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5 tips to become a successful portrait photographer

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5 tips to become a successful portrait photographer

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This blog will provide detailed tips on capturing beautiful portraits.

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This blog would be about a certain photography technique and how it developed. This write up will take users through who, why it is used and the effects it can impose on the artwork

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Most powerful photo/camera editions of today

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Most powerful photo/camera editions of today

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This blog provides an overview about a few of the various brilliant aspects of technical cameras and photography edits via Mac/laptop.

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My site is a means by which I can showcase my work to my potential customers and also bridge a way for them to contact me easily. My site displays all of my most recent and favourite work for my visitors. It also gives some information on my interest in photography and personal details of myself. Users also have access to a 'price list' as it were, of estimated prices of freelance photography jobs that I can be hired for.
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Investigating Photography Stop Motion animation: An Appreciation of Imperfection
August 14, 2016

‘Someone clever once said that
all things are lovelier for their imperfections.
And aside from your doctor’s report, tax return or pay cheque, I think this is true.’

As I pace back and forth, between making minuscule adjustments on my set to taking one of maybe 300 photos, I can’t help but have this question in mind: ‘Why would someone choose to do this? Why have many notable artists volunteered themselves to the tedious process that is stop motion animation? There must be some attraction to this art form.’ These are some of the questions that sparked my interest with stop motion and led me to do some digging into what the artists were saying.

Stop motion or stop frame animation is a cinematic technique that is utilised so as to animate objects that would otherwise be still. It is accomplished by taking photographs of the objects at each stage of the desired motion and playing them back quickly and chronologically to show movement. This method is done commonly with clay-‘mation’ or moveable puppets because they are pliable, however there are many different other ways of using stop motion, as I have come to discover.

In my digging I came across several articles and films that revealed a common appeal toward stop motion. They all uncover this interest in the imperfections of the process, the flaws visible to the human eye. Initially, I was confused, I thought stop motion animators would endeavour to create pieces that were as close to seeming digitally rendered as possible, but my research was telling me otherwise. It implied that artists such as Tom Gasek, noted for worked such as Chicken Run, not only made mistakes but took pride in them, making them part of the art piece.

But what is the significance of these imperfections? Are these elements intended, or are they unconsciously present?
The following is my investigation of some selected stop motion artists that have spoken about or incorporated aspects of the ‘imperfect’ into their work.

Part 1  - The Uneven Crust Essay

My primary source of inspiration for my fascination with stop motion is the works of the BAFTA winning artist, Mikey Please. He works with 3D puppet animation, using materials such as polystyrene, paper, ping pong balls and styrofoam. Whilst perusing the pages of his website, I came across an essay he wrote called ‘The Uneven Crust Essay.’ Needless to say, the title caught my attention and after reading it, I realised that Please had the same question I had, and attempted to answer it himself.

‘I enjoy a sandwich with an uneven crust. A pencil drawing where the lead has snapped and the line is left with a staccato gap. A visible seam. I like Marilyn Monroe’s face. And I like it even more because there’s a mole, a brown wart growing above her top lip. I like these things, because there is something wrong with them.’

His essay, although personal, makes valid points about human nature, and our ability to be more inclined to something because of its flaws, rather than its flawlessness. He also points out, though, that this approach can be counterproductive for artists as logically, ‘the mastery of craft should be the apex of achievement.’ Personally, I would judge my skill of drawing by how accurate I could portray my subject, how detailed I could make it. In the world of drawing, much praise is given for those who can accurately recreate reality from their drawings, with the perfect use of tonal variation and proportions. Please admits that ‘there is a certain point where a paradox takes effect. A point where something is so good…that I have to choke back a mouthful of sick’. I can relate completely to this because there comes a point where that perfect drawing is just an exact copy of the photograph, yes we can appreciate the expertise in it, but without any faults it becomes impersonal. ‘When it comes to matters of subjective appreciation, perfection is a state of imperfection.’

Is this notion of liking things for their mistakes absurd on the part of being human? Are we just prone to be counterintuitive when it comes to matters of art?
Please reveals that it is not an uncommon occurrence for humans to shy away from the near-perfect.
‘It was notably noticed by a Japanese roboticist, Dr. Masahiro Mori, in relation to how much people enjoyed increasingly realistic robot design. At the point where the design became almost completely lifelike and perfect, there was a sharp decline in affection, a dip he described as the now well known Uncanny Valley.’
As I have learnt about in my English Literature studies, the Uncanny or ‘Unheimlich’ proves to the audience to be both familiar and incongruous, which creates a sense of discomfort. By definition it is : ‘that which makes you feel uneasy in the world of your normal experience, not quite safe to trust to, mysterious, weird, uncomfortably strange or unfamiliar.’
This discomfort is exemplified in the quote from Mikey Please.

In the Guardian article ‘Masters of Puppets’ animator Dan Driscoll says ‘The texture of stop motion lends itself to making the gross factor that much more intense and palpable. Stop motion has always lent itself to the dark side. Compounded by the mediums’s relative cheapness and creative freedom it has always appealed
to loners, eccentrics and subversive.’ We see this time and time again in productions such as Corpse Bride, Coraline and Anomalisa.

In his film, Marylin Miller, Please beautifully portrays the struggles of the artist, the creative process and its frustrations. The subject Marylin, attempts to make something as good as possible, in fact she is called a ‘perfectionist’, but in the end she ends up destroying her work.

‘Perhaps the problem with perfection is that it can’t be improved upon. It has nowhere to go, no potential for development, to evolve and to grow.’

Part 2 - Tom Gasek and Claymation

Tom Gasek, known for his work at Aardman Animations wrote an essay that was fitting for my investigation. He expands on how animation as a means of storytelling must include a number of factors in order for the viewer to relate to the story. He speaks of a ‘hook’ that must ‘pull us in’, so to speak. ‘That "hook" should be something that we, as viewers, relate to in a very primal way,’
this hook being one that viewers identify with consciously or subconsciously, psychological and physiological.

When I asked a friend if she related to any animated characters in particular, she replied with the much loved ‘Spongebob.’ When asked why, she replied ‘because when I was younger, I was like him I the sense that I was happy and wanted to be everyone’s friend but different situations would come up and some people would not really want to be my friend, just like Spongebob.’  It was Spongebob’s negative personality traits that made her relate to the character. Although Spongebob is a 2D digital animation, the principle is the same for stop motion. Gasek said that ‘One of the strongest elements of identification, both psychologically and physically, is imperfection.’
It is Spongebob’s idiosyncrasies and perseverance that makes his adventures interesting and endearing, despite being neither human nor real.

*While digital animation is reaching great lengths at replicating the movement of humans, there is an authenticity that is established with stop motion animation that can only be reached because of  its ‘reliance on photography to reveal it’s physical reality.’ The animation comes straight from real life, and because of that there is a material reality present that is not accomplished in digital animation. With the advance in technology and programs like Dragonframe, stop motion has been developing more and more ways to perfect motion, but ‘can never ultimately deny its real physical qualities and limitations.’

‘Successful stop-motion films celebrate their imperfections. For example, there is a joy in seeing the fingerprints of the artist in a clay animated film.’
-Tom Gasek

Similarly, when I asked Tom O’meera, RCA graduate, he agrees with me and also refers me back to the Uneven Crust Essay, clearly, other animators have released the genius behind the deliberate inclusion of imperfections.

‘I do think Stop Motion adds something, it offers a warmth that can be offered in the medium and not just the story. I like it when imperfections are a conscious decision and left in as small clues to how the film was made. Fantastic Mr Fox is a great example of this, I like how in one scene you can have a very realistic stop motion fire but in another the smoke is obviously being pulled up by rope, it adds to the humour.
Working out how something is made is  great feeling, as though you are part of a secret club. Stop motion offers this but unfortunately CGI does not.’- Tom Omeera

Part 3 - William Kentridge

During my exploration, I realised that the imperfection is not only limited to claymation stop motion animation, but it can also be expressed through drawn stop motion animation. A good example of this is the South African artist William Kentridge. Kentridge’s art has a political underbelly that impacts the emotional and psychological effect of his work, this acts as his ‘hook’. His work was made in 1994 before the first general election in South Africa, Kentridge no doubt drew inspiration from this time as his themes explore memory, national identity and capitalism. The main character, Nandi seemingly symbolises South Africa’s attempts at creating a new government in the midst of the brutal past, filled with bodies and wounds that blend into the landscape. Felix is ‘the alter ego of capitalist South Africa. In the scene where he looks into the mirror and sees Nandi, the animation evokes feelings of guilt and responsibility for her death.

Particularly in ‘Felix in Exile’ the remnants of erased lines from previous drawings acts as a metaphor for the remnants of the harsh past still visible in South Africa. Charcoal itself is a messy medium to work in, one that is very easy to adapt to incase of mistakes. The animation is ‘jerky’ which is parallel to his depiction of the human processes whether physical or political which contribute to the ‘devastated landscape.’ Digital or claymation animation would not accomplish the same depth in meaning that the charcoal drawings did.
"When I tried to draw on a computer, its inner logic was very much at odds. The computer had to do with cloning, replication (things staying the same), and effect. You could put an effect that looked like charcoal animation onto the computer (aware of that not being a necessary part of the process, but a kind of decoration added on), whereas the smudge of a charcoal animation is not decoration. It's something you can't avoid; it's there whether you like it or not."

Conclusion

I have not been insinuating that imperfections, whether deliberate or accidental in art form are good things, in most instances they are not. Neither am I saying that digital animation is a cold and impersonal form of animation with a weightily reliance on technology. Both methods have their advantages over the other, but with extensive research into stop motion animation, I have found that the aspect of imperfection, is one that is celebrated rather than looked down upon. Imperfection in this instance is a very subjective term, and can also include the limitations of the material which is being used.

This imperfection facet of stop motion, is one of the many aesthetic reasons some artists chose to use this method of animation. As Adam Gopnik of the Newyorker states, ‘One wasn't convinced by,’ the jerky flow of the animation, visible fingerprints and the obvious falseness but ‘one was amazed by them.’