Angelica Garcia // Emptiness

Emptiness

"Everyday I lose you… time, You are like water that slips away from me. Presence. Moment. Movement. How can I do to show how you run from me? How can I show that even if I freeze you, then you aren't the same? How if I steal your essence, I don’t have you anyway? Strange presence… Emptiness."

Whilst searching for work on movement online, I came across an article on the art blog Ignant, on a series of work regarding movement and distortion by Angelica Garcia. I found it particular interesting due to the quote above, where she really states the premise behind this series, which is all about loneliness and emptiness and how memories change with time and the people within them change and our feelings towards those moments change. Which for a lot of people and clearly Garcia, is a very sad and emotional thing, that is a tragic part of life, that this series of work represents.

This series of images really brings together some of the ideas I've been looking at, as despite these being digital images, Garcia has printed them and manipulated them by hand and then rephotographed them. Because of this they really capture emotion in the same way Bacon did, in his portraits, with these painted on movements, that personally I find really poetic and heartbreaking, when you think about the photographer's conceptual ideas behind this piece and relate them to your own life. 

Above is my favourite piece from this series as I think the effect Garcia has created is so intricate and dreamy, and I love these pops of saturated colour, which really remind me of effects you can create on VSCO Cam which I find so aesthetically pleasing. For me this photograph makes me think about people I've known who've changed or done something in a negative way to taint my thoughts about them, and how you can still be presented with the same person you've once known but they can be so different in how they are and how you perceive them. I think the fluid movement in the image, is also key in conveying this as the figure seems trapped in this whirlwind, which to me connotates with feelings of destruction and negativity, which psychologically the memory represented may provide, really evoking the feelings of emptiness that Garcia is aiming to represent with this work. I suppose I've connected with work like this so much because I do find the images so emotionally captivating and they really provide a whole new perspective of looking at a piece of artwork. 

Looking at this technique and the ideas behind the distortion in this work, has really made me think more about this form of movement and the possible conceptual ideas behind using methods like this, and even creating a more abstract series of work such as this. At this point I definitely want my final piece to be conceptually and emotionally strong. I really like the idea of conveying a social message with my work and looking at these pieces has really given me some ideas to think about, in particular to do with time and change. 

http://www.ignant.de/2014/03/28/emptiness-by-angelica-garcia/

http://www.theartfuldesperado.com/photography-by-angelica-garcia/

Charlie Waite // Vibrant Landscapes

Charlie Waite is a renowned British landscape photographer, well known for his more colourful and artistic approach to the genre of landscape photography. I was instantly drawn to his work when looking for more contemporary landscape photography online. Waite's photographs are vivid and bright, and to me really bring something more surreal and abstract to landscape photography, through the powerful use of composition and colour. 

This is one of my favourite landscape photographs taken by Waite while in Tuscany. I think this image is particularly powerful because of the mysterious, dark mood it has, which Charlie Waite has created through the powerful use of light and shadows and in particular the colours in both the sky, and the shades of green on the land which look really surreal. One thing that I find particularly interesting about Waite's work is his brilliant use of the rule of thirds which helps create these powerful compositions in his work and such energy and tension between his subject matter. To me Waite's work and this image in particular are digital masterpieces that show such simplicity and skill to create something so visually interesting. 

Looking at Waite's work and his powerful use of colour in a very surreal and abstract way has inspired me to experiment with changing the vibrancy in landscape photographs that I have taken previous to this project. I really wanted to find a way to incorporate some of my previous personal landscape work into this project as in the past year or so I've really enjoyed going to places during the warmer seasons and taking photographs of nature and landscapes. And I really liked the idea of giving them an unnatural look to create more abstract photographs that look unworldly and mystical.

Above is one of my personal favourites as because I have lowered the saturation to a certain extent this image looks more hazy and mysterious rather than looking completely over edited. I also think this effect with the purple colour creates a really eerie and dark mood to what was originally a very straight forward photograph that I took of a town in Lancashire.

Overall I am really pleased with how these experiments turned out and they have definitely made landscape photography more interesting for me, as I do like to be more artsy and creative with my work. After looking at Waite's photos I now want to work harder to create better compositions and deal with lighting better as the use of shadows and light I found really powerful in Waite's work. 

Experimental Project Evaluation

The theme for this project was experimental photography and I have to say so far it has been my favourite project that I have completed this year.  I enjoyed doing this project because it allowed me to draw from the conceptual ideas of photographer's, that really inspire me as an amateur photographer. For me the most enjoyable part of any project is doing my own contextual research and learning about what inspires and drives people that I really admire as artists. However during this project what I found most interesting was being able to go back to photography such as my portraiture and personal family photos, and take them to a whole new level visually. 

During this project I learnt skills such as creating double exposures digitally, creating collage, a variety of darkroom methods such as chemigrams and solarisation. And I also learnt about other methods of photo manipulation such as adding shapes digitally and painting onto photographs. Looking back at what I've learnt I'd definitely like to learn more about digital techniques of manipulating photographs, and I'd also like to learn how to get more creative with darkroom methods such as chemigrams and damaging negatives with chemistry. 

I researched a lot of artists and photographers during this project, including both historical and contemporary figures in photography. I undertook a lot of research to find not only people who practise experimental techniques of photography, but people who's work I genuinely appreciate and am inspired by. For example I had set in my mind when I received the brief for this project that I wanted to try out creating double exposures. However I didn't really want to end up with anything particularly generic, that to me looks like one of thousands of stock photos. So because of this, I didn't actually create any double exposure experiments digitally, until I came across Davis Ayer's work and really fell in love with the aesthetic of his images, and the mood they create. Which heavily inspired my own digital double exposure experiments.

For me the techniques I enjoyed most in this project were the more artistic ones I adopted during my physical experiments, with medias such as paint and collage. Personally I think my collages and food stamp images were my most successful, as for me they were a lot more conceptual and really translated well to the thoughts that I had in mind when creating the images. I also think for my food stamps inspired pieces in particular, the composition was really crisp, and the materials I put on top of my old photographs were really well thought out, in terms of how they worked with the image underneath, and how they were distributed over my images. Because of this I will definitely be working with this technique again in my future work.

If given the chance to complete this project again, I think I would have definitely spent more time developing ideas from my food stamps inspired work, as like I said I am proud of what I produced and would have liked to have taken that technique further. I would also have liked to have gone and taken some photos with paint application in mind, like in Helen Almeida's work where she knew where she would be putting her paint on top. As in my experiments I simply printed out photos I'd already taken and tried to put paint over the top of them where appropriate, and because of that I don't think they were particularly successful. 

Overall I really enjoyed this project, in particular finding an array of new artists to inspire me and learning new techniques and applying completely different ideas to my photography. I feel that this project in particular will really influence my future work.

Final Darkroom Experiments

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

More Experiments Inspired By Helena Almeida + David Copithorne

After not being that happy with my Helena Almeida inspired experiments I decided to get some white paint and have another go at painting onto printed photographs. However this time focusing more on creating shapes rather than just using brush strokes to create an effect. To do this I used some photographs that I've taken, that I again I printed onto paper in order to create a grungy look from my images, which I think really works well in these experiments to contrast against the bright white paint. I decided to paint shapes such as circles and triangles onto my images, to add a more geometrical influence into my work which I was inspired to do after looking at work by David Copithorne who adds 3D shapes into his work digitally which I really like.

This image is my personal favourite from my experiments as I really like the minimal composition and the way the bright white circle interacts with the background and foreground.

The effect I have created on this image is the result of me deciding to paint around the centre of my image to leave a circle but not liking the result. Because of this I folded the image in half while the paint was still wet and unfolded it to reveal what I think is quite an interesting effect, considering I wasn't purposefully trying to create anything especially something grungy looking like this. 

Overall I really like the minimal aesthetic I have created with these images and the way I have kept these images black and white which creates a very abstract look to these grainy looking images. However because I hand painted my shapes, the effect isn't as crisp as I'd like it to be, as in some places the application does look scruffy. Because of this I'd like to try experimenting more with adding shapes onto images, but this time in the darkroom where I can use the photogram techniques I have learnt to create a much more crisp and professional look to these images. 

Darkroom Experiments // Splitting Two Negatives

 

Odette England // Damaging A Film Negative + Bleaching Photos

Odette England is a British/Australian photographer who's work explores personal and historical memories. Her most famous work includes film photos taken of where she lived as a child which she has damaged through scratching, walking on and tearing at the film negatives. I really like the mood these photos have and from them I get the feeling of resentment in that you can't go back to your childhood and the feeling of how easily your memories can be tarnished by little things. 

Above is one of my favourite photos of England's which is entitled "Mum 9 (right foot)" as she taped this negative of what looks like a shed to her Mum's foot and let her walk around and damage it to create this torn effect. I really like this photograph as I think the way the shed has been cut out really adds this feeling of England wanting to take this memory out of this photograph and what this building means to her. I also like the general grunge aesthetic to this photograph as it reminds me of stills from old horror films, especially with the vantage point of the photograph taken looking up at this eery building. 

Inspired by Odette England's process I took a blank negative and damaged it by rubbing it against rough surfaces and tearing at it with a pin to see what effect it would create when put under an enlarger. 

Above is my test strip in which I used 3 second exposure intervals to determine the best exposure time for my film negative. 

After looking at my test strip I decided to expose the negative for 9 seconds. As you can see those areas where I have scratched at the film have come out black which creates a really interesting effect.

I decided after creating my first print of my negative to experiment further by creating a photogram with my photographic paper as well making use of the added texture from my negative. For my photogram I simply put a sweet wrapper on top of my photographic paper for the first 3 seconds of exposure and then I took it off and carried on exposing the negative for another 6 seconds. Because of this the wrapper is very faint and doesn't really add anything to this image.

For my second photogram experimentI used a some keys and a coin which I put over my paper before exposing it to any light, after exposing the negative for 6 seconds I added the sweet wrapper on top so that we'd be able to see it clearer this time. Personally I like the effect of the sweet wrapper immersed into the patterns created from my negative, however I should have done the same with my other objects as well as I would have liked to have seen the effect throughout all of the print. 

As another little experiment I cut two negatives in half and stuck them together. I did this to try creating a very abstract double exposure with my other damaged negative. Above is my test strip which I exposed on 3 second intervals.

I decided to expose the negatives for 9 seconds each which was a bad decision as everything came out too dark on the print. It has an interesting look to it being very dark and abstract but personally I don't think this experiment was successful and if given the opportunity again would take more time to work out the best exposure times to create a good final print. 

Overall I do like the effect I have created from damaging a film negative and would love to try this again and put the effect over a single image to create prints that look more like Odette England's work as I do really like her photographs.

As I have been doing a lot of work with printed photos onto paper I decided to research other ways of damaging photos like Odette England has and decided to see what effects could be created by pouring bleach onto my printed photographs. Like my work inspired by Helena Almeida I experimented with the shape of my media and how it can interact with my subject matter. 

This is my personal favourite from my experimentations as I really like how surreal the effect looks with the green glowing around the strange shape covering my subject's face. Looking at Elena Fortunati's work really made me appreciate the power of anonymity in experimental photography and I think this effect with the bleach works so well because it has this almost paranormal aesthetic to it which really transforms the original portrait photograph and gives it a completely different mood. 

I really like the surreal effect adding bleach can add to photographs, however if I did this again I would make sure to photograph my image while the bleach is still affecting my photo, as at first it gave a transparent green shape to my photographs which looked really interesting however I did these in the evening meaning I couldn't photograph the effect of the bleach as it was happening.