Component 1 Evaluation
For Unit 1 I've researched many photographers such as Bill Armstrong, Anouk Kruithof, W. Eugene Smith, Lee Friedlander, John Vick and Henri Cartier-Bresson These photographers helped inspire me and guide me to how to do the themes I carried out. I discovered many of them through Pinterest. From exploring and discovering their work I was able to more significantly develop and refine my work with more knowledge and a better idea of how to form it. For example, for my abstraction project I frequently took from inspiration from Anouk Kruithof like how to use focus, abstraction, how we view photography in a way to the point that it makes frames within frames and how to create a way to show what is meta.In the theme of abstraction, I explored the use of multiple techniques and the idea of making the photo made to layer up and how they don’t overlap in tone, colour or shape. I was a bit stuck at the beginning of this project because I didn’t genuinely know how to conduct the project out or how to make something seem abstract. I was told that everything is/could be abstract and there is no one way to develop an abstract photograph but that I could make something really abstract by emphasising a intensely non-realistic or nonsense way of achieving photos. I realised this when I made a couple of photograms which seemed abstract on their own, I then attempted to develop them and refine them a lot more to make them more abstract. Therefore, I altered the colours using photoshop and then I cut it into several small pieces and rearranged them and stacked them so that they became a sculpture which was the emphases for the rest of the project. I kept developing and refining and rearranging the same basic sculpture to make it more and more abstract
For my openings project I researched a few photographers such as W. Eugene Smith and Lee Friedlander after being inspired by their work on Pinterest. They had a form of photography that I found really interesting which did not need the use of photoshop but I used it due to wanting to find my own style of photography, I learned that photoshop is very good for fragmenting elements of photos that could create many openings and a repeat which was caused by selecting a partial part of the photo and inverting and replacing the space with what could be replaced with the rest of the photo but this created very unpredictable results, and it would look interesting and confusing. This theme was openings and it was pretty like my project on abstraction because of then making photos with no noticeable deeper meaning became something I had enjoyed doing. I had noticed that everything has openings, and it's how we perceived and attempt to notice space or what is between two subjects or make what is within the subject.
On my abstractions project I made a good number of photograms and many of them were cloudy but that helped with the theme abstraction. There were a few photograms that I lost, and I could not find it at all and it wasn’t recorded on the page, but I did have an updated cut up a version of it that I did use which had an atmosphere of confusion and mystery to it. I decided to take the idea of abstraction further, so I cut up many photograms into multiple small pieces until I had random shapes. I then got building blocks and started placing the coloured photograms on top of each other in different layering which would make that piece bigger or even had parts of it not viewable. Once I had created a sculpture of it and took photos of it and the process of how it was made by photographing the sides of it. I continued to make different sculptures with the same pieces and at a point I would cut something further or add another piece so that it would have more details within it. I had then photoshopped multiple sculptures and layered the photos and spliced some together which went together and became the final project
I feel I’ve attempted different methods of trying to show openings that I have carried out for my openings project, but they were mostly unused at all for the final project. I made a hole in a leaf and had tried to make photos inspired by W. Eugene Smith which I did not consider as much after using that method, which just seemed to not be a quality I could use. I then took photos that worked more with a wider range and clear openings that was used for a while, either to experiment or use for the final project. I experimented with the photos made digitally due to being unable to make clear cuts with knives or straight enough and that with photoshop I could recover any mistakes which I normally would make. I had then started making a wide range of photoshop edits, such as moving the same photo vertical and placing it next to the original to make a cross shape and then I made photos that would repeat sections of it and create an opening of areas where the original subjects were. This was continued all the way until I had to print the photos in the printer using single colours which made an amazing rainbow effect or glistening effect.
For my openings project I researched a few photographers such as W. Eugene Smith and Lee Friedlander after being inspired by their work on Pinterest. They had a form of photography that I found really interesting which did not need the use of photoshop but I used it due to wanting to find my own style of photography, I learned that photoshop is very good for fragmenting elements of photos that could create many openings and a repeat which was caused by selecting a partial part of the photo and inverting and replacing the space with what could be replaced with the rest of the photo but this created very unpredictable results, and it would look interesting and confusing. This theme was openings and it was pretty like my project on abstraction because of then making photos with no noticeable deeper meaning became something I had enjoyed doing. I had noticed that everything has openings, and it's how we perceived and attempt to notice space or what is between two subjects or make what is within the subject.
On my abstractions project I made a good number of photograms and many of them were cloudy but that helped with the theme abstraction. There were a few photograms that I lost, and I could not find it at all and it wasn’t recorded on the page, but I did have an updated cut up a version of it that I did use which had an atmosphere of confusion and mystery to it. I decided to take the idea of abstraction further, so I cut up many photograms into multiple small pieces until I had random shapes. I then got building blocks and started placing the coloured photograms on top of each other in different layering which would make that piece bigger or even had parts of it not viewable. Once I had created a sculpture of it and took photos of it and the process of how it was made by photographing the sides of it. I continued to make different sculptures with the same pieces and at a point I would cut something further or add another piece so that it would have more details within it. I had then photoshopped multiple sculptures and layered the photos and spliced some together which went together and became the final project
I feel I’ve attempted different methods of trying to show openings that I have carried out for my openings project, but they were mostly unused at all for the final project. I made a hole in a leaf and had tried to make photos inspired by W. Eugene Smith which I did not consider as much after using that method, which just seemed to not be a quality I could use. I then took photos that worked more with a wider range and clear openings that was used for a while, either to experiment or use for the final project. I experimented with the photos made digitally due to being unable to make clear cuts with knives or straight enough and that with photoshop I could recover any mistakes which I normally would make. I had then started making a wide range of photoshop edits, such as moving the same photo vertical and placing it next to the original to make a cross shape and then I made photos that would repeat sections of it and create an opening of areas where the original subjects were. This was continued all the way until I had to print the photos in the printer using single colours which made an amazing rainbow effect or glistening effect.