UPDATE..Power, The shoot

Update… progress for the POWER project

 

I really enjoyed the shoot I did with my subject today. I got lots of images and have edited them down and am in the process of loading them up now. What went well was that I really got a feel for her personality not just what she would present to a stranger so I was pleased with that. I found it really difficult to think about what I actually wanted when I was there, I felt a bit like I should have planned it better but then in my mind I was thinking that is the point you don’t want the planned shot you want the one in between what you ask the subject to do.

I decided to put my own spin on things and write some of the words I had noted down she had said or things I got the impression of as we talked before the shoot. I was really pleased with the result of these shots as I tried different techniques with the camera and came out with different effects.

The following are a selection of shot that I captured but did not use for my actual piece of work:

The reason I chose not to use these images is that they did not reflect her mood and attitude, they just seamed like shots to me, just images I had taken with her consent. To see my artifact you will need to click on the POWER page at the top of this blog roll.

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Planing for Power

Power Artefact Plan and Influence

  

As previously mentioned I’ve changed my thoughts on power and am now following the idea of looking at identity, specifically what we present to others to show our Identity, so in a sence its the power that comes with presenting our identity….however it might work out slightly differently. The reason I say this is because I want to try working like Diane Arbus, I currently feel very inspired by the way in which she approached photography as a posed to someone like Elinor Curucci (featured below) who has stuck close to working with her family and Nan Goulding who did studys of her friends Arbus went out into situations where she must have felt uncomfortable but she was also so curious she needed to see and experience it for herself. 

Carucci LipsAndHair

 

Image by Nan Golding

 

I am not discounting the influence Golding and Curruci have on my work as a whole as they have been very influential to a lot of my work within photography, I have previously been experimenting with the techniques of looking closer at subjects and following a situation such as my daughter as she grows and I would evidence both Goldings and Currucis influences within my work. But I want Arbus influence to be seen within this piece of work as I like the idea of studying a subject and getting the one shot that says a lot about the person more than just what is on the surface. 

ACTION PLAN

  

I have found a subject a female about 28 years old who is a photographer by trade. She is married and has one child a son. She has kindly agreed to let me use her as my subject for this piece of work (experiment – as I am trying out something new and am not confident of what the results will be). I have agreed to meet her today after I had a phone conversation with her about it and have already meet up with her a few times and agreed to do the shoot in the comfort of her own home. 

I have asked her to have three objects to hand that she feels represents her identity as I feel I need a starting point to discuss herself with me. I don’t necessarily want to focus on the objects but on her and get a feel for her personality and how she deals with situations. I feel that people tend to identify more with what type of person you are than what you bring with you. 

I am looking forward to the shoot today and editing the images tonight. I will post up the images and how I think the shoot went. later today

Power Artefact

The power artefact has been placed on the page dedicated to power.

Power – The sound artefact I abandoned

It’s a start not an ending!

I want to show the development of my ideas and my attempts at the practical work we have been doing along with the research we have been doing throughout the term.

This is the sound arterfact I have started for the power part of this module, it’s not finished as you can see there is no ending to it. IT just does not seem to come to any conclusion.

<<<< insert sound artefact hear>>>>

I have written previously about what was working and what was not with this piece and have started towards making another piece.

Response to Practical Research

Primary Research

E-mail Response to Practical Research for power artefact

If you have been following my blog you should be able to see that I previously sent an e-mail to an unnamable source to et some information to help my artefact grow and become more realistic. I wanted to know the following questions:

* What happens when someone first calls in to report a missing person?

* At what point do the police contact family/friends etc in order for them to help locate the person?

* Do you have any statistics about missing persons in the area or where can I find these?

* If you found belongings from a missing person would you contact the family to notify them?

I wanted to find out these questions because I wanted to be able to make it seem as if the recordings I am planning to do is real, and the bast way you can do this is to ask people who deal with these kind of issues every day.

The following e-mail is a response to an e-mail I sent out. You can see that I am interested in making sure everyone who helps me is protected if requested. Some of the information and names have not been published on this blog because they did not wish to be identified.

RE: Missing persons research, Coventry University, Mrs Charlotte Gunn‏

From:

UNNAMED SOURCE

Sent:

10 November 2009 14:48:18

To:

Charlotte Gunn (charlotte20242003@hotmail.com)

Charlotte,

* What happens when someone first calls in to report a missing person?

(INFORMATION GATHERED FOR AN UNNAMABLE SOURCE WE CAN NOT CONFIRM THE INFORMTAION SUPPLIED AS FACT BUT AS RESEARCH TOWARDS A FICITIONAL SITUATION ***added by myself Charlotte Gunn***)

Initially the call taker would take as much info from the reporting person as possible. I.E name, address, mobile number, date of birth (DOB), circumstances (did they leave a note, are they late home, do they regularly go missing, any arguments/problems beforehand, is it out of character?), contacts, places frequented. The call taker will also ask questions which would form a risk assessment to establish whether the missing person (misper) would be treated as a high, med or low risk. These are questions such as does the misper self harm or have they ever attempted suicide? Do they have any essential medication which they do not have with them? Are they dressed for the weather? Any mental or physical illnesses? Intelligence checks will be carried out and a unit will be sent to the address of the reporting person and or the mispers home address to conduct a house search and collect further info from the reporting person and a photograph. They will complete a further risk assessment at this stage. Once the risk assessment has been carried out by the Duty Sgt the actions will be set and units allocated. The actions and the timescales of all this will depend on the level of risk.

* At what point do the police contact family/friends etc in order for them to help locate the person?

The call taker would take info regarding friends/family/partners and attempts will be made to contact them ASAP normally by phone in the first instance to ascertain when they last saw/heard from the missing person. Any contacts which we can not get hold of but have an address for will be checked by a unit. As far as area searches by family are concerned it really depends on the situation.

Family and friends are encouraged to check places where they know the misper frequents and drive around the area looking for them but anything which involves large-scale searching of say marshland may be deemed too much risk and should be left to the specialist search teams. These are normally reserved however for high risk mispers (people at immediate risk of harm to themselves or others such as people who have threatened suicide or small children).

* Do you have any statistics about missing persons in the area or where can I find these?

It would be hard to get information which would paint an accurate picture of what I think you are talking about. Missing people are not just the likes of Madeline McCann. Missing people are reported everyday as a matter of policy when they are not considered missing to your average member of public so our statistics are not a fair representation of the actual missing reports which you would expect. Anything I supply you would be misleading. You may be able to get a statistics from http://www.missingpeople.org.uk/

* If you found belongings from a missing person would you contact the family to notify them?

***UNABLE TO SHOW THIS TEXT AS REQUESTED****, if there is a development in the investigation a member of the missing persons office or a police officer would update them, often find families can shed more light on developments in order to find the misper more quickly. Attempts are always made to try to speak to the person directly or in the event of particularly bad or distressing news a police officer would attend them in person.

We would only leave a message informing them that there has been a development and could they contact us back or that we would phone back again. Anyone can pick up a message intended for someone else. We often leave messages on mispers phones asking them to make contact with the police or their families so we know they are safe as people often don’t know they have been reported.

Some links…..

http://www.missingpeople.org.uk/ they have a freefone service for info on missing persons

http://www.npia.police.uk/en/10200.htm NPIA sets out our guidelines for the investigation of missing persons.

I am happy to help Charlotte, I remember what it is like trying to get people to help with research but please do not identify myself (unnamed source) or organisationthe in your blog.

Regards,