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In my second task, I chose to first respond to the work of Francis Bruguière. He was an American photographer who also painted and played music. Bruguière first began to experiment with non representational photography in 1928, when he moved to London, and started his series of light experiments. In 1930, he and Oswell Blakeston produced England's first abstract film, called Light Rhythms, based on a series of Bruguière's light abstractions. These light abstractions that can be seen on the right were created by partially cut paper twisted, and lit by a lamp that Bruguière placed in different positions.
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I really liked this task as I hadn't really considered the obvious similarities between human features and nature until searching for them and photographing various examples. We went around Coldfall woods and looked for anything that could resemble a human feature, such as branches, tree stumps, leaves and markings in the tree trunks. Then, back in the classroom and at home I photographed the human features that matched the other images I had taken. I positioned my model in a similar way to comparison image and edited both into black and white, like Brodowicz. This was effective, as brings out the natural contrast in each image also also makes them more easy to compare. I then pasted both images side by side on a blank canvas on Photoshop to create one whole final image. I think my images were overall successful and each one has a clear comparison image - which may not have been noticed unless presented next to one another.
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Bill Jacobson -
Jacobson is a photographer from Norwich, Conneticuit. He is well known for his out of focus images of landscapes and also the figure. Jacobson began creating these type of images in 1989. These early works were called Interim Portraits, and featured pale, shadowy figures that evoked the loss felt by many during the worst of the AIDS epidemic. |
Erwin Blumenfeld -
Erwin Blumenfeld was born in Berlin in 1897, and is regarded as one of the most influential photographers of the twentieth century. He was an experimenter and an innovator, and produced an extensive amount of work throughout his thirty five year career. This work included black and white portraits, nudes, celebrity portraiture, advertising campaigns and fashion photography. Blumenfeld drew early inspiration from the Dadaists, incorporating techniques like solarisation, multiple exposures, and photomontage into his darkroom practice. |
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Johnny Kerr -
Johnny Kerr is a fine art photographer based in the West Valley of Arizona's Phoenix Metropolitan Area. His work 'Ambiguity' features strong pastel colours, accompanied by sharp lines and shapes. To create these images Kerr observed the building from the morning to afternoon, watching how the sun created new shadows and lines. 'I found architecture to be an inspiring subject matter for its graphic qualities, but my photographs are not really about the buildings. Each photograph is a study of the rudimentary elements that catch my attention: shape, space, volume, line, rhythm, etc.' |
Matthieu Venot -
Venot is a contemporary artist based in France. He focuses his lens on architectural details, and creates abstract geometric images. The bright blue sky is key in Venot's work, and he uses it like the background in a studio. The use of this plain, bright background doesn't disturb the composition of his images, and the shapes are encouraged to stand out against it. Colours also appear brighter and more enhanced. Colour is of the upmost importance in Venot's images, and they trick us into thinking the setting is somewhere much more exotic than Breton. |
I visited the Sony Photography Awards over the bank holiday weekend, and looked at the Architecture and Design series in particular, as it had the most relevance to this part of my project which is focusing on buildings and structures. It was interesting to see both the finished structures and the blueprints for them, as we don't always consider the making of and inside of famous buildings. I was also inspired by the way the architecture was photographed, with plain backgrounds allowing the structure to stand out and be clearly seen. The camera positioning is also very important, lining up the shot and sometimes allowing something else to be seen in the background through a gap or open space.
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Chemigrams are a process that was discovered by Pierre Cordier in 1956. He found that a resist was able to hold back the chemical effects of the developer and fixer and photographic paper, for a time. The paper that had been exposed to light and then put into developer would turn black apart from where the resist was placed on the paper. Whereas, paper put into a fixer would turn white apart from where the resist is However, when the resist is washed off, the areas of the paper that were covered will start to change colour due to the light exposure. There is the possibility of these areas going black, white or pink/purple.
In my chemigrams, I used various types of resists, such as honey, vaseline, oil, and hand cream - as well as salt and honey which stuck in the sticky substances to add texture. I also used the fix and developer chemicals in spray bottles to spray in certain areas and keep what I wanted to change colour in more concentrated areas. Masking tape also created an interesting effect, as I could use it to create white lines across my paper. I also liked how I could create pink areas when the resist was washed off, before putting the paper back into the developer. I also experimented with putting my paper into the developer or fixer first, to create black or white areas. I also went back between the two to create different effects and develop certain areas more than others. |
For this strand, I was first inspired by Venot and Kerr's work on abstract architecture, and wanted to expand on photographing interesting buildings in my environment. I travelled into the city and visited areas including London Bridge, Southwark Monument and King's Cross. I focused on photographing tall buildings where I could include the blue sky - which I found was very effective once I had edited my images. Michael Shainblum was my inspiration for the edits, as I wanted to achieve the kaleidoscope affect he created in his video 'Mirror City'. To do this, I started off with my original image in Photoshop, and then created a copy; first flipping it downwards and then repeating the process with two other copies, mirroring them until I had four images in a square to create one final image. For some of the skyline images or ones where I had more than one building in the image, I used eight mirrored images in total, to extend the final image horizontally. Overall, I think my edits were successful, and I was able to make them appear seamless.
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In my second strand, I visited King's Cross and attempted to photograph wherever I found frames within frames. I walked around the area, and photographed through windows, in shops and in the Central Saint Martins college. I was able to successfully find frames in almost everywhere I looked, similar to Leiter's work. After looking over my work, I found that window frames and parts of buildings were the best for creating clear frames. I also liked the addition of people in my images, however they don't seem as mysterious and partly concealed as those in Leiter's images, as their faces can be seen in some pictures. I did like how my images also incorporated bright colors, which was an aspect I liked about Leiter's work. I think this makes my photographs come to life more, as the color works well with the people within them and helps to show the viewer the environment as a whole.
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I decided to develop my strand of mirroring and flipping architectural images to create my final pieces - and aimed to make the final edits bigger and more detailed than before. I took the images on the right whilst on holiday in Valencia, Spain as this was a great opportunity to photograph for my development, as there are so many amazing buildings and structures in their city. The weather also made my images more successful and clear, as the sunlight and blue sky made the city looked the best it could. I also tried to photograph a range of structures, from those with a rounder shape, to bridges and some with straighter lines/form. I then edited these images as I had done previously, by copying the image four times and pasting them onto a plain white background on Photoshop. I then arranged them into a grid, ensuring each image was the same size, and kept the top left image still - while mirroring each of the other images off it. I moved the pictures to ensure there was no gaps between them, and so the grid appears seamless.
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