Astres Noirs

Much of this work is clearly focused on the actual entity of light and a presence of something such as otherness. The spirituality within these is so evident and an element which I tried greatly to access. The editing within my work you can see is very focused upon that of inverting to make the light much stronger., synthesising a flow to my images. This allowing the people and elements to be more heavenly and presented as a sacred entity. Within my work I was able to get these all the many specs of light by using refractions of water. I started to think about why I chose this artists’ work, and what specifically made me want to inspire my whole project behind it. And I think there are two main reasons as to why. I believe the use of the colour is definitely the first, it is so unique and they first photography book ever that seemed to almost glow within each and every image. Both the ink being silver heightened by the use of the black is something so unique and allowed both tonal colours to be heightened. The lighting helps accentuate the composition of the piece, also using the occasional black border to give the image a typology of light and darkness. The second part is the conceptual of why the photo was taken, not only is it to capture a sense of beauty but it is also about showing the element of life. Life is a subject which I believe to be such a specialised and yet open topic at the same time. Each element is so individual it is sometimes uncocenceivable. you are able to tell what exactly the image is of and I believe this is where its importance lies. The texture, elements and unique compositions shows an evolution of life, but in such a unique way. It is special and a book which really moved me.

I believe The work is reflected throughout my own. I first started off by developing the same strong tonal juxtapositions throughout, and then developing the narrative construct through the ordering of my images.

My work

I decided to edit this image to just focus on a order of highlights, I did not want to show too much when it came to the complete contrasts of darkness and light. I thought that might remove the almost angelic effect from this image itself. The small white circles of the light bouncing off of the water, and the details within the flowers and branches show more delicacy to the image itself. The thick trees themselves bring a composition to the image and allow a division to the central image, and concentration to the surrounding elements. To my mind, this image is my own twist upon the elements of creation, showing a clear inspiration from the images they have of specs of light within the air. I could do possible further experimentation and editing to this image in order to show just white internal shades, despite the image still being inverted I did not want it to be continuous with the rest of the darker images throughout my book so far.

Within this imagery I wanted to show the deep contrasting colours that are shown above by the artist themselves. I believe that this image is definitely one of my favourites. Not only does it project my own narrative of religion and the evolution of life, but it too constitutes a very open yet complex composition. The use of different foregrounding and backgrounding shows a very interesting element for myself to this image, allowing the viewer to almost walk through the graveyard. I also think the different tonal ranging of the stone shows a bigger interest within the image. The little specs of the black too shows that essence of otherness and something quite beautiful. This foregrounding and backgrounding also builds up the image in order to have a stronger relevance to life itself. The strength and interest within the photo is why it has this power within. It would also look very good as a large print.

I thought it would be beneficial too to look at textures and elements found within real life, this is why this image is similar to the horse image. I like the way which you can see the movement within the hair itself, the different textures of softness combined with the different tonal shades of black and white. I didn’t add in the section of the eye like the artists’ image as I thought it would show a form of identity rather then the concentration of the texture itself.

Overall I think my work does have a clear chronological type of link to the artist, this type of narrative element of light being an ability to construct beauty. Once again the circular motion of the water is so interesting and an element which is beautiful yet seems to have a sense of clarity within it. Overall I belive all the pieces above have a clear inspiration from the book Astres nois. Not only this but my own personal narrative of the structure of the book also upholds these ideologies of the beauty of life, caught in such a beautiful way. I believe this artist, has really helped me to accomplish the best possible outcomes I could, and also to experiment with themes which I have never done previously, allowing myself to come out of my comfort zone when discussing how photography should be taken.