Photographer Arnold Newman would often employ backgrounds in his portraits which helped tell the story about the subject.Newman said that he didn’t like the “cold studio portrait” but instead wanted to show his subjects in their surroundings.Quoted from the Palm Beach Post, 2006

Ana Mendieta, from the series Silueta, 1976

The silueta (silhouette) was a series of artwoks made by Ana Mendieta in which she left an ‘imprint’ of her body in snow, mud, sand, grass etc. These were transient ephemeral artworks, at their creation a performance piece, then recorded photographically.

Artist Richard Long is known for his Land-Art, often photographing tracks made by repeated use, or arranging natural materials within the landscape and then photographing them (see also the artist Andy Goldsworthy).

The landscape photography of Michael Kenna is clearly produced ‘outside’ in the countryside, yet his minimalist style is perhaps more reminiscent of dreamlike or half remembered landscapes.In a sense then, these landscapes could be about the human experience of encountering a landscape, the subconscious – our hidden mental interior.

Alfred Stieglitz, The Steerage, 1907

How would it feel like to be an immigrant – a foreigner in a strange land – an ‘outsider’?

In this famous photograph Alfred Stieglitz records immigrants arriving travelling to America on board the Kaiser Wilhelm II in 1907, escaping the poverty and oncoming turbulence which would escalate into a world war.

The work of Hungarian Andre Kertesz demonstrates sublime compositional skills, with shapes within shapes (shapes spaces, shadows & tone inside shapes & spaces).

Scene from Psycho, Dir. Alfred Hitchcock

Shoot through a transparent or semi-transparent surface such as glass with condensation or rain drops, or even a shower curtain as in the film Psycho.

The surface is between the distant subject and the camera.

Images like this can obscure or hide the subject behind the surface, creating a mysterious, dreamlike or scary effect.

Naoya Hatakeyama

Slow Shutter Speedscan be used to create an impression of ‘aloneness’ or alienation*

* Alienation is to be or feel ‘outside’ of society, lonely, alone, apart.

Shadows

Shadows and silhouettes can be used to ‘hide’ or ‘keep outside’ information about the subject of an image.

Silhouettes

Reflections

Reflections can distort reality, they can also act as an ‘in between’ the subject and the image.

Use Filters

Filters placed between the camera lens and the subject can radically enhance or alter the visual appearance or feel/mood of an image.Similarly a gel filter between light source and subject will alter the colour of the light.

The theme ‘Inside, Outside, In Between’ can be interpreted in many different ways.

Here are just a few thoughts and ideas to help inspire you:

• Outside - forests, the beach, the countryside, moors, mountain passes, highways, tracks, arches, urban landscape, architectural exteriors, the universe – stars & galaxies, aliens, • Outside – alienation, loneliness, exclusion, foreigners (outsiders), • Outside – skin, clothing, raincoats, hats, boots, shoes• Bringing the outside ‘in’ – binoculars, telescopes, microscopes, looking out through a window or doorway, greenhouses, tubing, pipes• Bringing the inside ‘out’ - looking in through a window or doorway, X rays, ducts, conduits• Inside - tunnels, underpasses, subways, arches, Diving, swimming under-water, birth• Inside - cupboards, wardrobes, drawers, boxes• Inside – emotions, fears, dreams, imagination, love• Inside – operations, piercings, tatoos, drugs, syringes• In between - asexuality, apathy, inaction, puberty, pregnancy, birth• In between – thresholds, edges, cliff edges, holes, caves, tunnels, underpasses, pedestrian crossings, bridges, mediation• In between – filters, gels, post production Photoshop effects, windows, masks