Final display

Recently I have mostly been focusing on my actual practice but I have found that the final presentation of the work is just as crucial as the completion of my pieces. This is because the display of the work can help communicate with the audience and portray the themes I want to show.

I have decided that my most successful pieces - the ones that depict the themes of my project the most successfully - are my smaller edits, the ones on photographic paper. I intend to display these so that they are the focal point of my display while the larger pieces work as a back-drop.
After the mini-exhibition I did with my tutor group  discovered that the themes of transition of my project would depend a lot on the arrangement of the piece - if displayed without care then the subtle themes of some of the pieces could be lost or devalued.
I want to display the pieces at eye-level and fairly dispersed around so that the vibrant colours, thread and wire does not distract from the other pieces. The subtle pieces will need to be highlighted when being presented or the little details will be missed by the audience.

I shall arrange the pieces in relation to the colours and the size (size depending on which pieces work successfully together - experimentation is needed!!) I have two wall space (corner area) so I will have to create an equal balance between the size and colour. Some of the pieces will not be displayed but will be set up inside one of my folders as development pieces.

Overall, I am pleased with my progress through the project - personally it has been more successful than the last. Only downside is that the project is shorter than the last and I feel I could continue - I plan to continue over the summer! I also feel my project could have been divided into two smaller ones but I have done my best to bring together the themes and the imagery in the best way I can - drawing influence from the many artists and books I have found as well as from the natural environment around me.

Artist research: Sebastien Preschoux

I have been working a lot with different materials when creating my manual edit photography - looking at different ways to produce works that are interesting visually as well as portraying my project themes of transition, organic transformation and life cycles etc.

This artist Sebastien Preschoux got my attention because of his unusual techniques using thread - creating sculptural forms from the lines of the materials.

I am interested in using this technique on my photographs to produce unusual shapes/lines and forms across the surfaces of my images - also to enhance certain features of the pieces such as the markings or patterns of the organisms and the organic settings.

http://www.designboom.com/art/intricate-string-installations-and-geometric-drawings-by-sebastien-preschoux/

Plan for project

As I have been getting stressed over the sheer amount of pieces I have been working on I have decided to make a brief plan - to help me figure out how to link together my photography series and also produce the most effective collection of work for display.

So far:
I have realised that in many ways my smaller prints are more interesting than my larger prins - mainly because of the finer details I can put into the small prints, how the manual editing appears subtle so you have to get up-close to see details and also how the smaller prints can be used to create a series of work to show not only transition but also create contrasts with the pieces.
I have worked on the larger prints last week and today - looking at layering images, adding additional materials and collage.
But I want to work more of the smaller prints - combining my different photography series.

I plan to print some of my new 'Organism' pieces out as photographs and some of my 'Organic' pieces and merging them together using collage and additional materials such as thread,texture(sugar/sand), paint, wire etc. I find it less intimadating to work on smaller prints when doing the manual edits because when the images are smaller the materials and little details seem to work more effectively. I am going to work on smaller prints over the next few days to produce a series of pieces - but I want to work on a slightly larger scale than the previous ones I have done so that I can add more materials to the works.
I have decided that I like working on the photographic paper the most with these manual edits. (this is kind of like a resolution!) It is the most effective and the most interesting. I will print off some more images tomorrow from Max Spielmann (my local photograph printing centre!) depicting my favourite 'Organism' prints. I intend to spend the day manually combining these prints with my 'Organic' prints - I want to create a combination in the most interesting ways and also develop a series of pieces.
These are the images I will be printing (possibly more if I decide on the day):

I chose these images because I believe they will be the most interesting when combined with other materials due to their colours, form and arrangement/angle. I plan to combine these with 'Organic' as well - looking at the similarities and connections both creatures and plantation has in life cycle - refering back to the project concepts.

I have a few prints I want to do on photographic paper, these are:

 

 

As well as these I have some other prints that I can work with when combining the images; these are:

I am looking forward to creating interesting collages with these pieces - working towards a conclusive collection of work.

Larger photography edits

I have been working on larger photography edits - working with collage, different materials and creating illusions.
The images below show my development; photographs showing my experimentation with different materials - reflective surfaces/layering images etc.

Process: I started off with two large A0+ tracing paper and getting some of 'Organic' photographs printed onto them at Gosta Green (digitally edited images of flowers and trees).
ORIGINAL IMAGES:

My thoughts were that I wanted to display an 'iconic' or easily recognised image that would represent transition so naturally I thought of an insect - inparticular a butterfly. I had experiemented with using a leaf image with my developmental pieces but I decided it was not a clear/obvious image.
Firtsly, I cut out butterfly images from my large 'Growth' print then experimented with putting different materials underneath the cut-out images. I used a mirrored piece of card which created an interesting effect especially when I overlayed the cut-out images near it.

 

Layering the two images on top of each other:

 

 

I feel the overlaying of the images worked more effectively to portray the themes of my project and also created a more interesting piece to show a mixture of imagery and materials.  

 

 

 

 

Reflection on practice

After taking lots of different photography series, looking at both organic plantation and organisms, I decided I needed to hone in on particular ideas as I am currently working on too much at once.

So far I have been working on different sizes of work, different mediums and digital editing - focusing on organic manipulation, seasonal/cycle transition and development of materials - but I want to work on particular series of photography, working with certain materials that I have experimented with and have found to be the most effective when acheiving the themes in my practice and also the most interesting.
I experimented with smaller prints to begin with and, although at first I saw these as experimentation ,I soon discovered them to be very intriging - if not more than the larger prints. Here are some examples of the pieces I have been working on, I intend to upload more images soon to document and help me organise my work and my thoughts.

(Scanned images)

I have used different materials and techniques on these pieces - glass paint, craft knives, needle and thread etc.
I plan to create more of these pieces and develop a collective series of manual edits - linking together both my 'Organic' photography series and my 'Organism' series.

Organisms

After my visit to a animal centre, I managed to get some interesting shots of insects, reptiles and some animals. The most successful photographs were the ones of the reptiles and fish - this was because of the scales and colours.

I took these photographs to get a spectrum of different life cycles and although I feel the pieces are intriguing aesthetically and conceptually I think I may find it difficult incorporating all of them into my current practice. I have a wide collection of photographs looking at different organisms and this is diverse from my current plan of trying to hone in on a particular subject - however, I believe some of these prints will be useful for experimentation and merging with plantation to show comparisons between life processes/textures and forms. I plan to use any of the images that do not link too well as a collection that I may continue into my third year practice. I am interested in the subject I am working on as well as the techniques and development I have made so I believe they will be a useful kick-start for next year. Some of the images ( in particular the reptiles pieces) I have edited using either applying images on top of each other and merging them myself using clone tools or altered the colours/contrast etc. All the images have been touched up with photo-shop to enhance the colours, sharpen the image and reduce noise.

 

FISH

 

 

Reptiles

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ideas for development tomorrow

I have decided to create a list of different ideas I could work on when developing my practice. I am having difficulty staying focused on what I want to create so a rough plan of ideas is my best way of organising my thoughts.

My main ideas are to work on both combining imagery and enhancing the organic features of my photography. The two areas I will focus on are collage and creating additional material features. I need to keep my ideas simplistic for now so that I can focus on one thing at a time although there is the temptation to try everything at once - this is not the most effective method of experimentation, it often leads to confusion!

Firstly I will take the photographs of the organisms - animals/reptiles/insects/fish. (Hopefully all these organisms will be available to photograph tomorrow as I only want to do one session at the centre so that I can begin to work on the above ideas straight away).

Secondly I plan to work on the material features I have available to me - wire, acetate fragments, thread, paint etc. I want to work on my larger prints and get some of those pieces constructed and the features enhanced so that I can have a larger collection of pieces that I have adding material features to (I have a lot of smaller versions/practice piece at the moment).

Thirdly I want to work on printing onto different materials - I have plenty of different textured sheets that I can print on, including acetate sheets. I want to see the different effects that can be created when printing onto different surfaces. My intention is to enhance organic features of the images by printing onto textured/coloured/already printed onto/altered surfaces.

Finally I want to look at creating landscape collages using photographs of close-up imagery, fragments of patterns, interesting tones changes and natural scene photography. I have been working on creating collage pieces but I have found it increasingly difficult to construct pieces both interesting aesthetically and coninciding with the themes of my work. I believe it is because I am putting too much pressure on myself to form particular things e.g. trying too hard to focus on the organic side of my work rather than just experimenting with the different materials I can use. I think if I just create mixtures of imagery that comes naturally to me (which I have looked at in my previous posts) then the collages will form more effectively and successfully.

Overall these are just points to consider  - I will look at all of these at some point throughout in my project - but these are ideas to work from tomorrow so that I am not at a lost or suffering from a creative block!!!

Plan for organism photography

Tomorrow I am planning to take photographs in a local pet department near where I live - it sounds not very impressive but they have lots of animals/reptiles/fish/insects that I want to take close up images of and take constructed photographs of as independant organisms.

I want to collect images of other organisms - separate from my previous natural photography - to show the different aspects of other creatures. I shall use these images to portray the themes in my project - looking at the life cycles and features of the natural world.

I have loads of ideas for my new photographs:
- I want to combine these new images with the photographs I already have to show a mixture of contrast and similarity between natural elements and organism (and their life processes). I shall use different techniques to merge the images together, e.g photoshopping the images together, constructing collages and printing images on top of each other and onto different materials etc.

- I want to add other mediums to the photographs to enhance the features, portray organic elements and combine aspects of different images; adding different kinds of paint onto the images, adding wire/thread to the photographs and adding different materials to the images etc.


OVERALL > My main focus of this new photography series is to collect images of other organisms to combine with my previous images of natural elements  - therefore creating a sense of contrast but also a similarity between life cycles.

Exploring collage further

After working on collage on a small scale and in the developmental stage, I am now more interested in creating larger collages using my photographs.

I have done some smaller experimentation on different materials where I have printed out my photographs onto different textured sheets or onto materials with different transparencies, e.g. printing onto tracing paper, acetate etc. By printing on larger scale I can enhance the features in my prints and work more with merging together images. I have already experimented with overlays using photoshop but I want to work on layering images manually such as cutting up images and creating compositions.


I am interested in creating different organic qualities with my photographs by just using the textures and appearences of the materials that I am printing onto. This also brings me forward to looking at additional features, such as adding textures like sugar to paint or adding thread to my pieces to highlight and enhance my pieces further to express the natural element themes.

Collage

At the beginning of my project I was interested in using collage to help me further my ideas, to help me develop compositions and merge together images. But as I have explored the different techniques and aesthetics of collage I am beginning to think that it can be used to produce both interesting and relevant pieces for my project.
My first interest in collage was producing pieces that are formed from torn/fragmented piece of images - I began with images from nature magazines e.g. plants, fungi, fruit, vegetables and even insects. I wanted to show a sense of transition through life cycles of both flora and insect life - to show links between growth and decay, reproduction and decline etc.

I began working further with my own imagery - the photographs I took depicting organic elements. I wanted to create a sense of the natural world but also the changes that it goes through throughout it's life span. I was not entirely sure what methods to use so I continued with the tearing-and-pasting techniques which formed an organic composition in an unusual shape. I really like the strange shape that was formed with the fragments of images - it seems more organic and more naturally formed which is how I like to create my work. I feel if I created more pieces in a similar way - in a series - then it would seem like a transition, exemplify the natural life processes, through the stages. I feel that I find it easier, and it comes more natural to me, to create spontaneous collages; ones that are not restricted to a retangular sheet of paper. With the sheet collages there is the temptation and pressure to fill the page which prevents the collage from coming together more naturally - I plan to experiment with more tear-and-paste collages and form them onto different types of paper or even over the top of other images (most likely photographs of simple landscapes).

Tutorial reflection

After a brief discussion with my tutor about my work I then had another tutorial with my second tutor - I took some very negatives things from the response at first. My second tutor (Janet) outlined some areas which I needed to improve - one point being that I had not researched enough around the subject of photography and the different techniques used and artists' work. Basically she said that the photographic pieces I had done were very simple to do and did not require much consideration - this was not entirely true as I had to plan out a lot of pieces:
 - Working with altering colours/tones
 - Changing the sizes
-  Reducing the noise/brightness/contrast/sharpness (which was difficult)
- Deciding what layering effect to work with
-  Deciding on the different material to print onto and experiment with

 I was a little crushed but I had to admit that she was partially right - in the sense that I had not looked in depth at photography artists and theire techniques/exhibitions/inspirations etc. Although I do have some information on photography pieces by artists that influenced my choices in my photography editing, also pieces that inspired me and captured aspects of organic materials and nostalgic atmospheres.
She also spoke about how I had lost myself in the subject matter - I am a nature person so I believe I got a little distracted by the facts/literal sense of nature rather than focusing on the art. However, as an artist I like to have a broad spectrum of a subjectm - it helps me focus on specific aspects further down the line. I wanted to delve into nature to see which areas I wanted to portray.

Anyway, I have decided to take her advice and research more - I am in the library looking at photography books that touch on organic subjects yet I am also looking at photography in general. The techniques and effects; the visual aspects of some of the pieces are very interesting and give me ideas for my practice. Trying to get excited about an artist's work - so far it is exhilerating to just flick through  massive books full of photography and reading about the artists' work.

I have also decided to look more at the method of collage - using layering still but also working manually with different mediums on top of my photographic images. I want to explore materials a lot of more and what effects I can portray - hence the discoveries in the library. Janet suggested that I try not get too hung up on the subject of my project (life cycles, transitions, natural elements) and see that my work in itself is exemplifying transition - a change from one thing to another.

Metamorphosis; a documentary

Metamorphosis

Work in progress (3)

These are my most current pieces (a selection of them). I am working on several things:
- Adding textures to my pieces
- Representing specific stages of life cycles
- Linking human life stages in with the natural cycles
- Creating a sense of surrealism combined with organic elements
- Developing my photographs on different materials
- Representing atmospheric features with my portrayal of particular organisms
- Expanding my knowledge on mediums to use and editing processes

Here are just some examples of the work I have recently done (a lot more of my work is in my sketchbook and annotated):

Work in progress (2)

I began looking at textures/ up-close imagery and the surfaces of different natural elements, e.g. tree bark, fungi, plants/petals etc. I wanted to capture features of different life process, looking at growth, decay, destruction and reproduction. Of course I could only begin simply - until I visit botanical gardens and wildlife reserves - but I could easily find examples of all stages of the natural life cycles all around me. It is not so hard to find them if you look closely.

Then I began looking more at the natural world around - looking for signs that I felt reflected natural elements such as water and growth. I wanted to explore the elements and represent aspects of them so I began working with my new fish-eye lens to express the idea of captured elements sealed within a frame (the lens warps the edges of the image slightly so they appear to be within a sphere - contained).