after the floods until the next wave of distaster to strike Queensland reared its ugly head over the last few days. We were fine in the end during the floods, but it was a highly traumatic and stressful experience expecting our house to be flooded potentially up to the upper storey. What were the things I wanted to save? Photos, hard drives and jewellery. Obviously we were looking after our personal safety first, but photos were the first thing on my list of irreplacable objects. Even my beloved camera could be replaced and so was not on the list of things to be taken out of the house in the case of the extreme flooding which was expected early on. Natural disasters happen to 'other people', not to us. Particularly after we'd only just moved into our new house a month previously. Hard to comprehend, even now 3 weeks after the event. We won't be affected by the mammoth cyclone here in Brisbane, but it makes me realise just how vulnerable we all are, having survived one natural disaster already. What have I learnt? Keep living life as full as possible, something we already do quite well, and always have a hard drive of photos ready to take out of the house if the need arises!

From Flooding