✰🌟⋆FANTASTIC AND STRANGE⋆🌟✰
PINTERST.
This is the pinterest board I have made for the theme I have chosen.
This is the pinterest board I have made for the theme I have chosen.
MY CHOICE: The theme I have chosen is fantastic and strange. I like the idea of creating simple yet odd looking images. I would like to try and create an un-manipulated image with a strange subject rather than using photoshop, as this was the main way of making interesting images for my past projects. I have a number of different ideas I would like to experiment with and hope to create a variety of different pieces linked together through the theme of fantastic and strange. I am looking forward to seeing which ideas come together to form interesting pieces of art and exploring these further.
POPPLET.
Below is the mind-map I created on Popplet to display some of my ideas for this project.
Penny jensz.
This image was created by the australian artist Penny Jensz. She is very interested in exploring ideas about "race, identity, deception, fear and primal instinct." Her works convey messages about preconceptions based on race and class. As she herself is from a privileged and well traveled background she feel obliged to be the voice for those who have no way to speak out for themselfs. These images were created with the intention of presenting a 'profile of Australian identity'. The distortment of the face is representitive of the
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relationship between outer presentations and the deeper truth inside. The picture is made of a 3d collage which gives it a texture and realness, perhaps trying to make the collage look like another layer of the boys skin showing it is a conected part of him. Although the face has been distorted, it is not completely unrecognisable which almost make the new face seem more realistic. The image is quite haunting. It is rather qrotesque and disfigured. The new image on the right looks almost fish like and monstorous. I think the eyes are one of the most important parts of the image as even though they are partialy covered they are the eyes from the origional image.
FIRST SHOOT...
For these images I was inspired by the strange, stark landscape and the stillness and peacefulness of the isolation. The images posses a mystic calmness, yet the land appears incredibly powerful and dominates the pictures. The dark greyness of the images combined with the thick layer of clouds creates a moody atmospheric image, creating a powerful picture with dramatic presence. I am looking forward to playing and editing these to create high impact pictures that are even more moody.
TREE EXPERIMENT.
I was originally inspired by the image on the right, which I found on pinterest, to experiment with outlines and silhouettes. I selected one of my images containing water and used this as a base for my picture. I then used another of my images containing a tree and selected its outline using photoshop. I then used this outline to create a white tree shape which I placed over my original picture. I then turned down the opacity of the layer containing the tree to create the ghostly effect of the image I was inspired by. Overall I am very pleased with the image I created as I produced the same mysterious and haunting mood of the image I was inspired by. Overall I believe this technique is effective in producing a 'strange' image.
Ansel Adams.
Ansel adams was an american landscape photographer. The images he created are some of my favourite landscape shots ever. I think they posses a mystic beauty that really dose justice to the aw-inspireing scenery, something which I belive is incredibly hard to achive. The images encapsulate the word 'fantastic' and I think they demonstrate 'strangeness' in the enchanting isolation of their locations. The pictures have an almost eirie stillness and peace to them, partyly from the fact they show only nature and no sighns of civilisations, and partly from the monochrome effect.
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My response to Ansel Adams.
I made my images black and white using photoshop to make them more dramatic, like Ansel's images. I also adjusted the contrast and brightness levels to accentuate the highlights and darken the shadows, so the individual elements would stand out more. I am overall pleased with the way that they turned out.
SECOND SHOOT...
I took these images of a field covered in mist. I really like the idea of capturing the strange, otherworldly effect that mist has, however I don't like the colours of the images above. I don't feel like they are very impactfull or moody as it is not misty enough.
Third shoot...
This seccond mist shoot was much more succsesfull. The mist was much thicker and the colours are more ritch and earthy. The veriety of the landscape adds to making these images much more interesting and visualy impresive than my previous atampt. The grey colours and thick mist shroud the images in a veil of mystery and strangeness.
HIROSHI SUGIMOTO.
Hiroshi Sugimoto is a japaniese contemporary artist, photographer and architect. His works explore ideas on both a spiritual and metaphysical level. He is aclaimed for not only producing stunning and moody images, but his understanding of the world in relation to his images. The thoughts and ideas he puts into the pictures are almost more important and beautifull that the works them selfs. The images in his body of works named 'Seascapes' are the ones I am most interested in.
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Response to Hiroshi Sugimoto.
Here I selected three images with the rule of the three. I really like the mood of these images and think they capture the same abstract mysticism a Sugimoto's landscapes. I think to recreate the impact of the scene I will need to display the images on a large scale. My favourite out of these three is the first one. I think it is the most abstract as the scene is the most abstracted by the mist. Overall I am very pleased with these.
ERWIN WURM.
Erwin Wurm, born in 1954, is an Austrian artist who creates transient installations. His most notable works are named 'one minute sculptures' in which he gets people to interact with everyday objects in unusual ways, prompting viewers to question the definitions of a sculpture. His works are subtly humorous and play with the viewer and model. One idea He uses is clothes manipulation, this is one of my favorite styles of sculptures he creates.The image on the left is one of my favourite pictures of his. I like the clean white purity of the image, and the contrast in directions of straight lines. Other images I like of his involve clothes manipulation where he gets his models to put on garments in strange ways. I find his work incredibly humerous yet tastefull. I like how he percevies art and how he explores it through humerous human interaction.
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MY RESponse.
Statue Shoot.
The basic ideas of what a sculpure represents in itself, is something I find fantastic and strange. We create forms to emulate life, atempting to make the viewer to see the object as real. This idea of creating forms so life like they push the boundries of the natural and the unatural, is a fundimental base of art. Our desire to create objects in our own form in a perfect manner is strange yet very important, for some of the most sublime pieces of art have been created with this desire for perfect reality in mind.
MY FINAL OUTCOMES.
Here I repeated the same process as I used earlier to create extended images. I did this by copying a thin vertical rectangle of my image into a new layer and then stretched it out to create abstract lines of colour on photoshop. I love how it elongates the figures and plays with the different lines in the piece.
STOP FRAME ANIMATION.
Both of these videos were made by taking still photos and then playing them in succession. Stop frame animation allows you to create surreal videos and scenes that you would not normally be able to make. I was inspired to make some short gif's by animating my images of sculptures. I used the app Glitche to manipulate three of my pictures in different styles and then turned them into short videos. I really enjoyed using this app and think that it produced very interesting results.
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MY ANIMATIONS.
Flower shoot
Photoshop editing process...
FINAL OUTCOMES.
These are two of my edited images. I prefer the one on the right as I like its composition more than the left. I feel that the main image of flowers on the left and empty space on the right works effectively in creating an attractive image. I love the colours of both peices, they are so suriel and strange yet incredibly vivid.
The image on the left is my favourite inverted one. I love the vivid colours of the glitter string in contrast with the green of the flowers. I think the image is interesting as even though the colours are so unnatural and strange the shape of the flowers is still recognisable. I love how the colours highlight and exaggerate the outline of the flowers and contrast the black background. The luminosity of the petals looks almost supernatural and haunting as if they are the ghost of a plant. |
Final Evaluation.
Fantastic and strange is the theme that I decided to follow throughout this unit. I was drawn to it as I believed that the possibilitys of ideas to explore were vast. From the beginning of the project I was interested in playing with the way we perceive photos to be, and playing with the boundaries of the “normal” and “abnormal” images, and questioning what that even means. This is something I began over the last unit so I was interested in refining and developing these ideas, as they are largely the essence of all inovative photography. One of the most fitting movements of art to my theme are the surrealists, in particular the dadaists. They were some of the first people to use the media of photography for art and manipulation of the ordinary rather that an imitation of the every day. Their collective body of images are to this day iconic and to me incapsulate the ideas of 'fantastic and strange'.
One idea that fascinated me through this unit was the whole meaning of sculpture and how in its self, it is incredibly strange. I was interested in how and why we try to perfectly imitate life and present it as perfectly as possible. The story of pygmalion (a statue so real it was given life), I find incredibly interesting in how it dipicts these emotions and expectations we place in life-imitating objects. I felt the ideas behind classical sculpture tied perfectly with the ideas we generally hold about photography. We expect the works to be simply a still of life, frozen and completely accurate in its depiction, which in essence is the most basic form of art and photography. Both a still life photograph and piece of art would be expected to be a depiction of an inanimate object and nothing more, yet when we start to change things within the image we can create really interesting images. I find it quite comic how an image of a sculpture is almost like imitating life twice, once through stone, and again through film, all in an attempt to capture and preserve a fleeting moment of an event or a life.
One way in which I experimented with changing what we consider to be a "normal" image is by creating short animations of my images. I was interested in adding movement to the statures, almost creating my own pygmalion effect. I used the app Glitche to animate the images which was really interesting. The veriety of effects I was able to create were so interesting and diverse. I found using this media and technique really fun as I was able to experiment with a multitude of styles of video. I was inspired by the strange, almost haunting animations of 'a game with stones' and 'canon' and wanted to create equally haunting pieces. I think the images of the heads becoming detached and floating up wards, pulling a trail of colored lines rather comical and slightly disturbing in a funny way. I like the notion of giving the statues life through movement as this is the closest they can become to being alive.
I also experimented with photoshop in order to create glitched photos for my large final pieces. I experimented with a number of different color options and placings of the disruptive lines but chose to make them both flow horizontally. I found this to focus the attention on to the statues so the color truly looks like it is flowing out of them and radiating from their bodies. I love the contrast between the soft curves and gestures of the statues compared to the uniform lines of color coming out from them. I think this disturbs the image beautifully calling into the questions of how and image should be desighned through the lines it forms.
I further experimented with cutting out holes in an image to be filled with another picture. After disturbing the lines of an image (a key feature in what is seen as a constant in a photograph) I was interested at playing with the foreground and background. I printed of an A2 print of my image of a misty landscape to make the collage with. The image was already strange as the boundaries between what we can see and what we imagine were already blurred literally by a fog. I wanted to blur the boundaries further in a physical way by cutting out holes and replacing them with images of different compositions with different scales and enlargements. This turned them almost into windows showing different scenes and worlds, obscuring the original compositions and frames. I liked creating new scenes and compositions through selecting the parts of found images, creating an entirely new unique image. I experimented with leaving some of the holes empty but prefered the overall look when all holes were filled. I found this to give a more rich and diverse look at the end.
Overall I am incredibly pleased with this unit as I greatly enjoyed exploring more philosophical
and meaningful aspects of how people perceive photography and use it as a platform of innovation and communication of ideas and concepts. Although I did not chose to experiment more with the two people covered in paint, I really enjoyed shooting the movement and life of the two people. This was a very interesting contrast to taking images of still sculptures but I found it to be a interesting challenge. Generally I am very pleased with the ideas I was able to explore and communicate through each of my final pieces.
One idea that fascinated me through this unit was the whole meaning of sculpture and how in its self, it is incredibly strange. I was interested in how and why we try to perfectly imitate life and present it as perfectly as possible. The story of pygmalion (a statue so real it was given life), I find incredibly interesting in how it dipicts these emotions and expectations we place in life-imitating objects. I felt the ideas behind classical sculpture tied perfectly with the ideas we generally hold about photography. We expect the works to be simply a still of life, frozen and completely accurate in its depiction, which in essence is the most basic form of art and photography. Both a still life photograph and piece of art would be expected to be a depiction of an inanimate object and nothing more, yet when we start to change things within the image we can create really interesting images. I find it quite comic how an image of a sculpture is almost like imitating life twice, once through stone, and again through film, all in an attempt to capture and preserve a fleeting moment of an event or a life.
One way in which I experimented with changing what we consider to be a "normal" image is by creating short animations of my images. I was interested in adding movement to the statures, almost creating my own pygmalion effect. I used the app Glitche to animate the images which was really interesting. The veriety of effects I was able to create were so interesting and diverse. I found using this media and technique really fun as I was able to experiment with a multitude of styles of video. I was inspired by the strange, almost haunting animations of 'a game with stones' and 'canon' and wanted to create equally haunting pieces. I think the images of the heads becoming detached and floating up wards, pulling a trail of colored lines rather comical and slightly disturbing in a funny way. I like the notion of giving the statues life through movement as this is the closest they can become to being alive.
I also experimented with photoshop in order to create glitched photos for my large final pieces. I experimented with a number of different color options and placings of the disruptive lines but chose to make them both flow horizontally. I found this to focus the attention on to the statues so the color truly looks like it is flowing out of them and radiating from their bodies. I love the contrast between the soft curves and gestures of the statues compared to the uniform lines of color coming out from them. I think this disturbs the image beautifully calling into the questions of how and image should be desighned through the lines it forms.
I further experimented with cutting out holes in an image to be filled with another picture. After disturbing the lines of an image (a key feature in what is seen as a constant in a photograph) I was interested at playing with the foreground and background. I printed of an A2 print of my image of a misty landscape to make the collage with. The image was already strange as the boundaries between what we can see and what we imagine were already blurred literally by a fog. I wanted to blur the boundaries further in a physical way by cutting out holes and replacing them with images of different compositions with different scales and enlargements. This turned them almost into windows showing different scenes and worlds, obscuring the original compositions and frames. I liked creating new scenes and compositions through selecting the parts of found images, creating an entirely new unique image. I experimented with leaving some of the holes empty but prefered the overall look when all holes were filled. I found this to give a more rich and diverse look at the end.
Overall I am incredibly pleased with this unit as I greatly enjoyed exploring more philosophical
and meaningful aspects of how people perceive photography and use it as a platform of innovation and communication of ideas and concepts. Although I did not chose to experiment more with the two people covered in paint, I really enjoyed shooting the movement and life of the two people. This was a very interesting contrast to taking images of still sculptures but I found it to be a interesting challenge. Generally I am very pleased with the ideas I was able to explore and communicate through each of my final pieces.