SUMMER 2022: OPENINGS
This summer you should research an artist of your choice and evaluate a single image in detail. You have practised this recently in the assessment. Choose an artist and image(s) that interest you. It is important to be genuinely curious.
RESEARCH
Research is important. You need to discover some reliable information about your chosen artist/photographer. You must not copy and paste the information. This is called plagiarism. When you copy somebody's work you cannot claim it as your own. Secondly, you must choose what is relevant to your project. How would you describe the artist/photographer's practice? What equipment do they use? What is the concept or idea behind their work? What experiences of theirs are relevant to the work? It is good practice to read a few different articles. Make some notes or bullet points and then write about them in your own words.
Research Example
I chose to look at the work of Rinko Kawauchi, a Japanese photographer. I love her photographs which seem like colourful snippets of everyday life. Her pictures are quite poetic, delicate and soft. It's as if she has a softening filter over the lens when she takes the photographs. I found out that she usually uses natural or available light in her images. Her photographs all seem to be of the tiny things that we may overlook. It is as if she is a daydreamer, focusing on colour, light and texture. She makes a variety of objects look beautiful through the intensity of her vision. An opening could be interpreted in a number of different ways. I plan to look at a selection of her images and group together a few of them that reflect what I think of as openings. It has been difficult to choose. I started to looking at obvious openings such as circular objects but I settled on a series of images of windows. It has inspired me to look at the most obvious opening but to approach it in an unusual way.
Image Analysis Example
There were a few images of windows that I could have chosen but this one was the one that I liked looking at the most. As in most of Kawauchi's images the composition is relatively simple. We are drawn to an open window and the curtains that frame the view. A desk and chair occupy the foreground. It is the rest of the image around the window that I find interesting. The natural light has formed shadows on the wall that are a perfect reflection of the curtains. I can tell that it is natural light as it is soft and is dispersed all over the wall.
I love the way that the light has also formed shapes over the wall as there is a zig zag pattern above the shadows. The flowers outside of the window look like cherry blossom, flowers most commonly found in Japan in the Spring. The flowers and the sky bring subtle colour into an image that would otherwise be brown, white and beige. I find beauty in the simplicity of this image. I often see light reflected through windows at home, at school and in shops. I think that this simple concept is one that I am able to explore in a number of ways. I can also use my phone to do this. I know through my research that Kawauchi used a large format film camera to do this but I'd like to experiment using only my phone and the natural light. I may experiment with basic editing tools in order to change the quality of the light. |
EXPERIMENTATION
Take a series of 20 photographs as a response to your chosen artist. Don't need to simply copy their work. Think about an element of the work that interests you. Think about how your artist has explored the idea of openings. Will you photograph in colour or black and white. Think carefully about how you will compose your images. Will you edit your image after you have shot it?
REVIEW AND REFINE
Choose a selection of your images to refine. This means that you will need to look at the images, write a few comments about what improvements you need to make and then make those improvements. Take another set of images and make the improvements that you have written about.
PRESENTATION
Present these images as a set and evaluate them. Your final set of images should be ones that you would like to present in a gallery or exhibition.