Brainstorm
Surveillance Task - Sophie Calle Response
In this series of photos I chose a subject and briefly "stalked" them. This approach was inspired by Sophie Calle's style of photography. When taking these photo's I tried to capture the subjects in a totally natural environment, emphasising the realistic nature of the images. Furthermore after the images were taken I digitally manipulated them in photoshop. I dimmed the surrounding colours of the chosen individual, this was to signify the importance of the subject in the photograph. Then to reinforce this idea I blurred the imagery surrounding the subject, in order to fully signify the subject individual.
Gordon MagninI chose to respond to Magnin by creating my own interpretation of the distorted images. However rather than distort other photographer's work, I chose to capture my own original image to later distort them instead. To digitally obscure the two below portraits I imported them in to photoshop. There I selected a fragment of the subjects face and rotated it by a certain degree. I then repeated this process, however every time each selected fragment decreased in size. This generated a spiral effect, yet at the same time maintained a reasonably ordinary structure of the subjects in the portrait. This contrast between the distorted part of the image and the part that isn't causes the audience to question the image and attempt to determine what the original image looked like. Furthermore I feel that abstracting an image subtly generates a profound effect and makes the image more interesting to observe.
Digitally Obscured PortraitsMaurizio Anzeri
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Gordon Magnin is a Nevada based artist who works in photography, scans, collage, and altered found image. The majority of Magnin's work incorporates themes of geometry, repetition and collage as means to distort or abstract the image in order to present his interpretation or objective. Furthermore Magnin takes ordinary images that have the intention to influence or condition the subject individual by motivating particular perceptions they obtain. These original images also manifest around self-image and generate a consumerist outlook. Magnin abstracts these images in order to remove this particular outlook that is exercised and heighten amiguity and mystery. Thus causing the target audience to question the image, generating their own interpretation rather than only excepting the interpretation presented in the conditioning image. For example in the image below, Magnin distorted an original image of a fashion model which creates a false interpretation of beauty. Distorting this removes that interpretation and motivate the target audience to question the image which helps them strengthen or generate their own value or interpretation. As well as creating a contrast in tones and colour, the sewing patterns are meant to emphasize the difference of culture between the modern and older generations. As Anzeri believed that individuals used to not be able to fully express themselves through developing a physical identity or appearance.
Manually Obscured PrintsHeightened Sense |
In these two responses I manually distorted them. I did this by cutting and placing images onto eachother. I also directly drew on to the prints rather than sew into them, which although simple, heavily distorted the images. Furthermore with these two particular images I decided to give each of them titles as I wished to implant a brief idea in to the audiences perception and to give the subject in the photograph a short background story as I believe this gave the images more depth and character.
Obscured Studio Portraits
Photography Gallery Exhibition - The Photographer's Gallery
On the 6th of March I visited 'The Photographer's Gallery' in Central London. There I saw three of the main exhibitions in the gallery. Each exhibit consisted of work from one or more artists. However all pieces of art contained the use of collage, yet all artists had a different, but similar approach to their work. The exhibition helped me generate new ideas, falling under the theme of 'Cover and Obscured' photography; using techniques such as digital or manual layering of images to create an abstract, obscured effect.
Walk Around London
From walking around London, I felt that it inspired me to incorporate the public sphere in my following projects as I feel that with this I can truly present themes of identity and people as a whole. However I through the photo's I've taken and through observing the city of London, I noticed the abundance of advertising. Therefore I think that displaying one's identity through material possession would be an appropriate theme to base my work on, rather than just displaying subject individuals in a normal light. Adding to this I liked the idea of silhouettes as it creates a sense of mystery and in a way removes the complete identity of the object or person, adding to this it provides a great sense of tone and contrast betweent he foreground and the back drop.
Experimenting with Silhouettes
Strand 1 - Abandonment
Tame Impala - 'Innerspeaker' Album Cover
This album artwork was created by creative director and graphic artist Leif Podhajsky. His work explores strong themes of the relevance of nature and the psychedelic or altered experience one may encounter.
His ambition of his artwork is to cause the audience to view their surroundings more differently by promoting sublimation of their perceptions to emphasize the evident beauty within the environment around them. For example in the picture to the right Podhajsky digitally altered an original image of the woodland and sky scene by creating a subtle yet profound 'zoom blur' effect. Although though a large percentage of the photograph is not altered by the zoom blur, it still creates a heavy abstraction of the image. Therefore the subtle distortion causes the audience to possibly visualize the image as if it were part of reality rather than a mere fragment of fantasy. This image influenced me to experiment with the means of zoom blur, however rather than digitally incorporate the zoom blur effect I attempted to generate a similar image by manually creating zoom blurred images. My intentions for this was to create a more 'raw' or real image that reflects on the actual time and place which the picture was captured, instead of just digitally ultering it later on a computer. Adding to this I believe that creating the zoom blur effect manually provides the imagery with a sense of authenticity which i don't believe can be obtained through means of digital editing. |
Zoom-Blur Manual Process
In order to create the 'Zoom-Blur Effect' you must manually change the settings of your camera and change the shutter-speed, ranging between 1 and 3 seconds. However this reasonably long shutter cause a long exposure therefore your must increase the apature size to around F 32 - F 36 and decrease the ISO to approximately 100. This will in practice generate an image with a balance of lighting, tones and colour rather than a over exposed image with lack of contrast. However through experimenting with zoom blur, I found it relatively difficult to achieve the adequate lighting, appropriate to generate a well exposed picture. Therefore I had to adjust the settings depending on each individual scene as a particular camera setting may generate an unclear or visuallt displeasing photograph.
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However when the settings are appriate for the scene this is the process which needs to be carried out. Firstly, focus on the subject matter that you want to be sharp rather than blurred in the photograph. Also either fully zoom in, or out with your lens, later this will allow you to create a more extreme zoom effect. Double check that the exposure is adequate. Secondly, initiate the capturing of the image. It is imperative that the camera is steady during this short process otherwise the entirety of the image will be excessively blurred. If accessible, use a tri-pod as it will steady the camera, thus generating a more sharp, detailed image. Thirdly, immediately after you begin capturing the image fully zoom in, or out while still making sure that the camera is kept steady. Adding to this adjust the zoom or the focal length in proportion to the shutter speed. For example if your shutter speed is at 1 Second, then adjust the zoom in or out for approximately 1 Second. Finally check the image to see if the blur is as 'full' as you wanted it to be or not. If not repeat the process again and maybe tinker with the settings. Sometimes this can be a relatively inconsistent process yet can be perfected through trial and error. |
Strand 2 - Zoom Blur Photography - Leid Podhajsky Response
In this series of images I used the 'Zoom Blur' technique. As it was the first time I attempted to incorporate the effect I had to re-take and fully experiment with the imagery. Overall I believe that in this first set of results I have successfully demonstrated the zoom blur style. However I would like to develop the technique further and rather than excercise mainly portraiture based photography I wish to attempt to capture more landscape orientated photographs, such as the 'Innerspeaker' album cover. Therefore in my next set of results I aim to capture more natural, landscape scenes, focusing less on individuals and more on the environment in the picture as a whole.
Zoom Blur Photography - Further Development
Amirali Ghasemi - 'Party'
Amirali Ghasemi was born 1980 in Iran. He is a curator, media artist and graphic designer. Ghasemi founded 'Theparkingallery' in 1998, which allows artists to promote their work, through means of external, or online exhibitions.
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This photograph is from his photgraphic series 'Party'. It displays what seems to be a scene from a party, or gathering of people. Ghasemi blanks out the flesh of each individual in the series. This is to strip the identities from the people in each shot, thus promoting an objective perspective of the imagery for the target audience. Ghasemi uses this technique to remove any prejudice, dislike, bias or inpersonal judgement that could be influenced by the unedited photographs. Therefore causing the audience to excercise their sense of objectivity, viewing the imagery as a 'scene' in itself, rather than concluding their perceptions due to the representations of the personas in the photographs. Adding to this excluding the blanked out flesh, the remainder of this particular photgraph is left unchained. This is to create an ordinary atmosphere, thus promoting a sense of realism which allows the audience to relate to the image, as it is, to an extent, ordinary.
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Strand 3 - Blanked Flesh - 'Party' Response
In this set of results responding to Amirali Ghasemi's series of images 'Party' I blanked out the flesh of all the consisting subject people in the photographs. I feel that I have correctly responded to Ghasemi's work, yet still incorporated my own style, implementing my own stamp on the images. For example rather than only blanking out the flesh of the individuals I chose to also cartoonize their hair as well; as I thought this emphasized the effect and created a larger contrast with the realistic. natural environment and items around the subjects. Furthermore I find the idea of removing the identity of the individuals causes the audience to generate a specific persona for each person. Therefore creating a story within the photographs, rather than them just being presented as images to look at, and that being the end to that. I wish to further my experimentation with this technique and develop my ideas further. Presenting them with more people on a much more grander scale.
Blanked Flesh - Further Development
Final Project Images
In these final set of three images I decided to focus further my response of Amirali Ghasemi. Also I created panoramic images through the means of photo collage; a technique that I have developed from responding to the work of David Hockney. In these three sets of photographs I visited three locations where I captured several images. My intention through each work was to capture everyday people carrying out their normal routine and later removing their identities so the audience cannot determine the individual by their ethnicity, nationality or background but simply by the everyday tasks or actions they're doing. After layering several images together to create a whole panoramic image I then individually edited the flesh of as many people as possible in the photographs. Initally I was only going to 'blank' our the skin of each individual, however I later chose to use a variation of colours as I thought that it would make the images appearance more appealing to the audience and generate a more brighter tone. Furthermore on one of my images I decided to make the backdrop black and white, yet leave the individuals in colour. My intention to do this was to totally make the subjects conspicuous in the image and to make my intention of blanking out each individuals flesh totally apparent to the audience.