Ophelia

From Wikipedia.org:

Ophelia is a fictional character in the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare. She is a young noblewoman of Denmark, the daughter of Polonius, sister of Laertes, and sweetheart of Prince Hamlet.

A possible historical source for Ophelia was Katherine Hamnet, a woman who fell into the Avon River and died in December 1579. Though it was eventually concluded that she had overbalanced while carrying some heavy pails, rumours that she was suffering from a broken heart were considered plausible enough for an inquest to be conducted into whether her death was a suicide. It is possible that Shakespeare - 16 at the time of the death - recalled the romantic tragedy in his creation of the character of Ophelia.

Alexandre Cabanel, 1883, Oil on Canvas.

John Everett Millias, 1851 - 52, Oil on Canvas

Underwater Shoot # 2 (Dive Otago)

Much appreciated feedback so far from Sudhir...

"..feminist, consumerist, gender, identity, media, culture and political perceptions are the various points of contexts which u may choose from.this should take care of the aspect of where u would like to address your issue, or would you like to connect it to the contemporary 'aesthetics'......"

Females portrayed in fashion magazines..

How the body is portrayed in the media..

Researching how the body is portrayed in media for the masses. No surprises, we're still lusting after skin, sex appeal and high fashion..Do we adore these people, does that make us superficial?

(click for larger scale)

Dive Otago to the rescue!!

Dive Otago has come to the party!
Meeting them on thursday last week has really helped move things along, the pool is booked free of charge sometime between the 26th and the 31st to work on my final shots.
Spoke to Dave about the pool, it's quite large (photos up hopefully soon!!) and the water is a lot clearer than that of Moana Pool, which gave quite a strong fogged picture and a very unattractive blue hue at times.

The pressing issue now that is in the way of my final shots is the fact my underwater housing is out of use, it needs (and might not be able to be) fixed. So at this time, my land-lubber camera is going to be used, but this brings up the problem that I cannot use this below water, so can I get shots with maximum impact on the surface?

Visual Inspiration: Music videos

Kasabian - Shoot the Runner

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHmRBUcQmKM
Always been a favourite music video of mine, done by "Alex & Martin".



This video is similar to the video by "Shynola" for Queens of the Stone Age - Go with the Flow
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nz6Rq1Pvh0


The only difference between these videos is the colouring, Red and Black VS. Most colours. I appreciate the time and detail in both videos, specially with the white splatters in Shoot the Runner and the build up to the finale in Go with the Flow.

I really like the way these videos have been done, and would be cool to turn my underwater-physical-presence-figure shots into this sorta Photoshopped, block colour image. Blues, pinks and blacks maybe?

The Swimming Hole - Water and the body

Thomas Eakins
1884-1885
Oil Painting
70cm x 92cm

Artist "Tony Ariawan" - Digital Light Figures

I came across these pictures (Thanks to Emily!) by Tony Ariawan, and was particularly interested how he sees and portrays the body with computer generated images. The colouring is vibrant and warm, and on the other images, violent and cold. These are just a few..





I really like how he captures the essence of kinetics and movement

Artist "Zena Holloway" - Underwater photographer & director

Zena Holloway takes fashion photography to a whole new level, starting off as a scuba diver, she's rewritten the ways of underwater photography in my opinion, the lighting and the flowing of the fabrics, the posing, it really distorts the physical perceptions of the body and the space it occupies.

Spanner in the works..

10 minutes into the second attempt at underwater photography.
The bag fills with water.
With the camera inside.

So, the camera housing has split, retiring the shoot for the time being.

Now, after a refreshing sunday of aqua jogging to not make my good money go to waste, i'm thinking I'll need to get another housing, or try and see if Dive Otago has a suitible pool setup to continue on the my chosen path. After studying my below photos, I fee;now got more of a direction, and have a good backup theory to go with it, after looking at various notions of occuping space and physical boundaries.

Options as of now:

1 - Dive Otago
2 - Find a new housing
3 - An actual underwater camera.

Researching how the body is portrayed in popular culture and photography.

Whilst researching the body and how it's portrayed in the media, I came across a pattern emerging.
bare/fantasies/over indulgence.
of course, this is far from the everyday body and it's actions. This is what we want to see, this is the warped perception of the youth, and the culture that follows this is as flat as the images we see. Bits and pieces of unoriginality and stereotype have smothered the senses!

Examples of this trend:
(wee bit of a warning, it's a bit saucy!)

Lady Gaga seems to be the most popular with
our generation, and the most scantily dressed
person i've ever seen

Favorite underwater shots so far..

working with a 7.1 mp camera really took it's toll on the image quality.
I'll have to rethink how I approach this, perhaps shallower water
and my other camera.

Images taken at 3.5m at Moana pool in the Dive Pool.

Space Dementia: Second attempt at underwater photography