Nick Turpin

WEEKLY ASSIGNMENT

Create a portrait, drawing inspiration from either Ai Wei Wei's issue based work, or from Nick Turpin's aesthetic response to available light.

NICK TURPIN

  

Images taken from Nick Turpin's series: 'On the Night Bus'. 

I decided to do my weekly assignment on Nick Turpin as i was instantly more inspired and intrigued by his work. I liked the simplicity and meaning behind Ai Wei Wei's 'Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn' but i just think that type of theme didn't resonate with me as much. I don't want this assignment to have a specific meaning behind it, i want people to interpret it for themselves and appreciate it aesthetically. I also like the way that Nick Turpin is able to so simply create a rather distorted and rather eery effect just by photographing through a steamy window. The photo on the left could almost look like a painting because of the vibrancy and strokes created by the condensation on the bus window. I also like the idea that these people could be anywhere. The photo doesn't give too much away. You only know they are on a bus because of the title of Turpin's series. I quite like not being able to see the face of the subject in the second photo. This gave me more confidence to try and create something rather obscure. 

THOUGHT PROCESSES

I was sitting in my room earlier today, at around 5:30. I was writing up about a different project when i looked outside the window and saw just how beautiful the sky was. The light coming into my room was just slightly orange and was creating a really pretty effect on my window. As it had just rained as well, i immediately put my attention to Turpin. I thought that i didn't want to just go out and wait for buses to come past so i could photograph them, i wanted to try and approach this in a different way. The first thing that came to mind is what if i could control how much distortion was on the window- how much condensation there was or how much rain was on the surface. I then thought about how convenient it would be if i had a piece of perspex that i could hold up to the light and have someone stand in front of it. I could dip it in a body of water so that droplets would form, then i could just experiment with locations and light without having to rely on something like a bus. I knew i didn't have any perspex but i wanted to try and find something. I'd also been sat around most of the day, so wanted an excuse to get out. I pictured a body of water in my head, like a pond, so i could hold something up in front of the sunset over a pond. I just thought that this would look really lovely and wasn't going to give up until i actually had a solid idea. I got up and started running around the house asking my housemates if they had any mirrors. I didn't think mirrors would work but i just wanted something i could use. In the end i remembered i had some clear plastic boxes used to bring bits and bobs up for Uni. I got a small one out from the cupboard, held it up to the light and took a photo to see what it looked like. It created a really grainy, rough effect which i loved! By this time, it was quarter to 6 and the sun was going to set at quarter past. I had a pond in mind but it was a 15 minute drive away. So, i grabbed three of my housemates, zoomed down country lanes and got to the pond with 15 minutes to spare. I ran down to the water and got my housemates to just walk about as i took photo's through the box against the sunset. I then dipped the back of the box in water to get droplets and carried on. We tried this at several different spots around the pond and most of the images actually came out really well! You wouldn't guess that they were taken through a broken plastic box. I wanted to try and make the scene as distorted as possible. I didn't manage to achieve the condensation effect like Turpin but if i'm being honest, i'm quite happy that i was able to create something very different. Here are the results:

This was the first panicked photo taken from my house

I then tried a few with flash to see if that would add anything:

             

 

            

I liked the effect it created but i found the torch a bit too invasive and i didn't like the fact that my eye was immediately drawn to it. So i went back to taking photo's without it, but this time i shot through a different part of the box to compose the shot a little differently:

I really like these because it gives the image layers. This section of the box is also even harder to identify because the scratch marks create a frosted effect. These were taken as it was slowly getting darker but the sunset and it's colours were becoming more intense.

I threw a bit of sand over the top also just to see what effect that would create. It just makes the image look more rough and gives it some texture which i like.

I took this right at the end of the sunset, when the colours were most vibrant. I love the deep purple. It makes the whole image feel quite cold but it's almost like you're protected by the rough material in front of it. 

I really enjoyed this little shoot simply because it was extremely spontaneous. I came up with the idea and ran out to shoot it within an hour. I think that's why the results were really good- because i didn't really know what i was doing, i didn't think about it too much. I just knew what i wanted and tried as hard as i could to achieve that. I also didn't have a proper DSLR with me so took these all on my phone. I also tried not to stray too far from Turpin's style. These were test shots that actually, came out better than expected. However, i want to try and get one single portrait that captures everything. It doesn't need to be perfect but i think doing this photo shoot was a good starting point and now i can experiment more with this idea. I want to see what the outcome would be like using a DSLR compared to phone camera quality.

We'll end with a Nick Turpin shot to hopefully see some similarities between my images and his.