Framing/Presenting

After a bit of a stressy start of the day, thanks to the snow, I managed to pick up all my finals! First we went to the framing shop in Woking where I got my Succession photo framed. As mentioned in a previous post, I wanted to have a white frame, not too thick of overpowering, and a circular mount so it wouldn't be too layered. I wasn't too sure about the circular mount, but it looks amazing! In fact, it doesn't actually look like it has a mount, which is good, because nothing distracts you from the photo itself.



The top right and the middle left photo are both of the succession photo. You can't see the photo itself very well because of all the lights. I'm so so so happy with the white frame, I think if it was a black frame the photo would have looked a lot smaller and enclosed and the frame would be a main focus point. The glass looks beautiful as well. It makes the photo look very expensive (which it is...) and the glossiness of it makes the photo look more 3 dimensional.

The photo to the left is just a close up of the mount and the frame. It looks beautiful. Unfortunately I could only see the photo for a few minutes before it got wrapped up and put in the back of the car.





We then drove to Brighton to pick up my A2 photo for my motion blur project. I should really start to refer to it as 7591 Miles as it sounds so much more professional. Anyway, this also looks fantastic!! I printed it on matt paper so it wouldn't look like one giant mirror and it's mounted on diabond. The mounting is literally gorgeous. I'm so happy with it!! Diabond is basically the same as aluminium mounting, but a lot lighter in weight.

I can't really find the right words to describe it all, because both of these projects are the most professionally presented work I've every created. My Succession photo will be up in the Eldon exhibition in May/June, 7591 Miles will be handed in as my final for this project.

52 Week Photo Challenge

This weeks theme was B&W. I'm not the biggest fan of taking photos in black and white, unless they're taken on b&w film. My initial idea was to take a photo of the old style of architecture in Portsmouth. However since the weather has been so miserable, the photos didn't look as nice as I expected them to look. When I converted the photos to black and white, I was even more disappointed with how they looked.

I went out again today, to see whether there was anything else I could take a photo of. I started off at the Guildhall, and took photos from the side (in a deadpan manner, making sure all the lines are straight like usual), but again when I converted it to black and white it didn't look right. After that I took some photos of Park building. Park building is one of the university buildings, but the architecture is very similar to that of the Guildhall. They looked quite nice, but as I was taking photos up instead of forward, it didn't fit with my usual style of photography.

Finally, on my way back, I thought it would be a great idea to take photos of the building I live in, but again, that didn't work either. The building is surrounded by a busy road and traffic lights and all sorts of distracting things. As I was about to give up, we walked past some strange detail on the building which I've never paid attention to before, and that's what I ended up taking a photo of. It's taken straight on, so to top and the bottom are completely horizontal and there is no distortion. This is a great addition to my abstract photography. I didn't convert this photo into black and white, which is probably the reason I chose it! The brick itself was already grey, and with the blackened shadows, it looks as though it's been edited!

Title

Thinking of a title is probably the hardest part of the whole project. I don’t want anything cheesy or obvious, but I don’t want something that sounds silly or too abstract. When seeing the title, I want people to start to understand the work, but not completely give it away.

I’ve been thinking about a title for a long time, but it wasn’t until the group tutorial recently that we got the ball rolling. Some things that were suggested were “moving on” or “immigration” or simply “movement”. It seemed to simple and rather obvious. I don’t want the title to ruin the whole piece!

Then Dan (a course mate) thought of the idea of adding up all the miles I’ve travelled together and have that be the title. I thought it was a fantastic idea!! It shows the distance I’ve travelled, without using obvious words.

I started to think about whether to include every single move, or just the out of country moves.

Moves:

1.      Within The Netherlands

2.      From Netherlands to America

3.      From America to Netherlands

4.      From Netherlands to UK

5.      Within the UK

6.      Within the UK

I don’t think the moves within the same country are as important as that happens a lot more. The 3 photos also indicate the three countries where I have lived, thus it would be more appropriate to only add the distances of the moves abroad, to The Netherlands to America, America to The Netherlands and The Netherlands to England.

I used the following website to find out the distance as google maps wouldn’t work as it was an overseas action.

http://www.javascripter.net/math/calculators/distancecalculator.htm

I could only get approximate locations so that’s what I did first:

Rotterdam, The Netherlands – Newark, New Jersey: 3639.962 Miles

Newark, New Jersey – Rotterdam, The Netherlands: 3629.962 Miles

Rotterdam, The Netherlands – London, UK: 198.990 Miles

= 7478.914

I wanted to be more specific so I used Google Maps to determine the exact miles between where I actually lived and the approximate location:

Nieuwerkerk a/d IJssel – Rotterdam: 11.3 Miles

Newark – Upper Saddle River: 28.3 Miles

London – Gerrards Cross: 22.0 Miles

So all together the distance would be:

First Move: 11.3+3639.962+28.3 = 3679.562

Second Move: 28.3+3639.962+11.3 = 3679.562

Third Move: 11.3+198.990+22.0 = 232.29

Altogether:

7591 Miles

Printing and Mounting

Hi Elaine

As explained re telephone conversation. The original print supplied was made as a result of scanning the negative and outputting the image via a digital machine onto photographic paper.
As we were instructed to produce a hand print we were unable to match the supplied print as the colours and contrast on this type of digital print are greatly enhanced by the machine used.

I will return a test strip with your negative and sample print to show you the problems we encountered.

Bryan O'Leary

Unfortunately I couldn't get my image handprinted at the Artful Dodgers as somehow the negative was scanned wrong and the colours were changed. These are two photos to show the difference between the negative and the scan. I am not sure how this massive difference happened, as I scanned them in properly (choosing the right film, not editing etc). The difference between the images is that the scan has come out very red – something I love about the photo – whereas the hand print has more realistic colours to it – a browny grey.

After having seen the hand print, I have decided to stick with how I scanned in the photo. Although the colours in the hand print are more realistic to what I took a photo of, the redness of the photo is partially why I love it. I think it also better to stick with the scan as it fits in the with the sequence of the three photos and finally I feel it better portrays my concept. It’s about confusion and beauty. The colours from the hand print make it very obvious as to what you’re looking at. The redness makes it more abstract and confusing, but also more beautiful and special.

This is why I have decided to stick with the scanned image rather than the hand print. I do not want to sacrifice the outcome of my photo if the only reason is for it to be hand printed. 

I went to The Vault in Brighton today to get my scanned images printed. As explained earlier, I wanted to stick to my scanned image rather than getting it hand printed. I decided to get it printed A2, mainly as that’s all I can afford at the moment. It will come to £32, although the mounting will be another £45. I’m very excited to see the outcome of it. I was shown a different photo mounted on Diabond and it looks fantastic and incredibly professional.

I am only getting the red motion blur image printed A2 and mounted, and the other two photos in the series will be A3. Luckily I only need to have one image professionally presented and mounted, and the other two can be a smaller size (although still professionally done but not mounted). 

52 Week Photo Challenge

When I found out the theme for this week I was incredibly excited - it's Painted. My project for this semester is all about photograph looking like paintings, so I decided to do another motion blur photoshoot to get that effect. The photo to the right is my favourite from the shoot. It's quite different from the photographs I've taken for my project as the main focus were the straight lines, whereas this photo has "loops". I felt this looked more like brush strokes and thus made it look more painterly.

For this shoot I didn't use a tripod. I remember from my first few motion blur shoots I didn't use a tripod and the images weren't as geometrically created. The image to the right looks a bit more "free" meaning the lines aren't completely vertical. 

I love the abstraction of the photograph, without knowing what it is, it would literally be unidentifiable. My large format images do show a bit of forest detail, however in this photo everything is incredibly blurred. The photo is taken in a portrait style to steer away from the traditional landscape photography. Because it's still winter and it was a cloudy day, the colours don't indicate it's a woodland either. 

Motion Blur Time Lapse Analysis

The reason I decided to put these scenes together is because of the matching colours throughout the whole video. The video starts off with quite a light scene, with a pastel blue, light brown, a bit of green, and a pastel yellow. There is a dark line straight through the middle of the photos. To me, this scene almost looks like fire. It is one of the most abstract scenes in the video. The reason I decided to start off with this scene is firstly because it’s from my first motion blur time lapse, so it’s keeping it in order, but also because it’s completely unrecognisable. I want people to guess what they’re looking at rather than knowing it straight away.

The second scene is quite a bit darker, but still very obscure. The colours match with the darker colours from the initial scene. The lines are completely straight, which relates back to the tree trunk in the middle of the photo of the first scene. At some points you can see a bit more detail towards the tops of the trees, but it’s so quick that doesn’t defeat the abstraction.

The third scene is probably the most obvious scene. I’m standing a bit further away from the trees, so the landscape is more apparent. The tree on the left of the scene closest to the camera has the most detail. The reason I added this scene is so it starts to indicate what you’re looking at. Each photo is taken in such a similar way, that it almost looks as though I’m taking a photo of a blurred scene, instead of blurring the scene myself. What interests me about this scene is the fact that you can see the tops of the trees moving in the wind – something that you would normally take a time lapse of.

The colours in the fourth scene are similar to the ones in the first scene. It’s got a very pastely green in it, and a bit of light blue towards the top. In this scene there wasn’t any natural movement so I stood close by a road. It was getting a bit darker at the time so cars started to use their lights. This created interesting shapes within the time lapse and would make the viewer think about what they’re looking at. Again, in every scene so far, the trees have been completely vertical.

The fifth scene is a very interesting scene. This was taken on a different day than all the previous scenes so far. It was a very sunny day with cloudy intervals. This meant I could emphasize the natural changes in the landscape within my time lapse. This scene shows the sun moving through the clouds creating shadows, but also intricate shapes on the trees. The colours are a lot more bold when it’s sunny, but in the shade they are similar to the colours in the third scene. The blue at the top of the photos relate back to the first and fourth scene. This scene is a sort of transition between the start of the time lapse and the end of the time lapse. The first half is all taken on cloudy days, whereas the second half is taken on sunny days. Because this scene includes sun and shade, it was the perfect way to transition.

The sixth scene reminds me a lot of the first scene. The colours are very similar and composition of it is quite similar. The green bushes towards the bottom of the shot keep getting hit with sunlight and then darkening again when the sun disappears. It’s not as obvious as the previous shot, but creates subtle changes.

The final scene is looking up. One of my original digital photos was looking at the tops of the trees and it was one of my most popular photos, therefore I decided to create a time lapse of that image. The colours are similar to the previous scene, the first scene and the fourth scene. It’s very light, but still has some darkness to it. I like the fact that in some of the photos the tops of the trees are very obvious, whereas other photos are completely blurred. This creates confusion.

I decided to add Hans Zimmer’s “Time” song to it as it relates to my concept. The photos are about movement and the juxtaposition between beauty and confusion. But the music adds the sense of time to it. The images reflect on a journey, it’s me looking back at my experience of having lived in all these countries. 

Motion Blur Time Lapse

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1yL3208sko

Motion Blur Time Lapse

As picky as I am, I decided to go back and work on my time lapse again. I thought I was finished with it, but there was something bothering me. The final time lapse sequence of the sky wasn't exactly what I wanted to do, and as I was flipping through my workbook, I noticed I'd taken another motion blur time lapse of the sky which was MUCH better, but I didn't have enough images. Now that I know a bit more about motion blur time lapses and how to edit them, I thought I would give it a go. It's currently in the process of being created, so I don't have a link yet, but when I do let you know! The right image is how the time lapse originally was, and the left photo is what I've changed it to. It's not as abstract, but it looks a lot better, and the faint colour matches the rest of the scenes.

February 2013

Last month I created a video of all the things my boyfriend and I have been up to in January. This started out because of the idea we're moving to Australia in September and want to do as many things as we can while we're in England. Although we haven't done as much as last month, I created another short video about February!
http://youtu.be/q6BtKr06yTs
I really like creating these videos as it's a great way to remember this year. It'll be a pretty crazy one: England, The Netherlands, France, Belgium, Germany, Dubai, Singapore, Australia..... By the end of this year we'll have an amazing video filled with memories.

Artful Dodgers

Today I went up to London to go to the Artful Dodgers. It was at Chancery Lane and definitely not what I was expecting... I had to get buzzed into the building and walk down to the basement, getting a bit lost in the basement! Anyway, you enter Artful Dodgers and it's just one room filled with prints everywhere! It was great to see the other people's work and the scale of everything! I will be getting the photo to the left printed A2 sized (20x24 inches) on matt paper. They will post it to me in a huge tube on Monday the 11th and include all the test prints. I've very excited to see how it's going to turn out!!

The reason I went to Artful Dodgers is because they specialise in hand printed images from the dark room. According to my lecturers they will look a lot better and will have a lot more depth and detail to them. Having them hand printed will also mean that I'm not making use of any digital technology, they are taken in an analogue style and will also be printed that way.

When I get my photo back from the Artful Dodgers, I will go back to The Vault in Brighton to get it mounted on Diabond (similar to aluminium). When I got my negatives developed there, I had a chat with one of the guys there about mounting options and he showed me what diabond is and how it would look. I thought it looked fantastic, so I'll be getting that done for my final. Hopefully I can get it all done in time for the "Crit" - our little Eldon exhibition for everyone on the course - but with my shifts at Subway, New Creatives commitments, my dissertation hand in and all my lectures, that might be a bit unrealistic. Luckily our final deadline is after the Easter holiday.

On Wednesday 6th I'll be helping up at Aspex gallery to set up the show and hang up the work. I'll be creating a time lapse video of this which I will exhibit in Aspex gallery.

Concept

After doing a whole load of research on abstraction and why people use abstract art, I noticed that everyone used the idea of abstraction to express themselves, or show emotions. Vladinsky thought that colours evoked specific emotions, Pollock’s work looked at wild physical action and have come to represent the revolutionary mood of the time, Willem de Kooning’s work centered around aggressive applications of paint that created emotionally intense imagery, Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman used the expressive potential of colour within their work, Jitka Hanslova used the forest where she grew up as the foundation to her work and finally Charles March took photographs of the trees around him, as they have always played an important part in his life. He used abstraction to add a sense of emotion to the work.

After all this, I started to think about what the photos evoke in me. They are about movement and the juxtaposition between beauty and confusion. What immediately occurred to me is my moving experience. I have lived in three different countries, and although this has been a fantastic experience, it’s also been incredibly hard. These images accurately portray my feelings towards my past.

0-7 – The Netherlands

7-9 – New house in The Netherlands

9-12 – America

12-14 – The Netherlands

14-18 – Buckinghamshire, UK

18-20 – Both Surrey (parents) and Hampshire (Uni)

Obviously this shows movement. Although it has been tough, I absolutely love the fact that I’ve lived in all these places. 

 

52 Week Photo Challenge

This week's theme was "technology". The themes keep getting harder! For the longest time I had no idea what to do. I know technology is all around us, but I didn't want to take a picture of something obvious. People started uploading their interpretations of the theme on the 18th of February so I was able to get some inspiration from their photos. My initial idea was to take a photo outside, rather than staying inside and making it easy for myself, but that didn't quite work out. I didn't feel very enthusiastic about anything I saw outside, and started to think more in depth, as well as looking into what kind of photography I like. Obviously I like landscape photography, but I'm also really interested in abstract. Thus I decided to create something abstract. That way, it wouldn't be anything obvious nor anything that someone had already done.
This is what I came up with. It's a close up of a Bose speaker. Because taking the photo, I started to think about what kinds of things make an abstract photo interesting, and in my opinion it should have some kind of pattern to it. When looking through my abstract imagery, I usually tend to take photos of a repeated pattern (eg. windows on a building, solar panels etc). The amount of repetition in this weeks photo is almost endless which makes the viewers' eyes jump around the whole photo, trying to establish what it is.

Motion Blur Timelapse 2

I wasn't too happy with my first time lapse and I wasn't really sure whether I wanted to do another one. However, Daniel seemed quite impressed with it, and since I do love making time lapses, I thought I'd give it another go. I knew what I did wrong in the first one, so I know what I had to change. I went out again today, but it was a completely different day. It was dark and cloudy and completely motionless. I thought this would be the perfect day for the time lapse, as the darkness would allow me to take longer exposures. But.. it turned out it was just as boring on the time lapse as it was in real life. I did manage to make it a bit more interested by getting the lights from cars in the time lapse. It created some interesting shapes.

After viewing it on the laptop I was thoroughly impressed with myself. Instead of a time lapse that literally looks like I'm shaking my camera about, it's more like I'm taking a video of something that actually looks like that. Each of the photos look almost identical, so the movement in the photos is just the tops of the trees moving (other than a little bit of up and down movement). 

Something that stood out to me during the shoot was the fact that one still image looked completely abstract and unidentifiable, but when the series of photos played as a movie, it was quite obvious what you were looking at. The photo to the right is an example of it. The photo is taken of a really dirty pond. The bottom of the photo is the reflection of the tops of the trees, the green colour is the dirtiness of the pond, the browny-red colour is the muddy ground and the dark lines are the tree trunks. It's not the most obscure photo, but if you didn't have any of the information it could be pretty confusing. Anyway I created a time lapse, and when I played all the photos it just completely contextualised the photo. Some photos aren't as blurred as this one, so when I played the movie it almost seemed like it was picking out all the recognisable bits. The ground is probably the most recognisable in this shot, so if the next shot had the trees in focus, followed by the water in focus, you see the whole shot!

This is the link to the edited version of the video. I used one scene from my previous time lapse as I loved it! But the rest is all taken today. The shot above isn't part of the time lapse:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYlzi83aWYw

52 Week Challenge

The theme of week 5 is Illuminated. This has probably been the theme I've struggled with the most... and it's only week 5! I have never really taken any photos focussing on lights so I had no idea where to begin. After google-ing for a bit, I came across a series of photos of blurry images taken at night. The blur was so extreme that the lights created this large circles in different colours. I loved these photos and thus decided to try it myself.

The photo to the right is taken from my bedroom window. We live on the fourth floor of a building so we're nice and high. The window is tilted at an angle so you can only see the sky when you're looking out. I never really bothered to get a chair and have a look at the view, but this theme was the perfect opportunity! There is one quite high apartment building and a few houses surrounding that. I blurred the camera so much that each of the circles ended up being quite big. I tried to get as many different lights and colours into the frame without being able to identify what you're looking at. I really like how the photos has turned out, and it really fits in with my other abstract work. I titled the photo "Portsmouth at Night".

After posting the photo on the flickr page, someone commented "awesome bokeh". Not knowing what that meant I googled it. It turns out, this style of images is called Bokeh!