The CCA had an exhibition on musical links to photography, for example to top two images here are Biffy Clyro album covers. I really liked the bottom left image, it goes well with my circles topic but also it is very eye catching and well constructed.
Private Public Gallery
This was my first time to the Private Public gallery and I noticed that the work seemed more contemporary than the CCA’s. It was mostly art rather than photography but there were photographs around, whether they be manipulated physically or digitally. One image that interested me was the bottom left about Lily Langtree. Lily was a model/actress in the late 1800’s to early 1900’s from Jersey. She had a global fan base and this image was supposed to be the draft print for a postcard but it was so good that hey kept it. The artist has blown it up and digitally manipulated it slightly and printed it. The image on the top right was pop art and is of a woman who was a boxer or wrestler (something like that) and was able to easily beat men at their own game. The image is aimed to represent women as strong and able to be better than men at things women are stereotyped not to be able to do.
For this shoot, I wanted to just focus on light and/or shadow affecting objects or areas in and around my house. I used my Canon camera for this shoot. Below are the contact sheets displaying my responses:
Contact sheet 1
Contact sheet 2
Contact sheet 3
Experimentation
To edit my images, I used lightroom. I adjusted the brightness, contrast, shadows, whites, blacks and sometimes the clarity. I also experimented with 2 black and white images but thought that the colour images looked best for these types of images, as light and shadow contrasts the best when in their natural colour.
I did this shoot at home, where I wanted to focus on nature and close-ups within my project of light and darkness. Some pink flowers had fallen off one of the trees in my garden so I took 3 different flowers and did a shoot inside with those flowers. I wanted to focus on shooting close-up images of the flowers, where I got someone to hold a torch onto the flowers so that it created clear light and shadows within my picture frame. I took these images with my Canon camera, and experimented with the ISO to see different photographic responses with the light I was using. I also varied between the use of the ‘close-up’ mode on my camera. Additionally, at the time I found these flowers, there was a bold stroke of sunlight that looked appealing on some flowers I had in my house – so there are 6 images in my contact sheets that were not taken in a studio shoot – I took them primarily due to the sunlight shining onto them through the window.
Contact sheet 1
Contact sheet 2
Contact sheet 3
This shoot was inspired by mainly 2 artists: Rinko Kawauchi was one of them. Her illuminance photo-book consists of images such as:
Rink Kawauchi’s image
Rink Kawauchi’s image
Rink Kawauchi’s image
Images of mine inspired by Kawauchi:
Experimentation
I used lightroom to edit these images. I wanted to experiment with adjusting the brightness and contrast, as well as the vibrance, highlights, shadows and clarity.
For my attempt at producing tiny planet images, I went to two locations, Les Landes and Grosnez. This is my first attempt so I am not sure how it will pan out when I put them into photoshop to create the planet.
The above shoot was Grosnez, a full 360 degree panorama (not yet stitched). I had the camera on a tripod in a portrait angle so I could capture a better height. I then used full auto setting to best get the land setup best. I took the images overlapping the last by 1:3 to ensure no bits are missing and the stitching works well.
The shoot below was at Les Landes, I did the same concept, 2x 360 degree on full auto. I used ,y hand to mark the start and stop of each panorama
I now have to put the images into photoshop, create panoramas then bend the images into a circle.
After my initial experimentation with images, using color to respond to John Baldessari, I decided to create another response in which I would become more practical with my ideas and actually cut out parts of the image itself. To do this I would need to use a small circular object which I could proceed to cut around as an outline for the areas of photo I wanted to take out. Using a Stanley knife and a small cup I traced the outline and cut around the outskirts of the edge trying to be as neat as possible, after cutting out wanted areas on all of the photos I went onto experiment with their presentation, linking areas and using the off-cuts to put back onto the photos. Once I had create four different layouts I photographed them against a black piece of card so that more definition could be created. Overall I decided to do this because I wanted to become more practical like Baldessari who would go out of his way to make certain scenes happen, and so by me creating a response like this it would allow me to be in control of the image taken completely, warping it so that it links into my intended outcome. Here are the final developed cut-outs of the photos taken and their various experimentation’s:
For my first edit I decided I wanted to make use of the parts cut out, this is because I loved the idea of placing parts of an environment that would not typically be seen in any other location elsewhere. I chose to use the circles as a theme because of how their repetition linked into Baldessari’s work that centered around figures and form, and so by placing things in usual ways presented aestheticism for the viewer who is drawn to how the locations don’t fit into where they are placed.
For this image I wanted to layout the basis for branching various ideas for designs off on, this could consist of various linking techniques towards each circle and where they could start and end. I selected the areas with the photo which I thought captured the essential patterns and textures seen such as trees, card, sky and fields. These three different areas of the environment make up the piece and so by taking a section of it out impacts the outcome much more than it initially did.
Firstly for this image I decided to link together each circle to one another, giving each three links with the exception of the middle one having five in order to connect it to every other one. The idea behind this was to essentially link together each of the different sections of the landscape together and present the piece with an abstract and unusual object within, making the viewer think about how each area impacts the next.
Finally for this last experiment I tried to randomize how the layout of the cut-outs experimentation look completely. To do this I randomly linked together various circles making sure that two circles had a link to the border of the photo. I tried to make sure the path of the links was completely uncoordinated leaving me to cross over various paths to make a form with no actual structure in the photograph.
Overall I found that my experimentation using the four images went well due to it pushing me to create more edits outside of software, making me more practical with my photographs whilst involving me more with the actual process and outcome of each piece. I chose to use this image as the experiment because of how I thought it presented the most diverse textures and patterns within a landscape found in most of my photos.
In this shoot I have developed on my previous shoots in which I have looked at the faces of housing blocks, office blocks, houses and other types of commercial buildings within Jersey. In my previous shoot I explored the area of Havre Des Pas and took photographs of houses in the area to demonstrate how the houses can have similar features and materials used due to being in the same geographical area whilst also having these features changed slightly in each house to make each house unique and different. In this shoot I have photographed an estate in St. Peters to show how similar the houses in estates can be – they are often designed in bulk to create a quick and easy building process and so leads to lots of similar houses with the same style and layout. Of course, even when looking at how similar these houses all are, there are lots of features which make the houses individualistic, such as the paint colour or the style of window or the curtains. All of these features go towards emphasising how factors such as personal taste can create something ordinary into an individualistic feature that can make the house stand out from others. The essential idea behind this shoot is to reinforce the idea of variance and similarity in previous shoots and to show how even though something may be produced to be similar, there will always be differences.
Below I have continued to edit these photographs in a sharp black and white in order to emphasise the individual features of the houses and apartments. I originally decided this due to inspiration from Tim Booth who, when photographing portraits through hands, found that the black and white prevented the viewer from just focusing on colour and rather focusing on the deeper features and shadows that are brought out when using a strong black and white. I believe that it is important for me to continue to use this contrasting colour scheme as it makes it effective for when I make edits with these photographs later on, such as with GIF’s or with double exposure edits. With some of these edits I am going to experiment cutting out natural frames and layering it over photographs of natural rock faces as I begin to study geology and granite in Jersey.
The first place I will try to shoot is Grosnez. I hope to get the castle in the planet which I think could be very interesting. The second place I would like to shoot is Les Landes, you can get a few farm houses and trees on the planet which would look good adding the houses to the rural landscape yet not over-crowding it.
The Les Landes shoot will be at the green dot and the Grosnez shoot will be at the orange dot.
My second photographic shoot to gain a wide collection of primary source to furthermore develop and edit, was focused on natural forms. I captured images of plants, leaves and flowers, concentrating on the intricate detail and pattern of these forms. Adrienne Adam, a photographer I have studied has created sublime photographs of specifically the patterns of nature, therefore making her my main basis of inspiration for my second shoot. Adrienne Adam usually works in colour to highlight the vivid, bold colours of her photographic subjects, so I also did so, furthermore enhancing the contrasts, saturation, tones and vibrancy of my primary source.
In this post I have done some further experimentation on ways to compare and merge the photographs that I have taken. The main idea behind this editing is to take away parts of a photograph layered on top of another photograph to reveal a photograph in the background – this will allow the differences and similarities between the faces of the two buildings to be shown clearly. The idea for introducing shapes into the photograph to show contrast came from John Baldessari’s work with brightly coloured dots in which he covered the face of his subjects with dots that contrasted with the background; I felt that the introduction of more shapes brought another element to the photograph. Below is my first example of experimentation with cutting shapes into a photograph then layering; I cut around a coin with a stanley knife to reveal the features of the photograph below and show to create abstract effects within the composition.
In the first set of edits below I have used both circles and oblongs to create a range of contrasts within the photograph. I believe that this method may appear too confusing and removes the aesthetically pleasing aspects from the photographs but it does show contrast between structures.
In the below set of edited photographs I have used photoshop to remove the windows from the photograph on the top layer and so opening up a viewing into the background layer. This method could be used well with a double exposure method potentially, as I have done with the photograph on the left. This method helps to show similarities as even though parts of the composition have been completely removed it does not look completely abnormal.
In the below left edit I had first cut out the shapes within the windows and felt that this did not create a strong enough composition so then I continued to alter the opacity of the photograph to create more of a double exposure effect in which you can see both photographs when you look at it in a different perspective. In the photograph on the right I have cropped out circles within the photograph similarly to my first experiment with cutting out shapes. I feel that the circles do not sit well against the blocky natural shapes of a building face and so creates an abstract but not an aesthetically pleasing compositon.
