London-based artist Idris Khan was born in the UK in 1978. Since completing his Master’s Degree with a Distinction in Research at the Royal College of Art in London in 2004, he has received international acclaim for his minimal, yet emotionally charged photographs, videos and sculptures.

Drawing on diverse cultural sources including literature, history, art, music and religion, Khan has developed a unique narrative involving densely layered imagery that inhabits the space between abstraction and figuration and speaks to the themes of history, cumulative experience and the metaphysical collapse of time into single moments.

Whilst Khan’s mindset is more painterly than photographic, he often employs the tools of photomechanical reproduction to create his work. Photographing or scanning from secondary source material–sheet music, pages from the Qur’an, reproductions of late Caravaggio paintings–he then builds up the layers of scans digitally, which allows him to meticulously control minute variances in contrast, brightness and opacity. The resultant images are often large-scale C-prints with surfaces that have a remarkable optical intensity.

Khan’s oeuvre has expanded to include sculpture and painting. For sculptural works, using materials such as steel plates, cubes and horizontal stone slabs, Khan sandblasts the surface with templates of musical scores or prayers, continuing his investigation into the ways in which cultural, visual, cinematic and temporal memories coalesce into a dense, synesthetic whole.

Examples of Khan’s work;

Here one can see that Khan has built up the layers of his photographs digitally, with use of exposures and contrasts, therefore making his original photograph have similarities to chalk drawings, as the lines don’t have sharp ends.

Again, one can see a tree with lots of layers done digitally, it is interesting to look at in this photograph as it feels like there is a lot of movement in the image. As if no matter what is going on around the tree it will stay strong and won’t fall, I feel like this because the tree is the darkest aspect of the photograph so it feels like it has the most layers, therefore being the strongest. This could be metaphorical as one can see street lights in the background which are quite faded and then comparing to the tree which is quite dark it shows that no matter what nature will always beat man made objects. Therefore simply by the use of layering one can realize that it completely changes the way one see’s the object which the photograph has chosen to shoot, as before editing this would simply just be a tree, where as it’s looked at with a different frame of mind when edited in this particular way.

My interpretation;

For my first two photographs I decided to interpret in the way of Idris Khan, I tried to use his technique exactly by using a black&white filter, by contrasting and playing with exposures and layering a lot. Therefore it gave a very similar feel to what Khan has produced. The reason I chose the photograph below to edit, is because I felt like Khan’s images always have a lot of movement, and this photograph was already an action shot, so i feel like it represents the movement with just layering the still image.

I enjoyed editing this photograph as I now prefer the layered image to the original edit. This is due to the layering of the tree’s, as now it looks as if there is a large forest in the background, this is from the layering of trees and use of exposure hiding the buildings which are in the original. The use of the tree’s being layered makes the environment look more remote and peaceful, which is what I wanted the photograph to represent.

In the two photographs below I’ve used the same editing format as Khan, however I’ve only allowed the layers to be seen on the model, and not the background. I’ve also kept the color format and not changed it to black&white which Khan typically does.

I like the use of this technique on the photograph below as it shows the movement of the models hair. Therefore showing the weather conditions on this day, very windy, and representing the models attitude towards life, as he has a carefree attitude.