Exam Evaluation
For this exam unit I have looked at and researched lots of photographers work for inspiration. Those who influenced my work most are: Jean Faucheur, Lucas Simões and David Hockney. I also took inspiration from other photographers who can be found on my pinterest board and kept their work in mind when making my own images. Faucheur was my starting point for this theme and opened my eyes to ways you can fragment everyday portraits. He also started my thinking of the relationship between time and photography as a photograph is ultimately a fragment of time. Faucheur’s work led me to discover that of Lucas Simões as he also dissects portraits in unusual and technical ways. His work has shown me how I am able to take an image and manipulate it to create something entirely different. Simões’ work has shown me ways to give my images physical depth and a 3D quality.
The theme I have chosen for this exam was fragments, I thought this was a good theme as there are so many ways an image can be fragmented, either literally or philosophically. I started by using portraits as my subject and fragmenting them in various ways. I think some of the outcomes were more successful than others and I prefer some of the Simões style to the Fraucheur style images I made.This is because there are more aspects to the images and more to consider. I then moved away from portraits and on to landscapes for my Hockney inspired photographs. For this I looked at the idea of cubism and making an image that is abstract in the sense that you can see more than would be physically possible. I decided to do this as each of the images is a fragment of time. I also considered how nature fragments things around us, for example ripples in water and they ways that they fragment the reflections of their surroundings. Although I wasn’t very successful in capturing this because I didn’t have enough time to develop this idea further.
Over the course of this unit I have used mostly DSLR’s, Photoshop and editing apps along with manual means of manipulating the images.
First I experimented with making some Fraucheur style images by cutting out and rearranging sections of portraits I have taken. I went on to make some more of these but using my own techniques so that the outcomes were more personal rather than being a copy of his.
Following on from that I continued editing my images by hand, but this time in the style of Lucas Simões. For this I cut out sections of the images with these getting increasingly bigger as I layered more pictures on top.
My first attempt at this wasn’t entirely successful but I learnt from this and realised that larger areas of the images needed to be manipulated rather than small isolated areas.
After that I made Hockney style joiners. For this I made some using photoshop which merged the images for me and I also made a couple of joiners manually by printing and arranging them by hand. I did this because I thought it would be interesting to explore both ways of making them and the mix of handmade and computer generated would be effective.
Finally I made a small set of images using an app for a mobile device which fragments images in various ways. Some of these images didn't quite meet my expectations but they still represent the theme of fragments.
The inspiration for my first final piece was the work of Lucas Simões. My aim was to emulate the techniques used by Simões to create portraits with a fragmented effect. The outcome links to fragments in the way that you can see segments of the multiple images in the layers as they build to create the finished piece. I believe that the black and white image and the image of the dog worked better than the other portrait as I had a better understanding of how to space out the cut areas. The coloured portrait was my first attempt and I think that the sections I cut were too close together which limited the amount of distortion of the image. My ideas for this piece evolved over time as I started with quite basic fragmented portraits inspired by Jean Faucheur. These were quite simple, with regular patterns which although were effective, didn’t distort enough. This piece reflects my interests as a photographer because I prefer images which have been edited or manipulated to add interest, rather than photos straight from the camera. I feel that by editing my images in this way I am utilising my skills as an artist as well as a photographer.
For my second final piece I hoped to create a joiner inspired by those of David Hockney. Again this was to fulfill the theme of fragments. I chose to do it in a different way than my first final piece by this time focusing on a landscape and making almost all of the separate images visible. In a way there is less distortion in this piece than in my portraits but I still wanted to make sure that each image was seen as a separate image in its own right. I think this piece was very successful because I achieved what I had set out to do which was to show the changes that occur in one subject over the course of about a minute. I also think it is successful because of the changes of light and the differences between manmade and natural and the way the building seems to frame the main body of the image. My first joiners were created using Photoshop and although these were successful I felt that doing it by hand gave me more control over where I placed the images and the overall finished effect.
For both of my pieces I decided to use subjects that were familiar and personal to me. For my portraits I used friends and family pets and for my joiner, the view from my front door. My aim was to create something unusual from something that is very mundane and ordinary to me.
Both of my final pieces have reflected the way I see the world. That is not as one static second but spread over time. In my portraits I have done this by capturing the same subject but over the course of minutes to show a true representation of a human and it’s inability to stop time and stay perfectly still. I have also done this in my second final piece, except in this case I focus on the changes in landscape over time.
The theme I have chosen for this exam was fragments, I thought this was a good theme as there are so many ways an image can be fragmented, either literally or philosophically. I started by using portraits as my subject and fragmenting them in various ways. I think some of the outcomes were more successful than others and I prefer some of the Simões style to the Fraucheur style images I made.This is because there are more aspects to the images and more to consider. I then moved away from portraits and on to landscapes for my Hockney inspired photographs. For this I looked at the idea of cubism and making an image that is abstract in the sense that you can see more than would be physically possible. I decided to do this as each of the images is a fragment of time. I also considered how nature fragments things around us, for example ripples in water and they ways that they fragment the reflections of their surroundings. Although I wasn’t very successful in capturing this because I didn’t have enough time to develop this idea further.
Over the course of this unit I have used mostly DSLR’s, Photoshop and editing apps along with manual means of manipulating the images.
First I experimented with making some Fraucheur style images by cutting out and rearranging sections of portraits I have taken. I went on to make some more of these but using my own techniques so that the outcomes were more personal rather than being a copy of his.
Following on from that I continued editing my images by hand, but this time in the style of Lucas Simões. For this I cut out sections of the images with these getting increasingly bigger as I layered more pictures on top.
My first attempt at this wasn’t entirely successful but I learnt from this and realised that larger areas of the images needed to be manipulated rather than small isolated areas.
After that I made Hockney style joiners. For this I made some using photoshop which merged the images for me and I also made a couple of joiners manually by printing and arranging them by hand. I did this because I thought it would be interesting to explore both ways of making them and the mix of handmade and computer generated would be effective.
Finally I made a small set of images using an app for a mobile device which fragments images in various ways. Some of these images didn't quite meet my expectations but they still represent the theme of fragments.
The inspiration for my first final piece was the work of Lucas Simões. My aim was to emulate the techniques used by Simões to create portraits with a fragmented effect. The outcome links to fragments in the way that you can see segments of the multiple images in the layers as they build to create the finished piece. I believe that the black and white image and the image of the dog worked better than the other portrait as I had a better understanding of how to space out the cut areas. The coloured portrait was my first attempt and I think that the sections I cut were too close together which limited the amount of distortion of the image. My ideas for this piece evolved over time as I started with quite basic fragmented portraits inspired by Jean Faucheur. These were quite simple, with regular patterns which although were effective, didn’t distort enough. This piece reflects my interests as a photographer because I prefer images which have been edited or manipulated to add interest, rather than photos straight from the camera. I feel that by editing my images in this way I am utilising my skills as an artist as well as a photographer.
For my second final piece I hoped to create a joiner inspired by those of David Hockney. Again this was to fulfill the theme of fragments. I chose to do it in a different way than my first final piece by this time focusing on a landscape and making almost all of the separate images visible. In a way there is less distortion in this piece than in my portraits but I still wanted to make sure that each image was seen as a separate image in its own right. I think this piece was very successful because I achieved what I had set out to do which was to show the changes that occur in one subject over the course of about a minute. I also think it is successful because of the changes of light and the differences between manmade and natural and the way the building seems to frame the main body of the image. My first joiners were created using Photoshop and although these were successful I felt that doing it by hand gave me more control over where I placed the images and the overall finished effect.
For both of my pieces I decided to use subjects that were familiar and personal to me. For my portraits I used friends and family pets and for my joiner, the view from my front door. My aim was to create something unusual from something that is very mundane and ordinary to me.
Both of my final pieces have reflected the way I see the world. That is not as one static second but spread over time. In my portraits I have done this by capturing the same subject but over the course of minutes to show a true representation of a human and it’s inability to stop time and stay perfectly still. I have also done this in my second final piece, except in this case I focus on the changes in landscape over time.