Category: Home

Alicia Rius

“Animals and photography have always been part of my life since I was a kid. My dad and aunt were avid photographers; and me, I was the crazy kid bringing home all sorts of animals.

My passion for animals has pushed me to explore their beauty and uniqueness. I want to capture the elusive mood of the animal’s personality and expressions, allowing them to be themselves with no promptings.

There is still a lot to be explored with my animal photography. I look to create vibrant and unique images in a classical way to evoke emotions in the viewer.”

– Alicia Rius Photography  

 

To me, home means my family and my dogs. So when I was given this brief I knew that I wanted my dogs to feature heavily in them. A home would not be a home to me without them in it, and I wanted my images to reflect this. I researched a few photographers that specialised in images of dogs. I found a blog that featured pet photographers and their work, and on this I saw Alicia Rius’s photographs. The way she uses natural lighting and the dogs in their home inspired me when thinking of how to take images of my dogs. In her photos the dogs appear to be comfortable and happy in their surroundings, which is how I am when I am with my dogs.

 

References:

Rius, A. (2014) Frame Your Pet: Dog photography in San Francisco: Bosch & Bonz. Los Angeles, California. Available from http://www.frameyourpet.co/blog/2014/5/1/dog-photography-in-san-francisco-bosch-bonz [accessed 12 April 2016]

As ‘Home’ is a very broad subject, I chose to try and prevent my final pictures from being random and all over the place. Going home for the weekend, I compared what I had back in Barnsley to in my university halls, from decoration to company, and took it from there. I then did a quick Google search for each topic I could relate to this theme.

Returning Home

For soldiers fighting in foreign countries, or even students studying abroad, the return of a family member after months of not seeing them in person is extremely emotional. Even just getting home after a busy day of school or work is emotional, relaxing and such a reward.

My Home

This topic is rather self explanatory. My home is the house I lived in before I moved to Lincoln, and has been the house I have lived in since the day I was born. Many people tend to move around a lot as their family grows, but my parents chose to build on their property, making it expand as our family did. Having grown up on this house, I have gained an attachment to it, and the old fashioned decoration and puppy teeth marks on our furniture do nothing but make me smile as I walk through the door. Seeing this house instantly tells me I’m home.

Family

As well as my literal home, family is a huge part of the reason I return home the odd weekend, and for week intervals away from my university campus. I live only 1.5 hours away from Lincoln, so returning home isn’t too difficult for me, however I tend to save trips to Barnsley for either when I have long periods of time off, or if it is a special occasion. I returned home for the weekend of my sisters 21st birthday, my cousins 21st birthday, and because there was a specific reason for me to return, I spent little time visiting my family further afield and more time focussed on my immediate family. And because I would only return for two days, I struggle to spend much time with my parents and sister due to their working schedules. On realising this I began to really miss time spent with them, and in the Christmas Holidays I found a whole new respect for sitting in front of the TV with my mum as she watches some random distasteful detective show, for my sister nipping in to say hello stinking of wet dog after a long shift at her dog parlour, and for my dad’s sarcastic remarks towards both of these situations.

 

Friends

I have friends at University who I love and respect so much, I even have friends from home who chose to go to the same University as me, however there are still friends from high school and college I miss dearly when I am away. The friends I miss luckily study locally to my home town, so when I get a chance to return home I attempt to arrange a chance to catch up, however as they have jobs in the same area, its hard to pick a date all of us are free. In the 4 week Christmas holiday period, I managed to meet up with two of my best friends only 3 times, which really made me realise how much I miss the days we used to see each other every day at high school.

 

Home Comforts

Many people have small things that keep them from being homesick. It can be a photo, a pair of slippers,  or, like for me, a soft toy. These items can be used to decorate a space, or simply used when that person is missing home. With me to university, and to the discretion of others, I brought my birth teddy and two of my bibs I grew up with, all items used as a child to comfort me when  I was sad, sick, or unable to sleep.

 

Pets

Friends and Family you can text or ring, home comforts you can take away to university with you, pets you can’t. One thing I miss the most about being away from home is being close to my dogs. I miss friends and family too, but they know where I am, they know when and they know if im coming back, things you can explain to a dog. I currently have two German Shepherds, Tim and Bess, one of which is extremely special to me. When we got Tim, he was only 8 weeks old, and I was in between my first and second year of college. I was at home most days, handy when trying to house train him, and an inevitable large bond was created between the two of us. As he grew older, so did I, and he helped me through many tough times, so to me he is more than just a dog, he’s family who isn’t just a phone call away. My other German Shepherd, Bess, has helped Tim come out of his shell, and she has also kept my family from boredom by wrecking the house, causing havoc on walks, and wrestling her brother constantly, no matter the time, place, or what he is doing. Out of everything that reminds me of home, a dog is a pinnacle part of being at home, as even when I am back up north, if they are out for a walk or in the dog parlour, the house is empty without them.

Thomas Demand

“Thomas Demand studied with the sculptor Fritz Schwegler, who encouraged him to explore the expressive possibilities of architectural models at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, where Bernd and Hilla Becher had recently taught photographers such as Andreas Gursky, Thomas Struth, and Candida Höfer. Like those artists, Demand makes mural-scale photographs, but instead of finding his subject matter in landscapes, buildings, and crowds, he uses paper and cardboard to reconstruct scenes he finds in images taken from various media sources. Once he has photographed his re-created environments—always devoid of figures but often displaying evidence of recent human activity—Demand destroys his models, further complicating the relationship between reproduction and original that his photography investigates. “

– Matthew Marks

 

Although my main aspect of home life is my dogs, I also feel most comfortable when I am in my family house. This is the only house that I have ever lived in and this is a place where I feel the most safe. I researched Thomas Demand for inspiration of what in my house to take photos of and how to take them. Thomas Demand makes models out of cardboard and paper and then takes photographs of them. I like the simplicity of the images that he takes and how he creates an illusion that everything is natural, nothing is changed – as if he takes the images as the ‘locations’ are.

References:

Marks, M. (2016) Matthew Marks Gallery. New York. Available from http://www.matthewmarks.com/new-york/artists/thomas-demand/selected-works/#/images/3/ [accessed 12 April 2016]

Image 1

For my first image, I began by cropping my dog’s nose out of the frame, allowing the photo to focus more on the seating area and place the chair completely to one side.

The images taken in my conservatory had a heavy orange tint to them, something I originally wanted to alter, however as I did I ended up preferring it with an exaggerated warmer tone, and kept the orange tones even higher than before. This created a more comforting feel to the image, removing this tint only made the image colder.

I also used the auto white balance feature, where I used the eyedropper tool to select a neutral colour. This made my image slightly less saturated by the conservatory light, and softened the brightness without loosing the integrity of the natural light. Increasing the contrast and brightening up the highlights for more detail, I then set this as a custom preset for the rest of my pictures.

Image 2

I used the preset from my first image in an attempt to match each image, however due to this photo being taken on a different day, the lighting was cooler. To alter this, I simply increased the saturation of the image until I felt to matched the image before. I also increased the highlight brightness in order to bring back some detail in her nose and eyes.

Image 3

After using the preset, I decided to remove the image on screen. My mum was watching TV as I took this photo, so to make it look like the screen is blank, I cut out the screen in photoshop, and placed the image of a blank screen behind the layer. I then darkened the screen and added grain, helping it to blend in.

Images 4-6

For each of the above photos, editing was rather simple. Because of the preset I created when altering my first image was on an image with the same camera settings, lighting, and day, It matched rather well. I cropped the images to match the rule of three, and with slight alterations to exposure and brightness where I felt necessary, these images were rather simple to edit.