Component 2: The Externally Set Task
My starting point: 'Edges'I have selected the theme of 'Edges' as may starting point for the Externally Set Task. I have seen some of Laura Letinsky's photographs at The Photographers' Gallery and really enjoyed the way she composes her still-life images. I really like Jan Groover's studies of kitchen utensils and food items focusing on the way shapes interact with each other. I don't know the work of Joe Devine so I will enjoy finding out about his practice.I have been a fan of Laszlo Moholy-Nagy for quite a while. He is a very inventive photographer who pays close attention to forms and patterns and the play of light on various surfaces. I am keen on abstraction in photography and the recent work I have done for Unit 1 should help me continue to develop my skills and ideas for the 'Edges' theme.
I have discussed some ideas with my teacher and feel confident about starting to research in detail. INITIAL PLAN:
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Planning
Click the image below to view:
Images (Set #1)
Evaluation:
I began by collecting together a selection of images I have taken recently that seemed to relate to the theme of 'Edges'. These were all taken on my iPhone which I carry around everywhere, enabling me to make these visual notes of interesting things I see. One of the reasons I was drawn to this particular theme is perhaps because I am already interested in cropping the subjects in my photographs and noticing shapes and patterns, especially the space where one object or surface meets another.
Having taken a good look at these images, I have spotted a few sub themes that I intend to pursue in subsequent sets of new images:
Having taken a good look at these images, I have spotted a few sub themes that I intend to pursue in subsequent sets of new images:
- Looking up, looking down
- Shadows
- Lines and angles
- Looking through fences
- Building surfaces
- Objects in the home
- Silhouettes of natural forms
- The edge of the street
Image Analysis: Laszlo Moholy-Nagy
Bauhaus Balconies, 1926
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Moholy-Nagy worked at a famous art school in Germany called The Bauhaus. This is a photograph of the student accommodation. The photographer has decided to stand on the ground close to the building, looking up at the windows and balconies that jut out into space. This unusual angle produces a very dramatic sense of perspective. On the top most balcony we can see the outline of a figure looking down at us. This provides a sense of the scale of the building and makes a connection with us, the viewer. We are placed in the position of the photographer and can imagine what it must have been like to admire this exciting piece of modern architecture. We can also perhaps imagine what it might have been like to look down from the top balcony at the life below.
Moholy-Nagy is obviously interested in the pattern of lines created by the architecture, the window frames and balcony rails. The building has been heavily cropped so that we only really see a small section of it. The photographer isn't really describing the building itself. He is more interested in it as an abstract form, almost like a sculpture. Most of the lines in the image are straight with the exception of the balcony rails and the figure which provide some curves. Moholy-Nagy was interested in sculpture and created several during his time at the Bauhaus. He was a very inventive person, always experimenting with new ways of doing things. This spirit of invention is contained in the photograph. It is an unusual and dramatic view. |
Response: Barbican Skyline
This photograph is my response to the Moholy-Nagy image above. I decided to visit a dramatic part of the city - The Barbican - which has several high rise buildings with balconies. I liked the pattern the buildings made against the sky. Because they are so tall, much taller than the Bauhaus, I preferred the view from further away. I also decided to include a spiky plant in the foreground. I liked the way that it resembled the spiky edges of the buildings but also provided a contrast between the organic and industrial. I cropped the buildings so that it's difficult to get a sense of their scale. The image was taken with an iPhone using the Hueless black and white camera app. I deliberately chose a contrasty look for the image so that the solid objects are almost silhouettes and the pattern of the clouds is much clearer.
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Here are the other images in this sequence:
Response: Southbank
I decided to stand much closer to these two structures, similar to Moholy-Nagy's position in relation to the Bauhaus balconies. In both pictures it's quite difficult to tell what is solid and what isn't. In the first image, I have cropped the building so that most of what can be seen is glass reflecting the sky. The building is almost transparent. In the second image we are looking almost directly up at a bridge silhouetted against the sky. There is very little solid material so the straight lines stretching up to a point create triangular sections of sky. The high contrast of bright highlights and deep shadows makes both images very dramatic.
Response: Tate Britain
Research: Harry Callahan at Tate Modern
I enjoyed visiting the new Harry Callahan exhibition at Tate Modern. There are four rooms of photographs, some in black and white, some in colour, featuring subjects ranging from cityscapes to nudes to landscapes and portraits. The pictures that interested me most were the views of urban life - city streets, shop fronts and buildings. I liked the way that the photographer chose unusual viewpoints - looking up at a sharp angle, for example - and sometimes double exposed images. Some pictures are very carefully composed whereas others seem to be the result of darkroom experiments. The colour photographs are really vivid, with greens and reds dominating. I was inspired by the exhibition to take a series of city pictures looking for different kinds of edges.
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Response: City Squares
I explored themes during this photo shoot: reflections, silhouettes and looking up and down. I used the Hipstamatic app on my iPhone, choosing a slightly desaturated filter. I like the dramatic contrasts between the edges of buildings shot against the sky. It was a bright, sunny day and the light was crisp and clear. It had been raining, so I was able to get a few shots of buildings reflected in puddles. I also found reflections in a barber shop mirror, car windshield and curved glass window outside St. Martin's Church. I tilted the phone at various angles in order to emphasise strong diagonal lines, usually created by the edges of buildings. I will continue to look for these kinds of images in the urban landscape.
Response: Walls Diptych
These images were taken about 3 weeks apart. They both depict sections of walls seen close-up. I like the way the strong shadows abstract the surface of the wall. There are other interruptions too - a strip of torn-off poster and a scaffold pole. The colours are complimentary: orange against blue; green and red. This makes them seem more vibrant. In both images there are strong verticals and horizontals contrasting with the more organic shapes of the shadows. I like the diptych format for displaying images since it encourages the viewer to make direct comparisons.
Response: The Built Environment
I took these images on a trip to Tate Modern. I was interested in the shapes made by various buildings, particularly overlapping rectangular shapes and straight edges. I spotted some tangled hazard tape and photographed that in front of the buildings behind. I liked the contrast between the very organised forms of the buildings and the more chaotic shapes created by wear and tear.
Response: Borders
These pictures were all made within 5 minutes of my house. It was a sunny day and I noticed the shadows cast by different objects both man-made and natural. I framed the images in order to draw attention to the edges of the shapes and their shadows. I was also interested in the space between objects in the foreground and background.
Response: Wing Mirrors
As a passenger in a car I noticed the strange contrast between the image in the wing mirror and the view beyond, often at least 90 degrees different. I got as close as I could to the car window and angled my iPhone in order to get a section of the image in the wing mirror and the view beyond. I like the fact that there are two frames and a picture within a picture in these images.
Research: Laura Letinsky
I have been looking at the photographic still life images of Laura Letinsky. She photographs objects - food, cutlery, plates - usually on white surfaces, focusing on the edges between the objects and the edge of the surface on which they are displayed. She has recently made a series of collages of similar objects, playing with the placement of the images again on a white surface.
"I photograph the remains of meals and its refuse so as to investigate the relationships between ripeness and decay, delicacy and awkwardness, control and haphazardness, waste and plenitude, pleasure and sustenance." I have decided to make my own still life images influenced by Letinsky's work. |
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The following image is from an exhibition booklet featuring the work of Laura Letinsky produced by The Photographers' Gallery.
Response: Food Circles
Rather than Letinsky's straight edges I was interested in the round frame of the dish or bowl as a method for containing food items. These are my first attempts combining fresh fruit and the remnants of meals - apple cores and a chicken carcass. I may continue to capture this kind of image, attempting to keep the size of the circular container consistent.
Research: Jed Devine
Jed Devine's black and white photographs seem to be concerned with the shapes of things. He organises the compositions very carefully, stripping them back to the bare essentials to reveal the essence of the object . Objects are revealed through the subtle play of light across their surfaces and in the contrast between straight and curved. Textures are also important - the meeting of smooth and rough; the solid and the pierced.
His more recent work is more highly patterned and colour is used to create drama. He enjoys photographing objects against other photographs or illustrations, often drawn from the world of art. Some of these recent photographs seem almost overfull of information and yet the careful arrangement of forms makes them pleasing to the eye. |
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Response: Objects
These images were an attempt to capture objects and edges in a simple and straightforward way influenced by Jed Devine. I used my iPhone to take the pictures, editing them with the Snapseed app to give them a sightly washed out look. I like the contrast between the curved and straight lines in the images and that they are quite empty of content. I'm going to attempt some photographs of objects with patterned backgrounds like Devine's more recent work to see how they compare.
Response: Cups
Response: Classical Edges
These images were all made at Greenwich University, what used to be The Old Royal Naval Hospital. It's a very famous neo-classical building. The architecture is very grand and massive. The strong sunshine helped to define the edges of each architectural element and the pictures worked better in black and white. They were all shot and edited on my iPhone.
Response: Looking Up
The idea for this series was to capture the edges of buildings as they are displayed against the sky from fairly close quarters. Like Moholy-Nagy and Alexander Rodchenko, I was interested in the dynamic perspectives and angles of structures when looking up. I took the pictures on my phone and edited them using the Snapseed app. I experimented with a variety of filters to create more drama and atmosphere. I like the way that some of the images get close to capturing the excitement I felt when I saw the buildings and clicked the shutter.
Response: Ragged Edges
Response: Fragmented Edges
I decided to experiment with the 'Looking Up' set of pictures. I used two apps on my phone, Fragment and Tangent. I was inspired by the work of artists like Jeremy Olson and Jean Faucheur, both of whom disrupt their images with various collage techniques. I was interested to see if I could emphasis the edges of the buildings I had photographed by fragmenting them. For some images I applied repeated effects from one app, then adding further effects in the other app.
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My favourite Images:
Response: Caught
I'm always interested in objects that get caught in trees or bushes. I saw these two examples recently and thought they might look good displayed next to each other. I'm keeping a look out for more images like this.
Response: Double Exposures
One of my favourite apps is Hipstamatic. It allows you to double expose images using a simple slider (see opposite).
I decided to document a recent trip (most of it by train) using this technique to see if I could multiply the number of edges in my images and create interesting juxtapositions. This experiment worked reasonably well and I especially like the more linear images, including those in which buildings and trees are double exposed. I like the chance element in making images like this although there is plenty of potential for planing more deliberate compositions. |
Response: Sculpture
I saw this sculptural installation by Phyllida Barlow at Tate Britain. I really liked the use of materials and scale of the pieces. I decided to photograph them close up drawing attention to the way the edges of different elements and materials meet.
Response: Street Objects Triptychs
These objects looked like chance still life composition. I took them separately but wondered what they might look like together once I'd downloaded the images to my computer. In the first set I like the contrast between round and straight edges and the interesting textures. There's also a contrast between ideas of fire and water. In the second set I like the network of straight and diagonal lines in each image and the way they are all about the relationship between order and chaos.
I'm interested in the way that photographing is a way of seeing patterns in everyday life.
I'm interested in the way that photographing is a way of seeing patterns in everyday life.
Set #1
Set #2
Collage Experiments
I created these collages using the Moldiv iOS app. I'm not sure if I will pursue this idea since I think the images could get overcomplicated.
Response: Colour Walls
This series of images is about the colours and textures of city walls. I was interested in the edges separating doors and walls, blank and patterned surfaces, light and shade, colour and tone. I tried to keep lines in the image (e.g. architectural features) parallel or perpendicular with the edge of the image to create an invisible grid type composition. I was also interested in the edge of the picture frame when I was composing my shot.
Glitch experiments
I decided to experiment with a glitching app called Decim8 in order to disrupt the code that constitutes all digital images. Decim8 makes this process relatively easy and endlessly customisable but this process can also be achieved by opening an image in a programme like Text Edit, messing about with the code and saving before reopening the (now glitched) image. Here are a few examples of the glitches I created. I'm relatively pleased with the results after plenty of refinements. I like the way the glitching process creates additional edges within the image.
More glitch exeriments
This time the glitches have all been made with the same image to demonstrate the range of effects that can be achieved.
Video experimentI was interested to see how my recent set of images might look in the form of a video slideshow. I discovered an app called Magisto which uses a variety of editing templates to generate a film from files on your phone. The video opposite was created using this process. I chose the theme at random. s you can see it has added a number of framing devices to the stills, creating yet more edges. I'm generally pleased with the result and may continue to experiment with other slideshows.
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Research: Dolores Marat
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Dolores Marat is a French photographer whose book 'Edges' contains a sequence of images depicting ordinary scenes and places but with a dreamlike quality. Deserted places, abandoned objects, people seen from the back in transit, airport corridors or subway escalators are recurring subjects of her work. I like the soft, blurry quality of her images.
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Marat's interpretation of the theme of 'Edges' is quite different to other photographers named in the exam paper. She seems interested in psychological or emotional states as well as physical edge spaces, as if someone is wandering through the city on the edge of consciousness, drifting aimlessly and clicking the shutter, like blinking, to reveal a succession of disconnected images. There are literal edges here too - beds, door frames, tunnels, corridors, escalators and stairwells - in between spaces.
Research: Peter FraserFraser is an English photographer who has been influenced by American colour photography. He sent some time working with William Eggleston in the States and it's possible to see the influence of the American photographer in Fraser's work. He photographs everyday objects, relying on intuition to create images that are poetic and mysterious. He avoids photographing people, preferring to concentrate on the material world and the evidence of human behaviour. I really admire the clarity of his images and the way he sees significance and beauty in the mundane.
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In this short film, Peter Fraser discusses his approach to photography in the context of a retrospective exhibition of his work at Tate St. Ives.
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"It's almost as if there's a smell in the air and I'm being forewarned that a moment is approaching so I need to have the camera ready...in a sense I never set out to do anything other than to make myself available, to allow that moment when there's an upsurge of energy from the unconscious mind into the conscious mind which is the moment when I know I have to make a photograph." |
I'm going to try to capture a similar set of images in my next journey through the city inspired by Marat and Fraser. I intend to shoot these images on colour film, scanning the results for this site.
Response: Analogue Edges
These images were taken on a manual SLR using 100 ASA film. I used a 50mm prime lens with a wide aperture of f1.8. This enabled me to obtain a shallow depth of field, especially when I was close to the objects being photographed. They were machine printed and scanned. I made some minor colour corrections using iPhoto. I was inspired by Dolores Marat's pictures of abandoned objects and seemingly insignificant corners of the city. Unlike Marat's photos mine were taken during the day in bright sunlight. However, I'm pleased with the combination of shots, the variety of viewpoints and the framing of the images. I have not cropped any of the pictures.
Edges - the book
I decided to publish my pictures in a book. I used the Blurb software to design the book before ordering a copy. I took screen shots of the pages and made a digital version of the book in Pages before exporting it as a PDF. I then uploaded it to Calameo so I could present it on this site as an interactive document. I'm really pleased with the result and looking forward to seeing the physical book.
Final Evaluation
I have really enjoyed responding to the theme of 'Edges'. I had seen an exhibition by Laura Letinsky at The Photographers' Gallery and I had seen some of Jan Groover's work online. I have always been a fan of Laszlo Moholy-Nagy's images and Jed Devine was an artist whose work I had not seen before. I feel as though I have been on an interesting journey and I'm pleased with my final products.
I have researched the named artists (with the exception of Jan Groover), each of whom has given me ideas for photo shoots. The camera I use most and the one that is always with me is my iPhone. I really like the way I can respond quickly to something I have seen, editing and uploading the image directly from the device. For most the project this has been the camera I have used along with a range of apps. This has allowed me to work flexibly and instinctively. However, when it came to my response to Dolores Marat and Peter Fraser I felt I needed to use a different kind of camera. I chose a conventional SLR and film because I wanted to be able to have more control of the light and depth of field and I was interested to see if the images on film had a different kind of atmosphere. I really enjoyed using the film camera after having relied so heavily on my iPhone.
I have tried lots of ways of editing and manipulating my photographs. I have used software applications on the computer such as Photoshop and iPhoto, mainly to carry out colour corrections and sharpening. I have also used a variety of apps on my iPhone, some of which have had a radical effect on the images (e.g. Fragment). I have attempted double exposures and made a short video slideshow of my pictures. I have also used book making and online presentation software to create a virtual and physical book of my analogue pictures. I feel as if I have been quite experimental in my approach and been able to refine and develop my work as it has progressed.
I have tried to keep my Tumblr blog up to date with posts relevant to my research. My Weebly website has been the main place where I have documented my learning. I have used a combination of text posts, sideshows, galleries and interactive elements (for example, hyperlinks, videos and eBooks) to share what I have learned. I have tried to share my research and experiments in a logical and coherent way so that the viewer can understand the creative process I've been through in order to arrive at my final outcomes.
I have researched the named artists (with the exception of Jan Groover), each of whom has given me ideas for photo shoots. The camera I use most and the one that is always with me is my iPhone. I really like the way I can respond quickly to something I have seen, editing and uploading the image directly from the device. For most the project this has been the camera I have used along with a range of apps. This has allowed me to work flexibly and instinctively. However, when it came to my response to Dolores Marat and Peter Fraser I felt I needed to use a different kind of camera. I chose a conventional SLR and film because I wanted to be able to have more control of the light and depth of field and I was interested to see if the images on film had a different kind of atmosphere. I really enjoyed using the film camera after having relied so heavily on my iPhone.
I have tried lots of ways of editing and manipulating my photographs. I have used software applications on the computer such as Photoshop and iPhoto, mainly to carry out colour corrections and sharpening. I have also used a variety of apps on my iPhone, some of which have had a radical effect on the images (e.g. Fragment). I have attempted double exposures and made a short video slideshow of my pictures. I have also used book making and online presentation software to create a virtual and physical book of my analogue pictures. I feel as if I have been quite experimental in my approach and been able to refine and develop my work as it has progressed.
I have tried to keep my Tumblr blog up to date with posts relevant to my research. My Weebly website has been the main place where I have documented my learning. I have used a combination of text posts, sideshows, galleries and interactive elements (for example, hyperlinks, videos and eBooks) to share what I have learned. I have tried to share my research and experiments in a logical and coherent way so that the viewer can understand the creative process I've been through in order to arrive at my final outcomes.
Final Outcome #1 |
This series of images explores architectural forms, the edges of buildings and their shapes against the sky. I noticed that many of Laszlo Moholy-Nagy's photographs of buildings involved him looking up at them from close range. This produced dramatic perspectives and unusual, abstract forms. From a series of photographs of buildings in central London I chose those that interested me most, editing them on my iPhone using several applications. I played with colour, contrast and tones before dramatically fracturing the images to create distorted and abstracted versions of the buildings. I have printed the images to A3 and mounted them on board. |
Final Outcome #2 |
These images were inspired partly by the still life pictures of Laura Letinsky, Jed Devine and Jan Groover but rather than shoot them in a studio, I was interested in objects and patterns that could be found on the street. This approach was inspired by Dolores Marat and Peter Fraser. I also decided to shoot the images using an analogue SLR, scanning the resulting pictures and creating a book. This allowed me to edit and sequence the images so that they complimented each other. I experimented with re-sizing images and thinking about their position on the page. I created an eBook version or my website and a printed book using Blurb. |
I am pleased with both final outcomes and the progress I have made in Unit 2. I look forward to an opportunity to exhibit my work at the end of the year alongside that of my classmates.