Latest shoot.

So I spent a couple of hours this afternoon colour co-ordinating my wardobe, I'm not sure why but I kind of think it reflects the kind of person I would really like to be at the same time. It's just a shame that I'm not and I'm still living in a student house. Things will be different when I have my own house, so I did the best I could with that idea. I think I'm going to stop shooting and thinking about shooting anything until Wednesday, so I can get some real research under my belt and I can figure out what I'm doing.
The weekend was a nice break and I thought I could come back to it a fresh but I'm more panicked and stressed out than ever. I feel like my technical ability is really letting me down and I'm back to AS Level, which is ridiculous because I haven't got to 2:1 3rd year without being fairly competent.
I'm probably just crazy-nervous about finishing and it all being over.





Maybe I need to severely Photoshop them to make them interesting or something, I don't know, I'm not sure that I really like anything that I'm even imagining right now. Forced creativity is so balls.
As well as those photos I also experimented with some different lighting and took a few self-portraits, I quite like some of them even if my skin is a bit rough. I particularly like the yellow-red-blue one, it kind ofmakes me look like an owl.

© Ruth Johnston 2011.

I think reading will definitely help, and getting the hell off Tumblr every now and then. Urgh. I basically need a hell of a lot of advice, and I'm too scared to show my work in front of everyone tomorrow because I'm an idiot.
Oh and here are two Polaroids I took, I'm really trying to channel something extraordinary and struggling to come to terms with the fact that I'm pretty ordinary. Sorry for going a bit emo.

Cuddle. Relax. Sleep.

This series is called, 'Cuddle. Relax. Sleep', this relates to things we do in bed as well as the functions that this bed can no longer carry out.

I came across this bed while walking back to my house. I liked how it was just there and had been abandoned - I almost felt sorry for it.
This bed is no longer a bed, it's just a piece of rubbish. Beds are designed for intimacy and relaxation, the side of the road fulfills neither of these roles and neither does this bed.

There are seven images in this series to replicate a week. I have titled the images as spaced out in time to make the period seem longer over the images. The bed has been in the same place for 12 days so far.

Day 1, 5:00pm.

Day 3, 2:00pm.

Day 4, 12:00pm.

Day 6, 4:36pm.

Day 7, 6:00pm.

Day 7/8, 1:12am.

Day 9, 8:00am.

Main Influences:
Martin Parr: looking at the ordinary and it's significance over time.
Salva Lopez: the loneliness of empty spaces.
Richard Wentworth: the throwaway society and the burden of living in an over-crowded world of mass-produced objects. As well as our failure to look at the ordinary and see it as extraordinary.
Charlotte Cotton - The Photograph as Contemporary Art: Chapter 4 'Something and nothing': how photographing everyday items alters their concept and our perception and how still-life photography makes the audience question the subject of the image rather than the practitioner's technique.

I feel quite sickeningly 'modern art'.
Day 7/8 is going in my exhibition.
All images, Ruth Johnston 2009©