BRIEF 1: JOHN HILLIARD

John Hilliard was born in 1945 and always believed that although a camera cannot lie, you can always use it to depict the truth. A key example of this is his piece called, “Cause of death.” This project consisted of four images taken of the same human carrying out the same action however taken at four different angles. Each of the four images were called: 

• Crushed 
• Drowned
• Burned 
• Fell 

John Hilliard - "Cause of Death"

The individual composition of each of these four images are crucial to the overall meaning. In this particular image the subject is a curled up defeated body, due to this body position as a viewer we assume that the subject is dead. With the four different angles it leaves us with several different causes of death, for example, the rocks in the foreground may have crushed the body, the subject may have drowned in the sea or alternatively fell from the building in the background. 

From analysing this image of John Hilliard you can see how the reading of a photograph can be completely changed by repositioning the subject either towards the left or the right or the top and the bottom of the frame. 

John Hilliard also plays with the ideas of identity and culture, for example his project called “east/west.” This was created in a way that the stylised profile could be manipulated to represent different cultures. 

After researching into the works of John Hilliard I was able to take certain themes and idea's from his photographs and integrate them into my own creations. Firstly I took the idea of changing the scenario for each different shot, the reason for this is because I wanted to create a scene which could be completely flipped once it was seen from a different angle. 

MY PLANS & SKETCHES

The picture to the left was my first original plan which I had drawn out. The idea behind it was that the camera frame moves backwards each shot in order to create a completely different set. By doing this you are seeing the process of the original image being developed. This essentially takes the viewer on a journey of development. Although I liked this idea I wanted to bring in more themes of John Hilliard's work into it so I went back to the drawing board.

 The picture to the right is of the plan which I carried through to be my final idea for this brief. The idea behind it was about a girl who is in a relationship with one out of the two boys that she is with, however she is having an affair with the other boy in the scene as well. The boyfriend will be presenting a bouquet of flowers. The girl grabs them with her left hand while her right hand is linked with the other boy behind her boyfriends back. 

RESEARCH INTO POSSIBLE LOCATIONS

The possible locations that I looked into doing where the following places: 

• Oxford Street 
• South Bank 
• Hyde Park 
• Primrose Hill 
• Waterloo Station 
• Tibetan Peace Garden

When researching into different locations I had to consider several factors in order to have a  successful photoshoot. Firstly I had to consider whether there was going to be too many people in the surrounding area's. Due to this it ruled out Oxford Street and Waterloo Station. We attempted to shoot on South Bank however the images looked to busy and clustered. This meant that there was less attention on the main subjects meaning it was harder to read the image. From this I learnt that the location has to be in an open space in order to draw the viewers attention onto the subjects actions. Due to this I ended up taking the shoot at the Tibetan Peace Garden. The reason for this is because it isn't a largely populated area meaning that I was successfully able to carry out my photoshoot without the images looking clustered and busy. By doing this it meant that my key themes were able to be clearly presented in each of the four images. 

MY FINAL IMAGES 

Above you can see my final four images and how my idea looks in person. As you can see each of the four images is working their way around the subjects showing the viewer different perspectives from the scenario which is positioned in front of them. I personally think the idea has worked well although there are improvements that could be made. For example if I was to do this again I would have integrated more facial expressions into the images to give more realism and purpose to each character. I would have also had the characters walking instead of standing still so that the shoot looks less staged and more natural. In my personal opinion it is clear how I have included some of John Hilliard's key theme's into my own work.