To begin this module, we had to produce a Practice Portfolio containing research, ideas and experiments through digital form of process. This portfolio was an opportunity to explore areas of photography and image making that we might want to work on in the future.
What to try: LANDSCAPE, FASHION, FILM MAKING, FINE ART, DOCUMENTARY, SPORT, PORTRAITURE OR A PARTICULAR THEME OR SUBJECT.
These ideas were to be explored thoroughly in a visual diary, with obvious use of experimentation, and also annotated critical reflection.
PRACTICE PORTFOLIO SHOULD CONTAIN: Ideas, Goal Setting, New Skills & Techniques, Practitioners/ Their Approach, Experiments, Themes, Annotation: Critical & Reflective & Fill an A4 Journal.
Digital Photography Presentation
I'm hoping to be able to get my practice portfolio off my lecturer, which will allow me to scan in the various experimentation I had done last term. At the end of the term, we were required to make a presentation to our class, peer-assessed. The presentation is a good recap of what I had done, and it looked briefly at what I was hoping to do for my Major Project.
Digital Photography Presentation
Slide One.
In slide one, I spoke about how I began my research. The first photographer, who's work had caught my eye during one lesson was that of Maggie Taylor, from some basic research, I then found the work of Olivia Parker. I researched these two photographers, I spoke in my journal about what I thought about their works and what I could get from them. I also included some basic information about these artists, including birth place and place of study. Out of the two, I prefer the work of Maggie Taylor's. I prefer the unrealistic, dream-like, fantasy landscape and portraits which she creates. Although I am a fan of the 'objects' Olivia Parker seem to create, but they seem more like objects created from hand, rather than photographs created.
Slide Two.
From my research on Maggie Taylor, I began digging through old family photographs, which my mother had collected through the years. From these, I was planning on using a portrait image, to place within a new image, perhaps the outfit or another aspect. I'd scanned in over 80 different old images, but including the best ones on my power point. As shown here on the right hand side. I really enjoyed scanning in all of these photographs, even though it took days, it's always satisfying to know that you have photographs, which are over 50 years old, safe and saved onto a media device, especially seeing as some of these were originals, and had no copies.
Slide Three.
So, my first experiment consisted of creating a fantasy like image, much similar to that of Taylor's. I used the old image of the 'Old Lady', as I call it, then I took the face of a squirrel, from a photograph which I took last year some time. Using Photoshop, I edited the images to have the bright colours which are very distinct, and an important aspect of Taylor's work. For the background, I chose a simple textured base, and added the stars by simply using the stamp tool. I didn't want to get to in depth, if I were to choose this as my Major Project, I would then have the opportunity to explore this technique more. I was fairly happy with the image, even though my Photoshop skills aren't exactly up to scratch, and I find working on Photoshop very difficult.
Slide Four.
Being very interested the landscape photograph, I decided to try something similar to my previous experiments, but using different landscape images which I'd taken. Another photographer, who's work we were shown along side that of Maggie Taylor's, was that of Suzanne Moxhay, he uses Photoshop, and various other techniques to create new, beautiful, again dream like images. This allowed me to practice my Photoshop skills a little more, and see what's possible through the use of landscape images. Again, I took this opportunity, within my journal, to research Moxhay, find out a little biography, and then I went on to annotate some of her pieces, noting my favourite image.
Slide Five.
Here are the three photographs I had decided to use to create my new landscape image. I looked for photographs with dramatic skies, interesting horizons and perhaps some buildings or objects that I would have been able to include. Again, I tried editing, for example, the shed, to make the sky suit the image. Once again, I found Photoshop difficult to work on, and after several attempts, I just couldn't get the right look, the images I produced constantly looked over edited, which is something I did not want to achieve. I'm still happy that I tried this technique, and gave it a go, even though I found it highly frustrating.
Note: Perhaps working in Photoshop wasn't the best idea.
Slide Six.
Even though I didn't find Photoshop easy to work on, I did not give up that easily. I tried colouring in old photographs. I found many practitioners (mostly on Flickr) that had done a lot of colouring of old photographs on Photoshop. Most of these practitioners had small businesses re-storing and colouring old and damaged photographs, which people would send to them. I found it very interesting, and thought a lot about the time and effort that would've gone into working like this. One practitioner I found was Vikki Hansen, who has coloured many very recognisable, iconic photographs.
Slide Seven.
I wanted to see how much work could come of from using analogue, instead of going straight to work within Photoshop. From my experimentation with colouring in old photographs, I decided I wanted to look into colouring the actual negatives, by hand. This was a technique that was very popular before colour film was invented, people would hand colour their black and white negatives. I managed to get hold of some coloured inks, they were Printer cartridge refills, but I thought I'd give them a go. It proved to to be very difficult to hand colour using these inks, simply because they would just sit on the negative surface. I left one negative to soak in ink for a few hours, and that was eventually absorbed, it's the blue image of the train door. That worked quite well, but as the experiment on the left showed, colouring areas didn't work so well.
Slide Eight.
From this colouring of negatives, I decided to have a go at distressing them. The thought of damaging negatives really did take some getting used to, but having a large collection of black and white negatives to work on, I decided I might as well. I really enjoyed it. Not knowing how the final image would look, made it quite exciting. I used the blade of a scissors to scratch away at parts of the negative. I managed to find several practitioners that did something similar, one of my favourites was James Fee.
Slide Nine.
After spending several attempts scratching away at negatives, I then decided to see what else I could do. For this slide I used an old negative, and I not only scratched it, I also attempted to colour it with the inks, but I also decided to burn it ever so slightly by using a hear gun, which I had purchased whilst completing my Art GCSE. I didn't want to burn the negatives too much, as it might make the image unrecognisable, so once the negative began to shrink slightly, I stopped. Overall, I was very happy with how this image turned out, once scanned into the computer. Once again, the colour didn't take very well, but I liked the effect the burning had on the image.
Slide 10.
To keep in style of an analogue approach to the Digital Photography I decide to try the 'Through the Viewfinder' technique, so using a digital camera, I would shoot a photograph through an older analogue camera. In my slide I am showing one example through a Mamiya RB75 Pro S, and then another through a Box Brownie. There were several photographers, which I found on Flickr mostly, who had experimented with this technique. I'd looked at the work of Russ Morris, as shown.
I enjoyed trying out this technique, although I do feel with more work and effort I would've been able to produce better images than shown, but obviously, if I had decided to use this technique as my Major Project, I would've had the time to perfect it.
Slide 11.
From the 'Through the Viewfinder', I wanted to try something similar by using an old camera lens. What I'd do is hold the lens up, and just by looking through it, I could tell it was showing a crisp and clear image, so I decided to try and photograph through it. I used this as a little play on words with the Camera being an extension of the eye, I though that the circle lens shape almost represented the eye, and my hand then would be the extension. I was really happy with how these images turned out, and thoroughly enjoyed photographing in this way. I didn't find any photographers that did anything similar, which encouraged me to try it more, but I didn't think it would make a good Major Project, it's far too simple.
Slide 12.
I was very eager to try a pin-hole experimentation, as I've neither done an AS nor an A-Level in photography, I though now would be a perfect time to attempt such experimentation Again, there are several practitioners who have experimented with this pin-hole effect, and there are some who persist in using it in their work. Here are two which I looked at, Daniel Kazmerski and Ilan Wolff.
Slide 13.
I experimented a few times with the pin-hole technique, I tried it with different size holes. The bottom left image, I believe, didn't really work because the whole was too big, so for my second experiment, I tried using a smaller whole to capture the images. The second experiment worked slightly better, but again, the images weren't perfect, but they looked better than the first experiment. Once again, if I felt that this experiment could work for my Major Project, I would have pushed to perfect the technique.
Slide 14.
The final practitioner who I looked at, who's work I found fascinating, was that of Thomas Kellner. Kellner uses whole, or multiple films, to take one large image. Each frame is one image, but when all are placed together, it creates one large image. Kellner has photographed 100's of buildings from all over the world in the same way, and by twisting and turning the camera, he creates buildings which look askew, and misshaped. The more I look at these images, the more I see 'wonky' houses, ones that would fit into a fantasy world, which would fit into where I started my research with Maggie Taylor.
Slide 15.
I attempted to try something similar to Kellner's, but instead of using film, I tried just using the digital photograph. By using the contact sheet setting on Adobe Bridge, I could set-up my multiple images, to make the one final image. I tried it with various buildings in Cardiff City Centre, including the National Museum and Gallery of Cardiff, and Town Hall. I really enjoyed using this technique to produce images, and I felt that it worked quite well. It was a bit difficult to have the correct exposures for every single frame, mostly because it was a cloudy day, and the sun would seep through the clouds which would mean I would've required a faster shutter speed.
Final Slide.
For my final slide, I decided to create a summary of what I'd done, and what I'm planning to do for my Major Project. I also included a practitioner who's work I wanted to look on for my Negotiated Project. I want to look more in-depth at the work of Thomas Kellner, and experiment more with techniques similar to his.
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