Aside from the 8 postcard backs which I have chosen to print (in my previous post) I will also be printing the following 16 photo-montages in postcard format. Through this project I have created nearly 50 variations of photo-montages which successfully meet my intention of symbolising and displaying the connections between Jersey and the rest of the world through trade, tourism, and actually visual surroundings within societies around the globe. Posts will follow this looking at how I will display these 24 postcard prints. Here are the 16 photo-montage prints which I have chosen, followed by an evaluation of why I chose these specifically.
Out of all the photo-montages which I have produced throughout this ‘Variation and Similarity’ project I have chosen these 16 above for a combination of reasons. First of all I believe that considering my initial specification which stated ”I will produce photographs surrounding the theme of chaotic imagery. I plan to do this by creating photo-montages, collages and edits in response to the artists and photographers which I have and will research. I am going to relate this work to the issues of overpopulation and capitalism which have and still continue to play a big part in the overpowered development of the world. I will photograph all kinds of things relating to this theme as rather than limiting myself to one specific subject matter this will not allow me to produce pieces with chaos as the main part. These issues of overpopulation and capitalism are something which closely links Jersey with the rest of the world, through trade, immigration, politics and culture. I plan to explore this link and how it has developed over time, looking at the past and how it has become the present. And then how the future may look in terms of these issues. This will be executed by the use of archival and found imagery mixed with my own purposed photographs through means of collage and montage.” That these 16 photo-montages most reflect the initial aim of my project along with showing inspiration from the artists, photographers and movements which I have researched throughout the project. Secondly I believe that they are a good combination of images as there are a range of different formats within them such as some monotone and some colour as well as some being portrait and some landscape. This will mean that the final display doesn’t look too uniformed and will in fact look like a collection of actual postcards which is the look I am going for. Third and finally the most basic reason for why I chose most of these as postcard prints was simply due to the fact that I thought these 16 outcomes were the most aesthetically pleasing and balanced.
This is my final design for my photo book ‘The Colour And The Shape’. The front cover is something i had been playing with a lot when designing the book. this allowed me to develop the final design seen on my front cover. I used a bottom layer image with 40% opacity through a brown mask layer, this helped darken the image, I then used the same image on the front cover and a supporting image on the back. I used red and yellow because I wanted people to know it was a book full of vibrant colours. I am very pleased with its final sequence. I sequenced my images in a way that flowed predictably and unpredictably. For instance, on page 20 i used an image i thought did not suit my book but i used it as it created a unique contrast between other images displayed. Throughout the design process, i thought of different colour combinations that would look suitable. I came to the conclusion of using tonal colours. I would colour match the focal colour in the image and i would make that the colour of the page. Although, i did not use this method for all pages. I found other colours that compliment the colours within the images to almost extent my own image.
A sentence – Exploring circles in different environments and in different ways.
A paragraph – For this project I will be responding to circles. Maybe not that simple… I would like to explore a shape we rarely take notice of in our daily lives and I would like to use different techniques and environments to share what people miss so easily yet appear everywhere. The aim is to perhaps inspire people to look around and enjoy the world around them and take notice of the little details, like circles, that appear everywhere. The similarity being the shape, the differences; being the environment, location, angle, photographic technique and the urban/rural landscape.
Design: Consider the following
How you want your book to look and feel – Landscape, similar width to height, perhaps slightly longer width but only marginally, hard back and strong binding that doesn’t have much image lost in the gap.
Paper and ink – Not matte but not glossy, in between.
Format, size and orientation – Landscape, ever so slightly longer width than height.
Binding and cover – Visible binding, hard back with printed images on the cover.
Title – “Latitude” or “Meridian” or “Annulus” or “Ecliptic”
Design and layout –
Editing and sequencing –
Images and text – Little text other than title and all images will be the very best, not a huge amount, short but sweet.
My first images to present (below) are contrasts of each other and work very well as a set of two. I have two ideas to start with, one where each image is on white foam board and the other idea is they they are in black window mounts. You can see the two designs below and I have decided to go with the black window mount. When using the diagrams below, I liked both ideas however the black mount make the colors more prolific and allowed for a nice contrast between the white in the water and the black mount.
My next set of images to present are different, I plan to have a set of 3 images in a line sitting next to a larger image. I have two very similar ideas for this one, as you can see below. You see the set of 3 on the left on top of an extra foam board to make them stand out (3D) and the image on the right is not, however on the second idea the image on the right is also on foam board. In the end, I decided to follow the second idea and have the image on the right on foam board as well and the set on the left.
I decided I wanted to print 4 photos in A3, 4 photos in A4 and 3 photos in A5. This is shown below:
My 3 A5 images
My 4 A4 images
My 4 A3 images
I experimented with a few different ways in how I was to present my images. My first instinct was to go with these layouts below:
I liked these 2 together as even though one is in colour and the other is in black and white, they are both related to each other due to the fact they are both from my boat shoot and they have similar shaped objects and structures in those 2 images.
I liked these 2 A4 images and 1 A5 image together because the consistency of the black and white created an effective look. Additionally, I liked how they all are landscape images and how the bottom image has the strongest structure of shadows. I was thinking that I could trim all these images so there is no white borders and spray mount each image onto a piece of foam board. Then, I would’ve got a big piece of black card and stick each image on top of the foam board onto the card so they are assembled together.
I thought these 2 A3 images looked good placed next to each other as they both have strong shadows in each image. I would’ve done a window mount of these images together so that they were included in the same piece of card but in 2 separate frames.
Then, with the remaining 4 image prints, I would’ve put them all onto a piece of foam board and stuck the foam board onto a piece of black card, but maybe a different coloured card for the glow stick print on foam board.
However, I thought that some of the layouts above could’ve looked better, so below is some more experimentations of layouts:
With seeing all the different best possibilities that could work well to present my final images, I decided to use these below:
With these 2 A3 images, I am going to put them both onto a separate piece of foam board and put this on top of some black card.
With these 2 A5 images, I am going to do the same as the idea above – put them onto foam board and then onto black card.
With this 1 A3 image and 2 A4 images, I am going to do the same foam board idea and put them onto black card.
With these 2 A4 images, I am going to put them together in the same window mount, however they will be in separate frames on the same black card.
With this A3 image, I am going to make a window mount of black card.
With this A5 image, I am going to put it onto foam board but I am thinking of keeping the white border around this image so that when I put it onto card, there will be a nice thin white strip to separate the colour of the card and the black background of the photo.
The THEATRE OF CRUELTY is a form of Theatre originally developed by avant-garde French playwright, essayist and theorist, Henry Becque. Antonin Artaud – originally a member of the Surrealist movement in Paris during the 1930s – around 50 years after the first developments of the Theatre form, is also seen as a main contributor to the genre. His essays in The THEATRE AND ITS DOUBLE, were written with the intention of attacking theatrical conventions and the importance of language of drama, opposing the vitality of the viewer’s sensual experience against Theatre as a contrived literary form, and urgency of expression against complacency on the part of the audience. THE THEATRE OF CRUELTY can be seen as a break from conventional Western Theatre and a means by which the artists assault the senses of the audience, and allow them to feel the unexpressed feelings of the subconscious.
Antonin Artaud
Antonin Artaud was well known as an actor, playwright and essayist of avant-garde Theatre. While Artaud eventually broke away from the Surrealist movement, the movement helped to shape his later theories on the THEATRE OF CRUELTY. Led by Andre Breton, co-founder, leader and principal theorist of Surrealism, Surrealist Theatre reflected a belief that the unconscious mind was a source of artistic truth. In his manifesto on Surrealism, Breton writes,
“pure psychic automatism, by which is intended to express, verbally, in writing, or by other means, the real process of thought. Thought’s dictation, in absence of all control exercised by the reason and outside all aesthetic or moral preoccupation.”
In 1926, Artaud founded the Theatre Alfred Jarry, which only produced non-naturalistic drama. The Theatre only lasted 2 years. After his work in Surrealist Theatre, Artaud went on to develop his theories on THE THEATRE OF CRUELTY after he was inspired by a Balinese dance troupe performance that he viewed at the Paris Colonial Exhibit in 1931. The performance conventions of Balinese dance were different to any Artaud had previously experienced, and he was struck by the intense physicality of the dancers. Artaud went on to publish his major work on THE THEATRE OF CRUELTY in his essays THE THEATRE AND ITS DOUBLE, several years later in 1937.
In his writings on the Theatre of Cruelty, Artaud points to both “Theatre” and “cruelty” that are separate from their colloquial meanings. For Artaud, Theatre does not merely refer to a staged performance before a passive audience. The Theatre is a practice, which “wakes us up. Nerves and heart,” and through which we experience, “immediate violent action,” that “inspires us with the fiery magnetism of its images and acts upon us like a spiritual therapeutics whose touch can never be forgotten.”
Similarly, cruelty does not refer to an act of emotional or physical violence. According to scholar Nathan Gorelick, “Cruelty is, more profoundly, the unrelenting agitation of a life that has become unnecessary, lazy, or removed from a compelling force. THE THEATRE OF CRUELTY gives expression to everything that is ‘crime, love, war, or madness’ in order to ‘unforgettably root within us the ideas of perpetual conflict, a spasm in which life is continually lacerated, in which everything in creation rises up and asserts itself against our appointed rank.”
Artaud felt that the focus of Theatre in the west had become far too narrow—primarily examining the psychological suffering of individuals or the societal struggles of specific groups of people. He wanted to delve into the aspects of the subconscious that he believed were often the root cause of human being’s mistreatment of one another. Through an assault on the audiences’ senses, Artaud was convinced that a theatrical experience could help people purge destructive feelings and experience the joy that society forces them to repress. For Artaud, “the Theatre has been created to drain abscesses collectively.” Insufficiency of language
Artaud believed that the focus of Theatre in the west had become far too narrow – primarily examining the psychological suffering of individuals or the societal struggles of specific groups of people. He wanted to explore the different aspects of the subconscious that he believed were often the root cause of the human being’s mistreatment of one another. Through an assault on the audiences’ senses, Artaud was convinced that a Theatrical experience could help purge people’s destructive feelings and experience the joy that society forces them to repress. For Artaud, “the Theatre has been created to drain abscesses collectively.”
Artaud felt that language was an entirely insufficient means to express trauma. Accordingly, he felt that words should be stripped of meaning and chosen for their phonic elements. According to scholar Robert Vork, “speech on THE THEATRE OF CRUELTY’s stage is reduced to inarticulate sounds, cries and gibbering screams, no longer inviting a subject into being but seeking to preclude it’s very existence.” Contradictory of this statement, Artaud claims that his characters are able to express things that others are unable to say. Vork claims, “Artaud seems to be suggesting that his play reveals emotions and experiences that we all attempt to proscribe and are unwilling to acknowledge, but which nevertheless occur.”
Stephen Barber explains that “THE THEATRE OF CRUELTY has often been called an ‘impossible Theatre’—vital for the purity of inspiration which it generated, but hopelessly vague and metaphorical in its concrete detail.” This impossibility has not prevented others from articulating a version of his principles as the basis for explorations of their own.
Personally, in my opinion, even though the aims of THE CRUELTY OF THEATRE are almost impossible to achieve in a performance; use of no language and opening up the minds of the audience to reveal their unconscious feelings and emotions that society represses. Achieving these aspects in a photograph is more simple than in a performance. By using a camera, it can capture the movement and facial expressions of a person that otherwise would not be noticed by an audience perspective because of how fast small hand gestures and transitions of facial expressions happen. A photograph also eliminates speech and language which almost counts as a distraction when analysing someones movement while they interact with other people. An audience would only be able to pick up on these movements that someone performs after long repetitive exposure and analysis. Even then, the subject that performs these movements in a daily routine of interaction and expression, they do not necessarily notice their own movement that has been built up by their personality and subconscious mind. The hand gestures and facial expressions that someone displays when interacting with another person is built and influenced from copying and mirroring movement from people they repetitively spend their time with, as well as their movements being unique to them. A photograph will eliminate distractions of speech and capture someones subconscious movement and preserve it. The only difference between a photograph and THE THEATRE OF CRUELTY is that it doesn’t stimulate any senses other than sight, but it allows the viewer to deconstruct and analyse the meaning.
For my final outcomes, I wanted to group together certain images that were following the same photographical theme. 8 of my images link together as I put all 8 of these images into black and white – i felt this was more appropriate because of the style I was photographing in. Additionally, these 8 black and white images are involving shadows, (which is a big factor as to why I put these images into black and white). Therefore, this means they follow my light and darkness theme of the exam title ‘Variation and Similarity’ through my technique of capturing interesting shadows to portray light and darkness. My other 3 images I chose for my final choices were 3 images that I kept in colour. 2 of these 3 images are still involving shadows within their images, whereas the other 1 colour image has no shadows within its image; it is an image of several coloured glow-sticks that I captured in a dark room. I wanted to include some of my other dark room pictures in my final prints but a lot of these dark room shots included a model and I felt that having people in my final prints would take away the theme I was trying to follow as there is no people in any of my final choices of images. Overall, my theme for my final prints shows that I was interested in capturing shadows to show light and darkness in different areas and scenes. I kept my final prints more towards architecture, which included images from my beach shoot, my boat shoot, my architecture shoot of buildings, 1 image from my home shoot and 1 image from my dark room shoot. However, I experimented with different styles of photography to reflect light and darkness, such as seascapes, sand images, studio flower shoots and more dark room shots using long exposure to capture a moving person. After taking all these shoots, I realised my shadow images crated a more formal photographic look and matched my light and darkness title the best; this is why the 11 images I have chosen below have been picked.
I chose this image as one of my final choices for my final prints because it is an image that clearly links to my interpretation of the exam title. I captured this photo from a face on perspective which really helped the image display its light and dark tones. I took it on a sunny day hence the shadows being reflected from the balconies of the building. I like how there is a clear structure to the image as there is a lot of repeated shapes included in this photo. The multiple straight lines and objects creates a sense of repetition which also fits in nicely with how the shadows are repeated at each balcony level. I thought this image looked best in black and white because the tonal range of the photo is varied and so, having a black and white effect made the photo more standard. Again, this links to the repetition aspect of this photo because all the tones in the image are linked together without any bright or out of place colours taking charge.
I chose this image as one of my final prints because the shadows the stair handles made is really structural and organised. I like how the shadows are straight lines but how they also go in a zig zag direction. It also links in well with the first image I chose, due to the way the photo has levels to it; the stairs in this photo have a great amount of texture in them which makes the photo have more light and dark tones to it.
I chose this image for one of my final prints because the architecture of this large boat brought a lot of details and texture to it, due to the rust and various scratches and marks on the steel parts of the boat. Again, there is a few strong parts that have caused shadows onto the boat which really help build this image to become a strong factor into my light and darkness project for this exam.
I chose this photo for one of my final choices because the shadows are really vivid and bold. I like how the you can tell there is a different tone in the shadow on the cobblestoned floor compared to the floor on its own without the shadows because of the glass pane. This fits in well with the first 2 images I have chosen above as there is a clear structure to the architecture as well as the shadows. With the straight lines, this again creates a repetition effect.
I chose this picture for one my final images because there is a bold completion of shadows that portray the structure of the bus stop surrounding it. I like how the floor is tarmac with stones on top. This makes the shadows more obvious as the stones in the floor differentiates itself from the shadows.
I chose this image for one of my final choices as it really shows the variation of light and dark tones. It is an image of the blinds on my garden doors – this is such a simple photo yet the sun from outside creates this interesting, unique effect of how easily light and darkness can be shown onto objects. I like how there is a repetition of the rectangular shapes of the blinds. Additionally, each section of the blind has a thin line of dark toned shadows which outlines how there are strong shadows in this photo. The thicker dark toned shadows almost border the image and give it this bold vibe.
I chose this image for one of my final choices because the object I captured is unique and different to every other object and scene I have photographed. I like how I zoomed in on in the top half of this large steel pipe; this makes my photo more close up and shows how I focused on only one area of this object. I like how you can see the rust marks on the pipe – this creates a fine detail to it, similar to my 3rd image I displayed above from my boat shoot. There is a slight shadow to the far left and far right of the pipe. Yet, because the pipe is silver steel, the reflection of other objects onto it create darker tones on the pipe which means the main shadows didn’t need to be as big as the other shadows I have captured because overall, this image has a varied amount of light and dark tones within it.
I chose this picture as one of my final prints because the shadow of the palm trees creates an intriguing shape on the floor. This image is so simple yet the big shadow with an interesting structure to it makes the photo different. It links in well with my other images I have chosen as it has a big shadow in the image which is the main focus of this particular photo.
I have chosen this picture for one of my final prints because the architecture of this image is really full and clustered together with the palm trees. I chose to keep this image in colour because there was not many bold, strong shadows displayed and so the colourful tones of this photo was the main focus to what makes this image powerful. The reflection of the trees and cars in the windows and on the marble building create a sense of light and darkness within different aspects of the photo.
I chose this image as one of my final prints because it has an interesting focus; the way I captured this photo is so that there is no background around the frame of the image. I have clearly photographed just what is inside this boat – which could make it hard to tell what this object is. I like how there is strong shadows on the floor of the boat. Additionally, the bright blue colour of the boat is such a vivid colour which is why I thought that keeping this image in colour was best for this photo. The shadows were dark and bold enough that keeping the image in colour would still be effective to show this shadow effect, although I did adjust the contrast and shadows slightly to make the shadows stronger.
Finally, I chose this image for one my final choices because the bright colours of the glow sticks portray a strong contrast of the light and darkness of this photo. There is a sharp outline between colour and darkness due to how I used a dark room for this image. I like how the glow sticks are displayed as straight; this gives the image more of a structure to how the repetition of the straight glow sticks appear. I also like how you can see the detail of the dark tones in each glow stick as this gives the photo more balance between light and dark tones.
I chose these two contrasting images below because they were taken from the same place and they also had nothing cluttering the image such as signs or cars, and therefore the focus of the image is soley the tide and the lighthouse at Corbiere. I also feel that because there is a clear difference between the images because of how much the tide hides and changes.
The images below aren’t as clear as the ones from the Corbiere Lighthouse (above). However, I do feel that they show a clear contrast between the high and low tide even if it isn’t as obvious at first.
These four images below I find show a very clear and distinct change, and the high and low tide contrast is obvious. Although, if I was to take these images again I would have taken the high tide images on another day where the high tide didn’t line up with sunset because I have ended up with a distracting glare from the sun. Another thing I would change is the amount of signs, cars and groups of people I have captured in shot. I feel like this may draw the viewer’s eye away from the focus of the image.
