Critical Analysis

"Whatever it grants to vision and whatever its manner, a photograph is always invisible; it is not it that we see." R. Barthes.

As soon as people looked at a photograph, we believed that it is what was seen by the photographer. As Berger pointed out:

"Perspective makes the single eye the centre of the visible world. Everything converges on the eye as to the vanishing point of infinity." (Berger 2008:18)

However:

"The invention of the camera changed the way men saw. The visible came to mean something different to them." (Berger 2008:18)

Now, we see photographs as creations. They have been carefully designed and created, rather than captured. I have illustrated this very technique in my project, capturing ordinary landscape photos, editing them and adding characters from folklore that do not belong in our time, perhaps even in the real world. My creations have placed these characters in real-life settings, however:

"An image is a sight which has been recreated of reproduced. It is an appearance, or a set of appearances, which has been detached from the place and time in which it first made its appearance and preserved - for a few moments or a few centuries." (Berger 2008:10)

By situating images of mythical creatures within contemporary landscapes, I have brought them to life. Though I have not forgotten that the images are fictional, the effect that they have upon the audience will be real. If the audience is encouraged to think and see the possibility of more in the world, of adventure and mystery in everyday life, then the project has succeeded to break the mundane routines of modern living, flavouring life with centuries-old secrets.

"It is seeing which establishes our place in the surrounding world" Berger (2008:7)

-Barthes, R. [trans.] Howard, R. (1982) Camera Lucidia: Reflections on Photography. New York: Hill and Wang.

-Berger, J. (2008) ‘Chapter 1’ Ways of Seeing. London: British Broadcasting Corporation and Penguin Books, pp. 7-34.

Field Trip

These are snapshots from the PDF contact sheet of our field trip to Stanmer Park early in the term (PDFs cannot be uploaded to Blogger). I was attempting to display the ways in which light changes the environment. I began taking photos before the sun had fully risen; the light was dull. Then, as the sun rose, it shone through leaves, making them glow; it was reflected by the shimmering water in the pond full of litter, making it somehow beautiful; it lit up the landscape in unusual and enchanting ways. Perhaps the mystical auora it created helped to inspire my mythical project. The light made small, dark hollows in a hedgerow look like a fairy den by lighting the leaves around the opening: light changes perspective. This was something that I could utilise in my project. I found this during the Devil's Dyke shoot - the landscape was a dull purple until the sun rose and filled it with golden light.

This again relates back to Ways of Seeing, by John Berger. "The more imaginative the work, the more profoundly it allows us to share the artist's experience of the visible." My aim for the project was to inspire people to look at the world differently, to see more of the mystical qualities of the world rather than plough through the streets with headphones on, missing these experiences. Whatever people believe about myths and folktales, they teach us important lessons and the element of mystery is important in life. People can be naive enough to believe that we know all there is to know about the world, that there is no such thing as mystery, but that will never be true and things should stay that way.

Final Mount Caburn Fairies

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"There is also riveting folk tale about a mouth organist called Charlie Winnick who was supposed to have been one of the best players during the interwar years. 
But when he was young, he was a terrible player and bullied by some other children, who took his mouth organ and threw it into a field. 
Having scrambled through the field to find his mouth organ, he goes to sit and enjoy a quiet moment of reflection, but sees a scarecrow in the field in front of him move its arms. 
The scarecrow then flies him inside Mount Caburn, where the pharisees (Sussex dialect for fairies) teach him to play the mouth organ exquisitely.
When he returns home the next day, the boys who bullied him have been given a good thrashing and his parents are relieved to see him.
Of course they don’t believe his story about the pharisees but no one can deny his improved ability at the mouth organ."

• http://www.sussexexpress.co.uk/news/county-news/sussex-folk-tales-and-myths-reveal-world-of-ghosts-and-fairies-1-5371055 

Final St. Leonard's Forest Dragon

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"Although St Leonard cannot be truly claimed as a Sussex saint (he was a French hermit of the sixth century, later often revered by returning Crusaders who believed in his power to save them from captivity), a very long-standing legend asserts that he did actually live for many years in St Leonard's Forest, near Horsham, and moreover that he once killed a dragon there. The battle was long and ferocious, and as a reward for Leonard's courage, Heaven granted that wild lilies of the valley would spring ip for ever wherever his blood had sprinkled the earth, and that nightingales which had previously distracted him by their singing while he was at prayer would henceforth be silent."

• Simpson, J (2009) Folklore of Sussex. Third edition. Gloucestershire: The History Press.

Final Witch

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"It was firmly believed that any witch could turn into a hare as soon as she was alone and unobserved. In proof of this, it was often alleged that the local huntsmen had repeatedly sighted a hare, chased it, and failed to catch it because it had disappeared into the garden of some particular old woman, or bolted into her drain. It the huntsmen knocked at her door, they would find her at home, but panting. This went on till one day one of the hounds snapped at the hare's hindquarters as it fled - and when next seen, the old woman was nursing a wounded leg."

• Simpson, J (2009) Folklore of Sussex. Third edition. Gloucestershire: The History Press.

I had considered photoshopping a hare into the image of the witch, but it was difficult with all the undergrowth in the churchyard. I captured what I imagined the old lady, out of breath and nursing her wounded leg might look like. This is a more realistic representation that its stereotypical counterparts in the series. She is not dressed in rags, covered with wrinkles or transforming from a hare into an old woman, this is more subtle, but still effective.

Final Michelham Priory Ghost

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"Commonly known as the Grey Lady, this is probably the best known of the priory's ghosts, and the one spotted most often, although, ironically, there is much disagreement as to her identity.

According to Andrew Green, a couple of friends of the Beresford-Wrights were enjoying a quiet walk around the grounds one summer evening when they noticed a woman standing on the bridge in front of the gatehouse. Dressed in a grey gown, the woman had a sad expression on her face as she gazed into the moat beneath her. When the couple later asked their hosts about the identity of 'the other guest', they were assured that they were the only visitors staying at Michelham at that time. Over the next few months other the visitors to the priory reported seeing the same sad-looking woman."

• Munn, D (2006) Sussex Haunted Heritage. Sussex: S.B. Publications.

Final Long Man of Wilmington Giant

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"The tallest man in England is a Sussex man - the famous Long Man of Wilmington, a gigantic figure, 226 feet long, cut in the turf on the steep northern flank of Windover Hill, facing Wilmington Priory.

The giant must have remained locally popular, for only repeatedly scraping away the turf could have kept him in existence through the centuries so that he survived, however dimly, until he was given his permanent outline in late Victorian times. Scouring such a large figure must have been a considerable task, and it is probably fair to assume that it was a communal undertaking, enlivened by sports and merrymaking (as at the famous scouring of the While Horse of Uffington, in Berkshire), but unfortunately no records of such activity have survived.

Naturally, a local legend grew up to explain how such a figure was there at all. According to this a living giant had once had his home on Windover Hill, but had been killed, and the figure was either a memorial to him to the actual outline of his body, drawn round him as he lay dead on the slope."

• Simpson, J (2009) Folklore of Sussex. Third edition. Gloucestershire: The History Press.

Final Devil's Dyke

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"The Devil, so it is said, had been infuriated by the conversion of Sussex, one of the last strongholds of paganism in England, and more particularly by the way the men of the Weald were building churches in all their villages. So he swore that he would dig right through the Downs in a single night, to let in the sea and drown them all. He started just near Polynings and dug and dug most furiously, sending great clods of earth flying left and right - one became Chanctonbury, another Cissbury, another Rackham Hill, and yet another Mount Caburn. Towards midnight, the noise he was making disturbed an old woman, who looked out to see what was going on. As soon as she understood what he was up to, she lit a candle and set it on her window-sill, holding up a sieve in front of it to make a dimly glowing globe. The Devil looked round, and thought this was the rising sun. At first he could hardly believe his eyes, but then he heard a cock crowing - for the old woman, just to make quite sure, had knocked her cockerel off his perch. So Satan flew away, leaving his work half done. Some say that as he went out over the Channel, a great dollop of earth fell from his cloven hoof, and that's how the Isle of Wight was made; others that he bounded straight over into Surrey, where the impact of his landing formed the hollow known as his Punch Bowl; others, that he hurled the Goldstone into Hove as he flew away."

• Simpson, J (2009) Folklore of Sussex. Third edition. Gloucestershire: The History Press.

'Gender, Gaze and Otherness' annotated presentation

*This presentation was made by my class-mates.

'Circulation and Authorship of the Photo-image' annotated presentation

*This presentation was made by my class-mates.

'Cultural Imaginaries and Landscape Photography' annotated presentation

*Presentation made by my fellow students.

Ideas of cultural imaginaries combined with landscape photography describes the bulk of how my project took shape. I took my interest in myths and folktales, researched local folklore online and in local libraries, and discovered the lively cultural imaginaries invented by Sussex folk centuries ago. I decided to bring these fanciful tales to life for a modern audience; the generations who have arguably lost their imaginative capabilities as more and more of the world that we live in has been discovered. Human beings are developing a frame of mind that convinces them that they know all they need to know about the world - they know what exists and what does not. I wanted to toy with this idea, and remind people that as once we believed so assuredly in these creatures and characters, we should not be so hasty in dismissing them now. The series can also be viewed as a window to a time in the past, an insight into Sussex's cultural history.

On-set

These are some photos taken of me on the shoots.

Up on Devil's Dyke, we arrived at 5:30am for the sunrise at 6am. This gave me time to take photos before the sunrise, as well as during and after. I also got time to test camera settings and take photos with different aperture settings, shutters speeds and ISO. I got a wide range of lighting options this way, allowing me to get the perfect golden colour of the photo that I chose to represent this folktale.

 The image of St. Leonard's dragon was captured in Horsham Park, where a statue of the character resides. Again, I took photos from every angle and used a wide range of settings to try and make it easier later on when I would have to remove the statue from this background and plant it into a different one. The light bounced off of the dragon's metallic scales beautifully, but the angle of the sun in the forest location was slightly different, and I had to add a shadow to help the dragon to blend into the background more naturally.

Again, the Mount Caburn shoot was very windy and cold. We climbed the hill at around 6pm, ready for the sunset at 7pm. There were clouds moving in, so I began taking photos long before the sunset in case it became concealed. I found it very difficult to balance the over-exposed sky and the under-exposed foreground of the hill, so I knew that I wanted to capture a peachy glowing order to make the photograph aesthetically pleasing, despite the tricky lighting. Out of all of the photos that I took, the one that I chose to use was the only one that captured the atmosphere that I had envisaged when planning the shoot.

Photoshop experiment

I was playing around with the photo of Michelham Priory on Photoshop, and using the colour picker tool, I increased the whites. This had what I think is a fantastic effect, looking very ghostly in my opinion. Unfortunately it doesn't fit with the visual style of my project. However, I still like the outcome of this experiment. It almost reminds me of a data bending example in which the colour code has been changed.

Mount Caburn Photoshoot

This is the view of the sunset from the peak of Mount Caburn, looking West towards Lewes.

This shoot took a lot of planning, as we had to wait for a day with plenty of sunshine and good visibility, though we have had a hazy month. Finally a day came which was only slightly hazy, which I thought would be lit nicely by the sunset. It was very windy and cold, but the climb was worth it for this fantastic view. I will darken the sky section of the photograph slightly to enhance the pastel colours, whilst also very slightly lightening the top of the mountain in the foreground. The fairies will be balls of light in the foreground, a brighter white than the setting sun. I will achieve this using the brush tool in Photoshop with an opacity of 50-60%, beginning with a large circle and then decreasing, brushing slightly each time, achieving a glowing ball effect.

Witch Photoshoot

We conducted the photoshoot for the witch character in a churchyard in Seaford. This was because the original folktale did not specify a location for the witch story, it merely referred to an "unnamed village" in Sussex. This wall of the church not dissimilar to the face of an old stone-walled cottage, but I also felt that the macabre atmosphere in the churchyard was perfect for the representation of this folktale. The finished image will be cropped around the left side and top to improve the aesthetic of the scene, and the colour will be darkened.

Editing Devil's Dyke

I have been editing the photograph of Devil's Dyke in Photoshop. Firstly I worked on the colour. (The colour of the edited image below is not truly representative, as it is a screen shot rather than a full resolution image like the original).
I edited the sky and the land separately, as I found that each reacted differently to a change in contrast. The land looked much more dramatic and majestic with a high contrast, whereas a decrease in the contrast of the sky enhanced the pastel colours much more effectively.
I then added the image of a silhouette in the shape of the devil. I shrunk the image down and used the perspective tool to alter the perspective to make it appear the the devil is flying away from the rising sun.