For this shoot i wanted to create a series of images inspired by Maten’s sea change project. I will looks at the moving tide in Jersey which would be significant since we have the 3rd quickest moving tide in the world. To start with I researched the tide times and located a week where it best suited my needs. I needed the high and low water to be within a time in the day where there was light. Thus ensuring that there is a consistent theme so the contrast between the low water and high water images look the best.
With this information I just needed to figure out certain locations to shoot at, obviously the initial ideas being on the coast where the sea is. I pin pointed a variety where the change in sea height is easily distinguished by rock formations ect. I came up with the locations, St ouens bay at L’roco tower, corbiere lighthouse, St Aubins bay, Beauport beach, Portlet beach and Plemont bay. For this shoot i decided to go with Plemont bay . I will first shoot the locations at low tide and mark the exact spots in which i took the photo’s using colored tape. I will also write down the particular settings and focal lengths used. This will mean that when i go back at high tide i can get the exact same shot just with a change in water height.
So far in my project based around ‘Variance and Analyis’ I have explored artists including Lewis Bush, John Coplans, Tim Booth, Huang Qingjun, Michael Wolf, the Bechers and John Baldessari. I have drawn inspiration from these photographers in exploring people’s personal belongings, the details of people’s hands and the faces of buildings within Jersey. After experimenting with different approaches to ‘Variance and Similarity’ I have decided that the route I want to take draws inspiration from Michael Wolf and Lewis Bush by exploring the features of buildings and the patterns within them that cause variance and similarity within them.
I have explored this area so far by first photographing blocks of flats and offices and then further developed this by photographing other styles of accommodations, including hotels. I have experimented on ways of presenting these photographs by using GIF’s, typology grids, double exposures and by using photograph to remove parts of a photograph to reveal another photograph. These techniques of presentation all intend to allow the viewer to view the photographs side by side and to compare them.
From here on out I intend to expand on my project so far by photographing more houses within specific areas of Jersey as you will find that housing in different parishes will have different structural styles and fashions, as well as some being more modern. This links to vernacular architecture as these structures are unique to the location. I also plan to expand on the shoot by looking into geology – the study of rocks. I think that it is necessary to do this because I have been looking at man made structures in Jersey, which are often made from granite. Granite is a natural resource that is abundant in Jersey so in contrast with looking at the faces of man made structures, I believe it would be interesting to explore the faces of natural structures such as cliff faces. I could then experiment with these photographs and contrasting them with the photographs of houses by using some of the presentation techniques that I have experimented with so far.
Imogen Cunningham was an American photographer known for her botanical photography, nudes, and industrial landscapes. Cunningham was a member of the California-based Group f/64, known for its dedication to the sharp-focus rendition of simple subjects. Members of Group f/64 thought that “photography, as an art-form, must develop along lines defined by the actualities and limitations of the photographic medium, and must always remain independent of ideological conventions of art and aesthetics that are reminiscent of a period and culture antedating the growth of the medium itself”. Dismissing Pictorialism, f/64 proposed that the appearance of the photograph was more important than the subject matter. Cunningham found influence in the groups’ philosophic interest in natural forms but sought her own style. Whilst many other members of the group were mainly concerned with form, Cunningham focused on texture and light. She published an article called Photography as a Profession for Women in which she encouraged women to develop their own style in photography.
With the help of her chemistry professor, Dr. Horace Byers, she began to study the chemistry behind photography; she subsidized her tuition by photographing plants for the botany department. After graduating in 1907 she went to work with Edward S. Curtis in his Seattle studio. This gave Cunningham the valuable opportunity to learn about the portrait business and the practical side of photography. In San Francisco, 1920, Cunningham refined her style, taking a greater interest in pattern and detail as seen in her works of bark textures, trees, and zebras. As the mother of three young children, she was mainly confined to photographing her children and the plants in her garden and sought to expose the visually profound in the mundane. She became particularly interested in photographing flowers and abstracting the shapes of the petals and leaves. Cunningham undertook an in-depth study of the magnolia flower between 1923 and 1925. The importance of natural form in Cunningham’s abstract images has led to them being compared to the undulating forms in Georgia O’Keeffe’s paintings. Although the two artists worked at the same time, Cunningham claimed she was not aware of O’Keeffe’s work until years later.
“ANYBODY IS INFLUENCED BY WHERE AND HOW THEY LIVE.”
Georgia O’ Keeffe
Georgia Totto O’Keeffe was an American artist. She was best known for her paintings of enlarged flowers, New York skyscrapers, and New Mexico landscapes. O’Keeffe has been recognized as the “Mother of American modernism”. In 1905, O’Keeffe began her serious formal art training at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, but she felt constrained by her lessons that focused on recreating or copying what was in nature. During the summers between 1912 and 1914, she studied the principles and philosophies of Arthur Wesley Dow, who created works of art based upon personal style, design, and interpretation of subjects, rather than trying to copy or represent them. This caused a major change in the way she felt about and approached art.
Analysis:
O’Keeffe’s dramatic use of colour palette, line and composition presents flowers in an alternative way. Her works range from abstract responses of nature, zoomed-in and almost unrecognizable, to detailed, life-like responses that emphasize the beauty of floral subjects as they come. From the curves of flower petals to the rich tones and shadows within the composition, O’Keefe looks at flowers very similar to which Cunningham photographs, furthermore responding in artistic medium. Her vibrant works with colors that glow with energy and vitality, explore the amazing and intense colours that the environment has provided in natural forms. O’Keeffe often pushes the boundaries of the art world, in some cases quite literally with lines and forms racing off the edge of the canvas, yet somehow she always manages to maintain a sense of stability and produce works that are visually engaging. Her use of a variety of media—pastel, charcoal, watercolor, and oil—combined with her sense for line, color, and composition produce deceptively simple works. Her confidence with using these elements makes her style of painting look effortless.
“I FOUND I COULD SAY THINGS WITH COLOR AND SHAPES THAT I COULDN’T SAY ANY OTHER WAY – THINGS I HAD NO WORDS FOR.”
Marcel Duchamp was a painter, sculptor and writer whose work was associated to Cubism, Dada and conceptual art. Duchamp is commonly regarded as one of the three artists who who helped to define the revolutionary developments in the plastic arts, responsible for significant developments in painting and sculpture and most importantly a significant influence in conceptual art. By World War 1, Duchamp had rejected the work of many of his fellow artists as ‘retinal’ art, served only to please the mind whereas he wan’t to use art to serve the mind.
‘Bicycle Wheel’ was Duchamp’s first ‘readymade’, a class of objects he invented to challenge assumptions about what constitutes a work of art. Duchamp combined two mass-produced parts—a bicycle wheel and fork and a kitchen stool—to create a type of nonfunctional machine. By simply selecting prefabricated items and calling them art, he subverted established notions of the artist’s craft and the viewer’s aesthetic experience.
Duchamp was the first to create art that wasn’t regarded as traditional art. His sculpture of a stool and bicycle wheel created many opposing opinions of what art is and what you can call art. However, his sculpture was revolutionary for conceptual art. It helped move away from traditional ideas of art and broke away from the restrictions of traditional art.
Conceptualism, is art in which the ideas or concepts in art take over from the dominant definition and ideology of traditional art of material and technical aspects that create an overall aesthetic to please the eye. The idea or concept is the most important aspect of the art, the idea becomes a ‘machine that creates the art’, it questions the nature of art. Artist Joseph Kosuth wrote in his essay ‘Art after Philosophy’ 1969, ‘All art is conceptual because it only exists conceptually’.
JOHN BALDESSARI – THROWING THREE BALLS IN THE AIR TO GET A STRAIGHT LINE
Above is the work of John Baldessari from his work of ‘Arbitrary games’ with the concept of accomplishing an arbitrary goal through games. For example ‘Throwing Three Balls into the Air to get a Straight Line’ 1973. Baldessari photographed his results of while attempting his arbitrary goal and eventually selected the best of 36 tries. The writer Eldritch Priest links this particular work by Balderssari as an early example of post-conceptual art. Most of Balderssari’s conceptual art was made after he made the statement; ‘I will not make anymore boring art’ which he recorded himself writing down on a piece of paper, repeating the line many times and even named the video art itself.
Following up on the introduction to conceptual art we conducted an experiment of creating photos from playing ‘Arbitrary games’, inspired by John Baldessaris works and the influence of conceptual art instigated by Marcel Duchamp.
Our first experiment was simply taking a picture of our subject while they tried to avoid having their picture taken called ‘boxing match’. I set my camera to a high shutter speed and to take bursts of photos to adjust and keep up with the fast pace of movement. The point was to let spontaneity, fate and chance takeover our photo shoot and the images we produced, letting the unexpected take place without being pressured for everything to go to plan. For example, the boxing match portraits were produced because of the dynamics between the photographer and the subject; working together but conflicting with each other.
COIN TOSS EXPERIMENT
Another game we played that involved chance dictating the pieces we produced was a coin toss game. We were given two A3 photographs and we played coin toss on top of one. If the coin landed on the picture and landed the side you picked [heads/tails] you had to cut out that area of the picture, cutting around the coin with a knife. After cutting out a few circles on the first photograph, we placed it on top of the other photograph. This meant that the picture underneath the picture with the circles cut out, peaked through in the circles, revealing different aspects of the photograph underneath.
These images were experiments using an application on my phone, I added images into the app and it created the circular effects and I then adjusted it to exactly what I wanted.
Sea
Mountains
Sunset over the sea
Coastline from the air
Agriculture
Using this app, it has allowed me to explore Tiny Planet photography and encouraged me to do more and experiment more with this and I would like to carry on making these images but using a camera and Photoshop, a very difficult process I have not tried before.
“The sun lies at the heart of the solar system, where it is by far the largest object. It holds 99.8 percent of the solar system’s mass and is roughly 109 times the diameter of the Earth — about one million Earths could fit inside the sun.” It creates an extravagant heat onto the Earth, and some describe the sun as ‘beautiful’ due to its warming “sphere of hot plasma.” There is various research about the history of the Sun and scientific research that explains what the Sun is and how it works, as well as other interesting facts about the Sun within our solar system. However, there is other interpretations of what the Sun is looked at by others from different cultures. Mythological reasonings have previously been used; for example, such phrases like the “Sun God” and “Sun Chariot” are Greek perspectives of the Sun. “A solar deity (also sun god or sun goddess) is a sky deity who represents the Sun, or an aspect of it, usually by its perceived power and strength.” The Sun is sometimes referred to by its Latin name ‘Sol’ or Greek name ‘Helios’.
Within the world, different countries and continents are hotter than others, due to their position on the Earth. This is because, countries that are closer to the equator are hotter than countries that are further away from the equator (closer to the northern and southern hemisphere). The equator is an imaginary line that runs round the middle of the Earth. It is directly in between the north and south pole. It divides the globe into 2 different parts; the Northern hemisphere and Southern hemisphere. “The equator is warmer than the poles because the equator is significantly closer to the sun than are the poles (i.e. the equator “bulges out” toward the sun).“
I think that the Sun is an important factor in everyday life. Many people look up to the Sun to be happy; for example, some people are in a much more positive mood when the Sun is shining. I think that my idea of photographing light and shadows will mean my project will portray different moods, showing the variation and similarities within different weather types and different shades of light and darkness. Using the sun as one of the bases of my project will help create light within my photography.
Keld Helmer Peterson was born in 1920 and died in 2013. He was a pioneer of Danish modernist photography and is internationally recompensed for his images of structure, patterns and detail, cities and nature.
His book’122 colour photographs’ was very well know, due to its innovative use of colour in his photographs.
in the 1950s and 1960s, he established himself as an architectural and design photographer. He later shifted into a more abstract form of photography.
This images was captured by Peterson when he was creating his well known photobook 122 colour photographs. he produced it under natural lighting. The image composition is very interesting as it creates the illusion of depth within the image. This is something i will be considering when creating my own images
For my photo selection instead of using all 10 final edits I have done, I decided to weed out a couple of images I didn’t think would work on the presentation. I thought that numbers 8 and 10 wouldn’t work so well with the other images I chose to use, as they are darker in more areas than the rest are in the majority.
Edit 8Edit 10
So for my final presentation I have decided to use Edits 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 9.
English photographer important for his pioneering work in photographic studies of motion and in motion-picture projection.Muybridge’s experiments in photographing motion began in 1872, when Leland Stanford hired him to prove that during a particular moment in a trotting horse’s gait, all four legs are off the ground simultaneously. His first efforts were unsuccessful because his cameras cameras shutter speed wasn’t quick enough. In 1877 he returned to California and resumed his experiments in motion photography, using a battery from 12 to 24 cameras and a special shutter he developed that gave an exposure of 2/1000 of a second. This arrangement gave satisfactory results and proved Stanford’s contention.
Muybridge’s most important photographic study of motion was during 1884 to 1887 under the auspices of the University of Pennsylvania. These consisted of photographs of various activities of human figures, clothed and naked, which were to form a visual collection of human movements for the use of artists and scientists. Many of these photographs were published in 1887 in the portfolio Animal Locomotion: An Electro-Photographic Investigation of Consecutive Phases of Animal Movements. Muybridge continued to publish his work until 1900, when he retired to his birthplace.
I belive through my past research It has become evident that my 4 primary principles of interest for my specification are, opulence, beauty, haiku and visceral. However, All of these successfully go under the subjectivity of the wonder of artistry. These all create attributes for exquisiteness into the world around us, and perhaps to see a new wonderment within ourselves. I belive I want my narrative construct of my book to have this movement of what I and others belive to see and have beauty within the world and ourselves, weather that be people or the world around us. I believe using the element of haiku and luminance to create more abstract versions of beauty. My book will also have an interesting narrative construct to each image and have a clear purpose. I not only want to present beauty, but with the twist of presenting it in a more abstract and fine art influenced manner. I will not only be doing more research into what it means to myself as an individual, what also what beauty means to others and comparing and contrasting them to demonstrate the beauty in everything. I belive with the combination of my shoots surrounding that of fine art, chaos in the media, natural beauty within a landscape, luminance and more abstract looks of a-landscape, this could combine to my project hypothesis, asking what extent do we ignore/ or should we see beauty in the world, what is our ignorance to our surroundings. To help with this, I will not only complete my own research of asking to others what they belive to be beautiful. But will research and respond within my own photography and experiments with further abstract editing processes to the images. I Have also started reading a book called’ philosophy of the arts’ and a more specific concentration of the book where it discuss the contents of art, pleasure and understanding this effect of a feeling that a piece of art and photo can give us a new understanding, love and effect of a feeling.
The book itself first starts off with discussing the effect of why we should value a piece of art. It is evident that many of my interests in art come under the influence of atheistic theory, as this is an attempt to formulate a theory of art that explains value , rather than to define what is is or determine its social function. What we seek most form art is enjoyment, just this simplicity of finding a piece in a favourable judgment, yet what is this difference from enjoyment to beauty. David Hume created the idea that that standard of taste is it agreeableness. This is then a further consciousness “to seek the real beauty, or the real deformity, is a fruitfulness an enquiry, as to seek the real sweet or real bitter’ however this aesthetic taste of what is considered beauty is a wide diversity of opinions about art that we find in the world is confirmation of this fact.
Due to my first idea being based on the fact of using fine art to develop social perceptions of media influence on are daily lives, so how we see the world based off moral fear and the chaotic causes of fake news. I belive it could be interesting to still involve this into my project. As art, as said previously, is the factor to see an aesthetic theory which is agreeable, it has to have a personal connection and reality to be considered as art but not as an unrealistic presence. So, Perhaps if my narrative construct was to focus on beauty, but not just the obvious beauty, but beauty seen within the hardships of the world, the chaos of real deformity and yet still to be considered as art, perhaps this is the most powerful way which I could show beauty. It creates the construct of social realism, and so does not separate the audience from what they belive is the reality that they see. This too even connects with the philosophy of HAIKU, as that originates from finding the beauty within the minimal, so in these terms, could be even within the pain of reality. So perhaps my specification should be: finding the beauty using the aesthetic theory of the haiku, within the chaotic media and the beauty into the everyday.
