Sophie Calle Experiments

I found the Sophie Calle project 'The Address Book' very interesting so I thought I would begin by experimenting with a phone book my mum had stored around the house.

I decided to take the pictures in black and white to give like an old looking feel and effect.  What I really like about what I had is the actual photocopied page because my printer isn't that good it gave it a nice smudge effect to it which adds a really nice qwerkyness about it.

These are the other experiments I did.  Some pictures were a bit blurry but I reckon this gave them a nice effect of  rapidness which gives the effect of not wanting anyone to know that you're taking pictures of someones address book.

Depth Of Field

Depth Of Field- depth of field (DOF) is the distance between the nearest and farthest objects in a scene that appear acceptably sharp in an image. 
Although a lens can precisely focus at only one distance at a time, the decrease in sharpness is gradual on each side of the focused distance, so that within the DOF, the unsharpness is imperceptible under normal viewing conditions.  In some cases, it may be desirable to have the entire image sharp, and a large DOF is appropriate. In other cases, a small DOF may be more effective, emphasizing the subject while de-emphasizing the foreground and background.

This image is a great example of DOF.

Sophie Calle Project

- The Blind: Sophie Calle did a project where she asked people who have been blind since birth to describe what they thought beauty was, she then took that idea and went out and photographed a response to that idea, she did a multiple of examples of this and created a project around this. 

This image is just one of the many pictures she took and put together.  There was many different responses from the blind people which were very interesting, such as one lady said that she heard that green is a nice colour so that must mean grass was very beautiful. 

I find this project very interesting and different because I always wonder what it would be like being blind and how horrible it would be not being able to see anything and having to use what you hear and imagination to work out what things look like.

Shutter Speed and Aperture Testing

To begin my testing I had to make sure I had the correct settings.  The settings I had were f2.8, "3.2, 0.0 brightness, no flash and ISO 400.  I found that these settings gave me a picture that I liked, so I carried on testing out what more things I could do. 

I began to try writing numbers from one to three by changing the exposure time from "3.2 to "5.0 which meant the camera would be exposed to the light for a longer time which made it easier to draw more.

I found it quite hard to do because I had to turn the numbers around, however my dad found it much easier (which shows in the picture above) and we then thought about even longer words that we could write.

I tried writing Real madrid but I changed the camera exposure to "15 so more light got into the image which made me start to appear.

I Finally decided to take the exposure time down to "13 and got my dad to try write Real Madrid, which unfortunately he wasn't quick enough to write it, but now i know that by having the exposure level at around "13, I will be able to get relatively good quality images.

Exploration & Discovery

Sophie Calle - (Female) Born 1953, a French writer, Photography, installation artist and Conceptual artist.  Since 2005 she has worked as a professor of film and photography at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland.  After completing her schooling she travelled for seven years.  When she returned to Paris in 1979 she began a series of projects to acquaint herself again both with the city and people of Paris and with herself. 
          In Suite Venitienne (1979), Calle followed a man she met at a party in Paris to Venice, where she disguised herself and followed him around the city, photographing him. Calle’s surveillance of the man, who she identifies only as Henri B, includes black and white photographs accompanied by text.



Portrait of Sophie calle



Sophie Calle's following strangers project

I find Sophie Calle's work intruiging and in a sense quite creepy in the way she follows people without them realising and captures their every move.