Project 2 - My Three Ideas

 

I have contemplated several different subculture topics current in youth culture which I could photograph. I ended up with three subcultures and an idea for each. As I chose photography for my digital media form, I had to consider how I could represent these subcultures by photographing them. These are what I came up with:

Idea 1 is centred around drinking culture and youth's relationship with alcohol. My plan was to create a magazine about the subject. Some of my ideas for this topic were inspired by Maciej Dakowikz. I thought this has the potential to be a great topic as for under 18s, consumption of alcohol is illegal, yet as it is the most accessible recreational drug, 44% of children aged 11 - 15 consume alcohol according to drinkaware.co.uk.. There are many different ways in which alcohol is consumed, many different reasons for drinking it, many different settings it's consumed in etc. For this reason, It's quite a diverse topic.

However, I didn't research very far into this idea as there were aspects of it I didn't like. I liked the idea of creating the layout of a magazine, but I didn't like the amount of journalism that came with it. I would have changed to a different form of response had I not realised that the idea itself wasn't feasible. Consuming alcohol is largely a social thing, and with social groups of more than two people banned until July, that rules out a lot but it could have been worked around. However, having all pubs and bars closed until July makes this idea unrealistic as of course, pubs and bars are a huge part of drinking culture. For this reason, this idea was ruled out. 

Idea 2 is a photo book of Skateboarding culture. Whilst at first I only considered skateboarding, I soon realised BMX-ing and scooter stunting were also things to consider. As I was trying to come up with ideas on how I would photograph this, I came across J. Grant Brittain. I really like the combination of using black and white photography, intentional underexposure and framing elements to add atmosphere to his photographs. I felt that skateboarding makes a good topic for youth culture as skatereview.com states that 45% of skateboarders are aged 12 - 17, so there are definitely enough youths skateboarding to make this topic worthwhile photographing.

I was very close to choosing Punk music culture over skateboarding culture as drinking culture is already out of the picture and punks seem to be the most interesting topic to photograph. However, with punk culture also ruled out as a result of COVID-19 restrictions for reasons that will be mentioned below, I realised skateboarding culture is the only doable option. It also helped my decision that the photo book was my favourite form or response, and I know quite a few skateboarders.

Idea 3 was crating punk based CD and Vinyl covers. I liked the idea of creating something related to a music culture, and I thought creating CD and Vinyl album covers could be a creative way to showcase my work. Of course it would only very lightly if at all impact the way I did my photography, but it would have been a way of grouping my collection together that was relevant to the topic. I also thought punks were the best music culture to photograph. Due to how eccentric they are, I think they're probably the most visually interesting music culture to photograph.

This was my favourite topic that I wanted to photograph and had we not been in lockdown due to COVID-19, It is probably the idea I would have pursued. The problem was that the closest group of punks I could find within the set age demographic were in Birmingham. Not only am I hypothetically travelling outside of my restricted zone, I am meeting a large group of people that aren't in my bubble. I could have tried to pursue a different music culture, but this was the only one that interested me enough to photograph it, which is a shame because I really liked the CD and Vinyl cover idea.

The winner is idea 2. My work will be influenced by the work of J. Grant Brittain and the photographs that are on my Pinterest board. However, the fourth photographer I researched who is unrelated to any particular culture is Claudio Montegriffo. His work with shadows and use of light could make for some really interesting skateboarding photographs if I can pull it off.

I will be looking into how Claudio Montegriffo achieves this affect and I'll be experimenting with it. I will also look into how I could achieve the same or near same affect in Photoshop.