Edits:
I experimented with extreme cropping with these images to place negative space in different areas of the image.
In the image of the green window, I changed the hue to appear more yellow as I knew it wouldn’t affect the rest of the image due to it being dark.
Concept: To capture any objects of a particular colour that stand out to me.
Lighting: I will walk around the area at night time so will have to rely on artificial light
Location: The area by my house
Camera Settings: Flash to expose the colour in objects. A larger aperture to allow in more light as it will be dark, however this will depend on whether the subject I am capturing is being lit up by artificial lights such as lamp posts.
The term psychogeography was invented by the Marxist theorist Guy Debord in 1955. Inspired by the French nineteenth century poet and writer Charles Baudelaire’s concept of the flâneur – an urban wanderer – Debord suggested playful and inventive ways of navigating the urban environment in order to examine its architecture and spaces.
“the study of the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behaviour of individuals.” – Guy Debord
As a founding member of the avant-garde movement Situationist International, an international movement of artists, writers and poets who aimed to break down the barriers between culture and everyday life, Debord wanted a revolutionary approach to architecture that was less functional and more open to exploration. The reimagining of the city proposed by psychogeography has its roots in dadaism and surrealism, art movements which explored ways of unleashing the subconscious imagination.
One of psychogeography’s principle means was the derive, or drift, defined by the situationists as the ‘technique of locomotion without a goal’, in which ‘one or more persons during a certain period drop their usual motives for movement and action, their relations, their work and leisure activities, and let themselves be drawn by the attractions of the terrain and the encounters they find there’. The dérive acted as something of a model for the ‘playful creation’ of all human relationships.
Psychogeography gained popularity in the 1990s when artists, writers and filmmakers such as Iain Sinclair and Patrick Keiller began using the idea to create works based on exploring locations by walking.
Patrick Keiller’s 1994 documentary, ‘London’ consists of many simplistic shots that acknowledge the often unnoticed scenes of London.
For the following edits below, I wanted to concentrate on developing images which are more within my new themes of the evolution of life seen through religion, but presented in the silver and black tonal range. So I re-edited some photos from my previous haiku shoot that are the most relevant to that of my new narrative. I used the previous edited process of turning to black and white, flattening, inverting the images and then further editing that is the most appropriate for the specific image itself. I chose images which are more abstract, however, Connoting more themes to do with life and birth, so closer to the beginning of the book itself. Due to me knowing I wanted to create a book from the beginning, I am slowly adding in my images, in order to start creating a successful narrative. At the beginning of my book it is all about, birth, creation, innocence and nature, looking conceptually about the narrative and growing of life itself. I want my images much like the artists’ I am inspired by, To attract that abstract vision of the wonderment of life. I want the images to be more conceptual so they allow a subjectivity of others putting their own meaning onto the images themselves. Overall I believe so far there is a real delicacy within the narrative of the book and a true beauty. My book will be much longer than my previous, as I want each page to have an image, alongside this, I want the narrative itself to be long, to almost keep a true sense of time of life.
Within these book page developments, you are able to see me adding in four shoots, haiku, water refection, macro and abstract light shoot. All of these show a re-birth and smallest details of beauty, this experience of life creates a sentimentality of love and desire for the world. I belive with the many more images I wish to take My work should really show an evolution of life. When further looking at the book development itself, I wanted to make sure I was thinking of each images tonal capabilities. Many fo the images are more inverted than others, and I do not want two very light images next to each other, I wanted a passing of colours narrative throughout. Another area I need to consider, Is where and how I should add in portraits in the best flowing manner, to fit in with the primarily object and landscape oriented book.
To my mind this shoot is much more successful edited into a more sophisticated black and white, it allows a focuses on the actual construct of the image itself, and shows a more successful narrative for the book as a whole concept. With this project I really wanted to create something which I have never focused on previously, Because of this, every page is a development of life having a narrative, which I have never done previously within my photography, Too in this project it shows a more conceptual view of how to take photos, showing themes other than surrealism of the use of props and tablo shots.