Francesco Tonelli (P)

Francesco Tonelli

  

mmm

MMMMM I'm hungry.... this makes a appetizing and mouthwatering invite unlike the photo's I see my friends putting up on Social Media....(cough cough or myself)

Lemon drizzle before
doesn't really say a lot lol

my own fail of lemon drizzle cake photography from years ago
WAS NICE AND TASTY THO!

Francesco Tonelli is from Northern Italy. From early childhood he had a deep passion for cooking and, by the time he was 14, he was already working in the kitchen with his brother who was a chef. Over the next 20 years, Francesco developed his culinary skills by cooking in Italy, Switzerland and France. And he didn’t just cook. While in Milan, Francesco ran a couple of restaurants which meant that in addition to his time in the kitchen, he was also responsible for pretty much everything else.

Francesco’s experience led to him to be hired by the La Cucina Italiana magazine to develop recipes.

   

It was a very successful arrangement, and Francesco ended up working alongside food photographers for almost eight years.
After this he moving to America and began teaching lessons to students for a very prestigious cooking school in the world: the Culinary Institute of America — the other CIA.

Still this wasn't enough and because of the photography learnt in the past he began to document they work... however, Francesco began shooting his first food pictures. They were, in his words, ‘horrible’. But he persevered and gradually, over time, what started as just a way to improve his lesson plans became his new hobby.
Getting lessons for a former friend he began to learn about composition and lighting etc. Even the CIA showed an interest in the fact not only  could he cook the food but to shoot the images himself.....it was then through them he got work with Coca-Cola and Guinness.

From here his success grew and he made the decision on his 40th birthday to make the leap into full-time professional photography and leave the CIA.

Setting out

The magnitude of Francesco’s mistake soon become clear. Quote... ‘The moment I resigned to focus on the first big project, all the projects went away.’ Difficulty in agreeing the terms and fees with clients meant none of the promised projects ever happened. And without the CIA to feed him any new work, Francesco was dead in the water.

sink or swim

He didn't quit and wrote to other photographers for advice and did short courses.....He kept taking on smaller jobs and taking photos of the food.... Eventually The New York Times took notice in his work.....Working with different reps he began to understand about pricing work and estimating.... he knew his food and now had more confidence to shoot his work....

The battle and like many artist's I have researched in the past he wanted to stick to his beliefs and not lose his sense of work ethics and passion......He needed to find a rep that understood his workings and passion.....His family life was suffering and money was disappearing quicker than it was coming in...

THIS GIVES ME HOPE! SOUNDS BAD TO WANT TO READ ABOUT PEOPLE FAILING BUT I MYSELF DOUBT THE WORK I'M DOING AND HAVE QUESTIONED IF I'M BEING SELFISH DOING THIS COURSE.... MY KIDS, MY HOME LIFE, MONEY AND TIME ARE ALL IMPACTED TO A DEGREE BECAUSE I DECIDED TO TAKE ON SOMETHING NEW.....WITHOUT KNOWING WHERE ITS TAKING ME!

if only there was an answer!
Or would that be to easy and less fun

Separating from his wife and children to save more hurt Francesco moved out.....Times were bad for a while... little work, broke and no family during the week....... still he kept going..

Working for a magazine Cooking Light gave him another big brake and then a chef/friend from the past decided to make a book and wanted him to take the photos... 

The style and imagery that had not enthused critics from the past now was working for him....Celebrity chefs and larger companies all wanted the bold and colourful imagery of Francesco's work.....Plus the chef's unique working practice of cooking for all staff and people on set while doing the shooting also........I'd look to taste his food my mouth still watering writing this!

SO tough times or getting a brake straight away.......

Time is a great advantage I guess........Finding something you enjoy and working from that is important.....From his starting out as a child and learning family life cooking to working as a chef, then moving away and seeing how others work, learning and then teaching and I guess believing Francesco's story has me thinking about you get what you put in! He researched and tried and failed but he didn't give up.... This is something that will hopefully stick in my mind when I'm lacking or doubting the point of creating or trying something.

sources https://medium.com/fellow-hq/francesco-tonelli-from-master-chef-to-photographer-df4fc2b2b67#.str8gn2rt
and google images and my own facebook photo

Hockney Joiners (P)

David Hockney 

JOINERS

The art of arranging photographs - a chance happening



 ‘Joiners’  = caught the eye of the public in the 1980’s.

Hockney’s creation of the “joiners” occurred accidentally. He noticed in the late sixties that photographers were using cameras with wide-angle lenses to take pictures. He did not like such photographs because they always came out somewhat distorted. He was working on a painting of a living room and terrace in Los Angeles. He took Polaroid shots of the living room and glued them together, not intending for them to be a composition on their own. Upon looking at the final composition, he realized it created a narrative, as if the viewer was moving through the room. He began to work more and more with photography after this discovery and even stopped painting for a period of time to exclusively pursue this new style of photography.
(http://www.shootingfilm.net/2013/01/joiners-polaroid-collages-by-david.html)

Like the painters Braque and Picasso had used cubism to create a new way of viewing the world and images around them from different view points, Hockney was now creating this idea through photography.


Hockney began this style of art by taking Polaroid photographs of one subject and arranging them into a grid layout. Like that of his mother above.....

In some the subject would move while being photographed so that the piece would show the movements of the subject seen from the photographer's perspective


Then he started moving the actual camera around the subject


Over a 5 year period he focused his time trying and testing out photography.......He later said that,  photography will never equal painting!

See this link to hear and learn about Hockney's commission work Pearblossom Highway

https://youtu.be/sD123svCFHQ

I do think that Hockneys Joiners are an interesting view of the world. As an overall finish I do feel that they not the strongest finish and are still lacking work. I feel like Dada its a rather a pointless final.

I often wonder if the test making and ideas that turn into nothing are a waste of time... I know I'm lacking the easiest route to the way I want to get to my finished outcome.... Like the Reivers T-shirt that I wanted to print....I could of used the transfer idea sooner giving me a chance to really get the final finish correct and then had enough time to check the brief. Which I felt I didn't do and worry that it may have cost me marks now..(see the final t-shirt blog)

I do however think that Hockney would have used his findings in future works with or without knowing it. Like me doing Lino Cuts and not using them because something didn't work or I preferred a different medium.

Its all so very draining, Pro and Cons, What or Why, Works or Doesnt! Opinion and Expression

IS LEARNING YOURSELF REALLY THE BEST WAY TO GO?

Like Hockney trying out the photos I do feel that if expected to learn by my own findings then I'm lacking the basic knowledge of how a camera works never mind the field of vision or special effects! I think I would benefit from some shown examples......Is my mobile (although modern and up to date) good enough to capture the images I want or need to achieve.....

I need to research other photographers and the way they work to decide what it actually is I would like to achieve!


I may email Sam Cornwall and see if he's available to spend an afternoon showing me some examples of how to get the best out of my phone, composition or lighting. (see blog Sam Cornwall for more info)

Photography Ideas and Thoughts(P)

Photography

I have in the last 3 months of doing this art course discovered that I enjoy anticipating the outcome of projects, more than planning the end result... The mono printing and how you have to just make a mark without thinking to much into the end result. waiting and lifting the paper to see what impact the materials and tools have left.... The intended and unexpected.....

 I do have an interest in the dark room however, in this topic we wont get the chance to use or learn about the dark room!



This topic I can say I don't have much interest in.          WHY?

Good Question! Something I have asked myself today and the results were a little shocking and rather deep.



When I think of what I would like to capture the image of the ill and dying comes to mind!



However I can't just walk into hospitals taking photos of this........

Why the dying......THE EYES   I want to see the eyes and capture the life still in them....the fear, horror or the vulnerability, the love and happiness, affection, and life that still is in there!  To really see.

THE WINDOWS TO THE SOUL?

When I look at my own eyes I see emptiness but hope! Does this mean I'm depressed?

I don't feel depressed but I know that inside somewhere deep I'm lacking and have felt that something is missing.... The whole reason I wanted to do this course was because I felt unfulfilled in my working life and that I felt they was something bigger! Something missing

Maybe just determination! But for what?

My dads death had a big impact on me some years back and if I think back to the indignity and look of the man in front of me, it has left scars!  Not scars you can see but other deeper marks....The look in his eyes the swirling worldwind of fear and sorrow and love.....To capture that moment and make it not only seen but to EXIST, as a reminder of the power of living itself.. The vulnerability!!!

I think that as a youngest I was vulnerable and for whatever reason learnt to protect myself in many ways.....Suppressing happiness or trying to avoid confrontation...to control my own world as a way not to get hurt or for bad things to happen.........As an adult we know this can't happen and things do happen that are out of our control.....This is another area I could look at.....The world through a child's eyes.(idea)....

The Surrealism of Salvador Dali or a world as such as Alice's in the fairy tale....Memories and images of a time or no sense of time itself.....





I remember working in a house and at the top of a big dark staircase near the attic....there was an oil painting ....It pictured two or three semi-naked boys in a bedroom of some sort, the image was disturbing for me to look at. Like it was wrong for me to view them so intimately, one boy looked ashamed like he was being made to expose himself on you..His eyes on you..This feeling of humiliation I knew and I felt a sense of understanding..... BUT MORE THAN THAT I wanted to paint in such a way that gave such power to an image to speak out and make the viewer uncomfortable... to give them the sense of guilt or understanding.....



While I'm in no way vain, The fact of being perceived as a pretty young girl has its cost! As a young adult the unwanted attention, or being make to feel less of a person to please someone else insecurity. Not only letting people use you or make you feel less but to actually let them and to continue to keep letting it happen has played a big part in my life. IS BEAUTY ONLY SKIN DEEP.(idea)...... After everything on the inside I do have a good out look of the world and still want to see the good in everyone! Usually finding to be let down and friends who I call friends are not really after all.. However I refuse to change and be eaten up or bitter..But also to adapt and not be so naive...WHAT DOES THIS SAY ABOUT ME? WHAT IS CLOUDED VISION AND CAN I CAPTURE IT.(idea)...

THE WORLD IN ROSE TINTED GLASSES! (idea)



MAYBE THE WORLD THROUGH OR AFTER A GLASS OF RED WINE COULD MAKE AN INTERESTING OUTCOME ALSO (hell who I'm I kidding, ok... a whole bottle)

I'll drink to that

  

Me, myself and I

Girl in Mirror aka ME

I had to create a copy of another artists work in my own style....

I thought this would give me the chance to draw myself the way I actually seen myself and how others maybe viewed me.....Or the good/bad view of myself. However upon starting the picture I found I was trying to create a picture and not actually thinking into my feelings or tapping into my emotions!
Waste of time really but I carried on making a picture in the style of the Girl before a Mirror like Picasso. I used palette poster paints I had used as a child......I did like this and I did feel a sense of comfort and childlike excitement from this!

HA HA HA

Funny and was fun to do!   I started off wanting to really create a way of expressing my own true self.......But in the end I just enjoyed doing.......Maybe that is in fact what I wanted to express.....my need and want to have fun and to relax a little, do things thats out of my own comfort zone!

I guess if anyone wanted to they could find meaning in any painting or self portrait.......  I will remember this painting and maybe down the line I will paint another with more meaning and thought! 

   

THE FINAL T-SHIRT REIVERS (last min decision)

Transfer Image

After doing a Mono Print last week I wanted to create the image on a T-shirt....(horse and fighter)
I did think about trying to draw the image again......However, I wanted to keep all the markings the print had.....If I did it again I wouldn't have the rough image I liked...

First I took a photocopy of the original

Then coated some card and my T-shirt in kromafresh 105

plain t-shirt

putting image down

image in the press

transfer

transfer

image not as dark or as detailed as I would like but ok for an example

different font examples

adding different fonts

If I had time to detail the image more I would of been happier.  However, overall I'm happy and think the next next few weeks will be interesting to use what I've learnt over my !st assessment's......


In the end I picked the orange colour of the lettering. The font was chiller and I felt that it was appropriate for the type of festival and feel of the Reivers.....

See book for more information on this and my overall feelings......

Border Reivers Final

Border Reivers Final

Waistcoat of a Reiver

Late-medieval jack, National Museum of Scotland collection: "A leather jacket, reinforced for self-protection by metal plates, of the kind that would have been worn by Border Reivers in the 16th century.

I wanted to create a t-shirt with the print of the reiver's waistcoat.......

But that being so easy I felt it wasn't enough and I wanted to know what texture or thinking went into something!

I decided to look around for textured junk or scraps to use. I found some wire and decide to ask the Electrical dept at Borders College for some copper wire and bits.

using the wire as a template

using myself as a model for size and structure 

I used mod mesh to cover the frame

After about 4 hours of stripping back the wire and bending it into place the framework didn't have the movement I had tried to keep going throughout........I hated where it was going! I was losing my way and my idea........Back to the start.......I had to strip it back

Notice the back is softer wire to aid movement

slots for the arms I left bigger this time

Using an old duvet to cover and add padding

Next I had to pin around the wire to sew the duvet to the wire......I have to cover the duvet now with a brown coloured fabric also... To make the neck and waist pieces I used the wire and mod mesh. I wanted to exaggerate these areas as I felt it would make the final outcome better in-keeping with the outfit............Note Michelangelo and other artist's would do this to get a bigger or better result on the viewers eye or to give a better illusion and perspective.

1 DAY LATER 

After covering the quilt in brown fabric and starting some sewing I decided my design wasnt really going to plan. I gave up and started to work on showing the idea of texture and pattern on the original waistcoat.

I also went to Invision our local printers! To get a quote for the transfer of the waistcoat image onto a T-shirt......unfortunately they didn't have the correct equipment to actually do what I was asking!
He did tell me that an A4 transfer on a T-shirt was around £12.........

I got a children's white T-shirt and started to design the pattern onto it to replicate the design to show what I was trying to create..........

see book firfinal image on this........