Using data to inform your photography

1. P3
Datagraphy
Digital Photographics
Helen Williams
300 153 726

2. Album Art
Process: I am a music enthusiast
and have always been interested
in album art as an extension of an
artist’s musical work. I also like
lists and often engage in
conversation about the ‘top ten
songs or albums’ with most of my
close friends and sometimes with
complete strangers. For this
project I decided to formally collect
data about my friends’ favourite
albums via my Facebook page.
I asked my friends to nominate
their favourite albums for the
music or the art and received 20
responses within 24 hours. Most
people gave a reason for their
choice (even though I hadn't
asked them to) and many took the
time to post the cover even if it
was well-know.

3. Album Art
I hadn't decided how I would use the
data before starting, however once I
saw the response, I quickly started
toying with the idea of recreating (or
remediating) the album covers
photographically. I thought about my
husband’s choice and because it
involved photographing a woman's
bare breasts I started to wonder who
might pose for me and then realised I
could make the project about asking
my friends to recreate their choices.
To be inside the album cover.
I chose the four friends I thought I
could work with, although one friend
was unable to pose for me on the
day we had arranged so I am going
to come back to this one in the future.
I was interested in making subtle
statements about gender in my work
so this informed my choices as well.
I found images of the original covers
(we owned all except one) and used
them as templates for shooting and
post-production.

4. Remediation
This is a
continuation of
my exploration
into
remediation. I
enjoy revisiting
existing work
particularly if I
succeed in
teasing extra
meaning out of
images that
may already
seem to have
been thoroughly
explored.

5. Outcome
I am very satisfied with the images
I produced for this project. I really
enjoyed the process of really
investigating the design,
photography and lighting of each
image and have decided to turn it
into a larger, ongoing series that
my friends (and others) will be able
to access online. The possibilities
for the work are really motivating –
it has also been a great source of
conversation among my friends
particularly those who posed for
me. This has been a way for me to
connect to my friends in a
rewarding way. They enjoy the
experience too. I think this is
because it almost transforms them
into celebrities for the occasion. In
the case of Jim, it also had the
effect of connecting him to his idol.
Collecting data about their interests
has helped me to learn more about
my friends.

6. Jim | Madonna's first album (1983)

9. Daisy & Hayden | Sonny & Cher's Greatest Hits (1973)

12. Greg | Surfer Rosa | The Pixies (1988)