My Personal investigation is: to create a visual record showing colour and organisation in food. I will explore this by seeing what food means to people and how it's shown in media.
Background
I have decided to pick this topic as I have always shown an interest in colour. I will explore the different emotions that are shown by colours by incorporating colour theory into my work. I also like the idea of incorporating organisation as I believe it makes the image neater. After making a GIF I would like to find a way to incorporate it into my work. I could do this by showing a time lapse (rotting food) this could also be done in a sequence. I could even cut food.
I'll focus on fruit and vegetables but would like to incorporate all kinds of food e.g fast food and curries. This is to add surrealism to my work as I like to think out of the box and not follow the crowd. For example making a fruit/vegetable look like an every day object. I'll use a range of different coloured backgrounds but it will mostly have a plain background. I will be doing shoots that require plates or cups at home as its easier to clean and will stop me from having to transport breakable items into the studio. I'll make sure that if a shoot can't be done in the studio that it will be done prior to the lesson so I'll be able to edit the images in class.
Photographers research
After researching different styles I have found some photographers whose work takes my interest. This includes Emily Blincoe, Jim Golden and Vanessa Mckeown all of them have colour at the forefront and all show organisation in different ways. Jim Golden's work will help in creating images of plated food. Emily Blincoe's use of food to make words could be used to write controversial messages about health. I would also like to incorporate Vanessa Mckeown slightly surreal work which could also be used to express health.
I will explore how colour can help to express emotion in my work. I'll do this by taking advantage of the meanings behind colours. I'll have a shoot of an range of different coloured foods e.g. fruit, vegetables, fast food. I will use the colours to show what different foods mean to people. I will also use GIF's to replicate food advertisements. I'll work in organisation as it makes the images more appealing. I'll use a mix of both bright and plain colours depending on how many different colours the food is. As the food should be the focus.
Illustrations
Below is a collection of images that have inspired me.
This images use just two colours red and green, I like how the image have been balanced out by having a green background, the colour that the fruits and vegetables have the least of. The colour red also make the viewer hungry which is why most restaurants have the colour red in them. I would create images similar to this.
The image above has a rainbow of colour with the ombre effect. The black in the black both helps the subject, the food, stand out. As well as making the image surprisingly dark for such a bright image, compared to the other images I've been inspired by. This has inspired me to use many colours and to think about the meaning that the colours show.
This image is of a blender made out of fruit and vegetables, which are put in blenders to create smoothies. I like the surreal element to this image which I would like to use in my work to show the negative effects of food.
The image above is of someone's meal. This image has made me thing about what the food people eat can say about them. This could include their views ,vegetarian or vegan, as well as their nationality. Saying that I think that this meal is the meal of a British person who may vegetarian. I say this because the food looks British to me and I can't see any meat.
This is an odd image as dropping an ice cream isn't good and is seen as so bad for children that they cry. However the happy colours of the image distracts from that making the image happy. Also I see no ice cream in this image just sprinkles which I didn't notice at first glance. This makes me wonder why and question if it represents ice cream at all of perhaps it's just to hard to photograph ice cream in a studio and that I'm thinking too much into this. It has inspired me to make thought provoking images that question itself.
This image looks like a vase only with the vase being replaced with a full Coca Cola glass that's holding a single rose. A rose represents love which in the context of the image could mean the love of Coca Cola. The Coca Cola will kill the rose as it's not natural like water. This image may have been made to show people how unhealthy Coca Cola is and that if it's not good for a flower then it's probably not good for us. I also like the fact that if this image was in the Coca Cola glass and filled with water instead that it could be about recycling and the how good it is for the flower, nature, and that the Coca Cola company love and support for it. I wish to be as thought provoking in my own work.
This is from an Marks and Spencers advert which are known for making the viewer went to eat its food ,which is of course the point of an advert. I wish to take from this its ability to to catch the viewers' atention with it's use of colour and it's simplicity.
I think that the way food is advertised in the fast food industry is smart. As the burger you purchase won't actually look as perfect as this because it's been prepared by food artists who take time into making it look its best. Opposed to the burger you get which is made in seconds. I would use this however to show how bad the fast food industry is, unlike the advert which is created to make money.
Techniques
I will explore animated GIF, sequence, colour saturation, macro and black and white (but colour will be the main subject of the image).
