Illustrated Project Proposal

My Personal Investigation

My project will be to create a visual record of 'youth culture'. This investigation will explore how the youth of today spend their time and what is popular with today's young people. This will be in the style of photo documentary as I want to capture the day-to-day life of teenagers.

Background

I have decided to focus on youth culture as my project as I feel as though it would be interesting to see how different people of the same age spend their free time. I plan to take mostly location portraiture as I want to portray teenagers during their spare time - for example, I want to be able to photograph youth at a party. I will also be taking pictures in the studio as I hope to take a pictures of the fashion of today.

Before I start this project I will put research into youth culture of today and youth culture of the 80s so that I have an idea of what kind of photos I will be taking in terms of photographic style and aesthetics. I hope to begin my shoots with studio work as I feel this will be the easiest part of my project and so will be the best part to start with. Starting with studio work also means that I will be able to conduct shoots during lessons. For my location shoots, I will ensure that I do these before lessons so that I can use the lesson time to edit photographs and evaluate the shoot. I aim to do these shoots on the weekends or during half-term/holidays as this will allow me a full day to follow my subjects and take pictures of what they do.

Photographers Research

I have researched different photographers who have carried out projects that focus on youth culture and have found lots of new photographers who's work I really enjoy and find inspiration from. The main photographers that I found I liked are Musa Nxumalo, Bruce Davidson, Danielle Levitt, and Adrienne Salinger. There is a mixture of older photographic projects and new ones with these photographers, which helps me greatly as it allows me to see how youth has been captured in the past and will give me an insight into how times have changed. It will also help me decide on what kinds of things I want to capture my subjects doing. Bruce Davidson is my biggest inspiration out of the mentioned photographers as he has captured images of what I hope to capture - the day to day lives of youth and how they spend their time. It also helps me that his pictures are from the 1950s as it shows me that, whilst the fashions and icons have changed over the years, the way that youth spends their time hasn't changed to drastically.

As mentioned, I plan to approach this project by shooting the day-to-day life of teenagers and how they spend their time both inside and outside of school. I have chosen to take photographs inside school as well as outside as school is a major part of teenager's lives today and so to leave this out would leave large chunk of their lives out. My work will be mostly location portraiture as I want to focus on the subjects and show them doing things, but I will also be taking pictures of things that represent todays youth. For example, I will go to a music shop and take a photograph of the CDs that are on sale. 

Ilustrations

Below are images from the photographers that I have found inspiring throughout my research.

Adrienne Salinger

This photo shows a girl sat in her bedroom. I like how this photograph shows her personal living space as I feel that this is a subtle way of representing who she is as a person. Whilst her walls are pink - stereotypical for a girl - her room is quite messy and unorganised and there are not many aspects found that would be considered 'girly'. This suggests that the girl in the picture enjoys things that aren't stereotypical for her gender, for example, make-up.

This image is from the same series as the above and so is very similar, but at the same time extremely different as it represents an entirely different person. This girl also appears to have a messy, unorganised bedroom. This could suggest that she doesn't care about keeping things tidy and prefers to just let things happen. I enjoy these photos as it represents the actual people within the image and gives an insight into how they like to live their lives. These photographs have influenced my ideas as it has made me want to showcase as least one way of how youth today represent themselves - for example, through fashion.

Bruce Davidson

I really enjoy this image and it is the kind of style I hope to shoot for my location portraiture. This is from Bruce Davidson's 'Brooklyn Gang' series and shows a group of young people having a house party. The couple in the centre appear the brightest and so seem to be the main focus of this image. This could suggest that they are a couple with the way that they are holding each other. 

This image portrays stereotypical manners of the genders - the boy is rolling up his sleeves and the girl is looking at herself in the mirror, fixing her hair. I really enjoy how you can see the girls reflection and you can see how she is staring at herself. This could connote how teenage girls put a lot of effort into how they look. These images are my favourites as they are the closest representation of how I hope my images will turn out.

Musa Nxumalo

I love how this image has captured the motion of the boy as he is jumping in the air, playing the guitar. This portrays how passionate he is about music and how he is getting into the song he is playing. I have taken influence from this photograph as it shows his hobby and how he spends his spare time - playing music. This is something that I hope to capture. 

This image shows two girls laying in bed together. This suggests that they are at a sleepover or were hanging out in someone's bedroom. Whilst one girl is asleep, the other is awake and appears to be bored. This is a simple moment in their lives and has influenced me to take pictures of even the most basic moments in the subject's lives rather than focussing on just big moments as this will help me give a more accurate representation of their lives.

Danielle Levitt

This image appears to be more editorial due to the clothing that the girl's are wearing. Whilst I want my images to be more natural than editorial, I have taken influence from this image as I want to capture images of peoples hobbies. In this image, it showcases the boy skateboarding whilst the girls watch on. I can also take influence from the way that this image showcases the clothes the girls are wearing as I do want to represent fashion and how individuals dress today.

This image is more similar to the kind of photography I hope to explore. It shows a young man spitting milk at the camera, and it appears that he drank the milk straight from the cartoon. This shows that he is fun and has a carefree attitude. I have taken influence from this as I want the people in my images to interact with me and the camera - not just be in the pictures. I feel that this will help get a feel of their personality and make the viewer of the photograph connect with the person in it.

Techniques

The techniques I hope to explore as part of this project are:

Location portraiture, black and white, colour saturation, documentary photography and depth of field. I also hope to explore more computer experiments and work upon my skills with physical images.