I decided to experiment with some double exposures and photo montaging as I had some sets of images that I wanted to pair together and wanted to explore how I could pair them together.

Experiments

————– Experiment 1: ——————

Overall, I’m happy with how this experiment turned out. I’m especially happy with the second screenshot as I like the way it looks with the face removed and I may use it as a part of my final project. Although I like how the double exposure looks, I don’t think I’ll be using it as a part of my final project as I’m unsure as to what I’ll do with it or how it’ll fit in with the rest of my images.

————– Experiment 2: ——————

I like the way the original photo montage turned out as there aren’t too many colours in it, making all the images blend together nicely. I think I could use it as a part of my final project by pairing it with a simpler and less busy image as it would create a strong contrast between them.

Sequencing – A sequence is created by using editing software such as Photoshop, to combine all photos into a single image. This single image can then show the path of an object or subject.

Grouping – Grouping pictures lets you rotate, flip, resize, or arrange pictures together, as if they were one picture. They will often be from the same set of photos, having similarities or can be used to show differences.

Using photoshop, I practiced sequencing and grouping of my photos in various ways, these were:

• Separately, to show the two different photoshoots.
• Using all photos together.
• In a group of three.
• In a group of four.

Experimentation

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I liked how some of these tuned out, but due to the sizes of the images and how they were all different. I found it difficult to group/organise them well, therefore in the future I don’t think that I would use grouping/sequencing with these images again in the future for my final piece.

Raoul Hausmann was an Austrian artist and writer. His experimental photographic collages, sound poetry, and institutional critiques would have a profound influence on the European Avant-Garde in the aftermath of World War I.

Hausmann, a founder member of the Berlin Dada group, developed photomontage as a tool of satire and political protest. The fragment of a German banknote behind the critic’s neck suggests that he is controlled by capitalist forces. The words in the background are part of a poem poster made by Hausmann to be pasted on the walls of Berlin.

Hausmann’s artistic contributions to Dada were purposefully eclectic, consistently blurring the boundaries between visual art, poetry, music, and dance. His “optophonetic” poems of early 1918 fused lyrical texts with expressive typography, insisting on the role of language as both visual and acoustic.

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My exam piece is inspired by Annegret Soltau a German visual artist.

I will focusing on the theme of geographical identity, i will be showing this through the use of physical documents and identity in the style of Annegret Soltau. E.g. Map, passport, citizen’s card, birth certificate, book about location, words in that language.

I will be creating a series of images using people from Hautlieu as my models. I will be using Annegret Soltau as my inspiration. My project will be made using both computer software and also doing bits by hand e.g. the sewing aspect.

I have decided to sew the forms of Identity into the skin instead of covering the face like Annegret Soltau, i feel this creates a more personal style while still emulating the style of Annegret Soltau, I also feel this creates a more personal sense of identifying with their geographical identity as the country you or your family originate from is ‘skin deep’.

Eyes Biometric science

Identification of persons through the eyes is in the field of biometrical science, I wanted to highlight this in my work as a link between document ID and every day life. Technology has been made for places such as airports to validate someone’s passport by comparing the eyes on the photo and the eyes of the traveller. No two eyes have exactly the same iris patterns. Iris scanning measures the unique patterns in irises, the coloured circles in people’s eyes. Biometric iris recognition scanners work by illuminating the iris with invisible infrared light to pick up unique patterns that are not visible to the naked eye.

Adobe Lightroom

I began by importing my images into Adobe Lightroom, I selected the images I thought looked most suitable. I then used the star rating system to choose a final few images. I rated the images I didn’t want to use 1 star and the images i did want to use 5 stars.

Adobe Photoshop

To begin the editing process, I began by collecting different forms of geographical identity from the different models I photographed prior to the exam. I collected forms of ID such as passports, addresses, maps of different towns/ country’s which the subject relates with geographically/ culturally.

I began by using the magic eraser tool to select parts of the face to remove to later replace with a form of identity. I decided to keep features such as eyebrows, eyes, nostrils included in some of the images to have the ID seem more attached to the skin.

I placed the image of the treaty title for the monarch of the United Kingdom, a royal style used in international law and diplomacy onto Aimee’s face, linking with how she is from Jersey but spent some of her childhood living in England.

I resized the image onto Aimee’s face deciding which parts i want showing and which parts I want hidden.

I then moved around the layers to have the images blended together creating a skin-like outcome.

I tested out 2 different ways of editing these images, the first way i tested this was by covering the face completly more similarly to Annegret Soltau, however, I decided I wanted to take more of a personal approach on the style and make it more complex, in that sense, i decided to create the images with the ID stitched into the skin instead of covering the face, I also feel this creates a more personal sense of identifying with their geographical identity as the country you or your family originate from is ‘skin deep’.

Lightroom

I exported the edited images into Lightroom for colour editing.

To edit my images I wanted to emulate the colour style of Soltau. I edited all my images similarly along the lines of the edit history below. I adjusted the editing slightly depending on the persons skin tone/ hair colour to have all the colours and shadows looking some what the same.

My images before sewing.

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Sewing

I wanted to include the sewing aspect from Soltau’s work into mine. I used different coloured thread for each person.

1. I printed out my images on normal A4 paper
2. stuck them on a piece of more sturdy paper to dodge ripping when sewing.
3. traced the outline with a lightboard of the part I was sewing
4. sewed my images.

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The outcome

Photographers I am researching:

Annegret Soltau

Forms of Geographical ID:

Map, passport, citizen’s card, birth certificate, book about location, words in that language.

Annegret Soltau is a German visual artist, born in Lüneburg, Germany. Her work marks a fundamental reference point in the art of the 1970s and 1980s. Photomontages of her own body and face sewn over or collaged with black thread are the most well-known works of the German artist.

While the focus of Soltau’s work never ventures far from the female body and its bodily processes, often incorporating images of herself, at the heart of her practice is an inexhaustible search for identity and meaning.

Claud Cahun

Claude Cahun was a French surrealist photographer, sculptor, and writer. Since her “rediscovery” over a decade ago, Claude Cahun has attracted what amounts to a cult following among art historians and critics working from postmodern, feminist, and queer theoretical perspectives.  Cahun who moved to the Jersey in 1937 with her stepsister and lover Marcel Moore, was imprisoned for activities in the resistance during the Occupation, and remained here after the war.

In early-20th-century France, when society generally considered women to be women and men to be men, Lucy Schwob decided she would rather be called Claude Cahun. It was her way of protesting gender and sexual norms. She thrived on ambiguity and she chose a name, Claude, that in French could refer to either a man or a woman. She took the last name from her grandmother Mathilda Cahun.

Claude Cahun was a Surrealist photographer whose work explored gender identity and the subconscious mind. The artist’s self-portrait from 1928 epitomizes her attitude and style, as she stares defiantly at the camera in an outfit that looks neither conventionally masculine nor feminine. “Under this mask, another mask,” the artist famously said. “I will never be finished removing all these faces.”  In the late 1930s, Moore and Cahun moved to Jersey, an island off the coast of Normandy, where they, disguised as non-Jews, they produced and distributed anti-Nazi propaganda. After being caught, imprisoned, and sentenced to death, they successfully escaped such a fate when Jersey was liberated by allies in 1945. Cahun is considered to be a ground-breaking artist who fully embraced her gender fluidity long before the term came into use. Tragically, she never fully recovered from her maltreatment in prison and passed away on December 8, 1954 in Jersey, United Kingdom. Her work left a huge impression on photography and directly influenced contemporary photographers Cindy Sherman, Gillian Wearing, and Nan Goldin. Today, her works are held in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, among others.

I narrowed down all my images through the star rating systems.

until I found my the best five.

I have chosen my final images because I like the way it portraits the identity of the island showing of its beautiful views and the way it links to Andy Le Gresley landscapes of the island.

This is all of my final images in a virtual gallery that i created using art steps.

My selection process was very useful to narrow down from all my images to all the good ones then i looked to see which ones link to my artist reference the most.

My photo shop skills have definitely improved a lot through this mock. these skills could be further improved to help me work faster and more efficient.

Here are all the edited versions of the images which I created on Adobe Lightroom, I will use “Z” to pick my favourites.

I really like how these particular edits turned out because they show a range of creativity within them using different editing skills/features. For my 1st photoshoot, I really liked how the photo looked in black and white, so I will use the edits with slight cropping, to use for a part of my final piece. In my opinion from my 2nd photoshoot, I really like the brightly coloured ones of the books and will crop the rest of the pictures which are related to that book to use within my final piece.

The edited images

1st Photoshoot images –

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2nd photoshoot images –

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