Expanded Photographics - Process

Let me talk a little about process. Throughout this whole project I've had a desire to recreate the past within the present environment of Wrights Hill Fortress. And while for the most part I believe I have achieved this goal - it wasn't all as straight forward as I would have hoped. In fact there were times when I felt like I had taken on too much and I should have opted to do something a little bit simpler. But yet here I am, writing this blog post feeling like I've honestly achieved something great. 

So let's recap this process. 

In the beginning I had this plan, and idea that seemed like it could work. After discussing it with my father he too thought it was a good idea to tackle the old fortress one more time.

After a group session with Matt and my peers I had walked away feeling good about the whole idea. However by that very weekend where I had planned on making the trip up to Wrights Hill a little Earthquake struck. Hampering my efforts I buckled down and began to rethink my whole strategy. 

Then came time to present my initial shots to my tutorial group. Oh joy! I didn't have any because of the Earthquake. So I quickly executed plan B. I stood up and talked about my intentions and showed some reference shots that would ultimately inform my final product. I also delved into talking about some alternative sources of inspiration such as Band of Brothers and The Pacific. 

Now came the hard part. 

We managed to get up to Wrights Hill and to my surprise there was little damage from the quake which meant that I could finally get busy. (Just a small FYI the camera I used was a Nikon d5100 with a mixture of a 50mm Lens and an 18mm-55mm Lens, with a tripod) I believe I have already posted up some of the shots I had taken. But please allow me to show you yet again the final results from that trip. 

These photos ultimately chosen because they each represented different aspects to Wrights Hill while retaining a sense of narrative. That narrative being that "Here soldiers once dwelled, preparing themselves for war, the lights flash red and they race to position"

Okay so I might have been able to word that better but forgive me, listening to some sad music does that to you.

These images have been influenced by a lot of media portrayal of war. This isn't meant to look happy. This is dark and gritty and is very much not a somber moment in our history. As we begin we have a nice dark natural colour tone. Lots of greens, grays, and yellows. As we move on so do the tones. The images become more intense and darker. Focussing on single colours to empathise "war" was my aim. Mostly yellows but that changes towards photo 04 where the yellow light turns red signaling that an attack could be immanent.

The images still get darker and progressively single out that one dominant colour. By the time we hit the final image a drastic change in the tone. We now have a B/W image. This was done for two reasons. Firstly to show that this was history, something that happened long ago and secondly to convey a sense of unknown. We see the cliché "light" but what happens next?  that is ultimately for you to decide. A little bit open ended I know but I think it adds a nice touch to the whole narrative.