Kate Wingrove A2 Photography Fine Art Based Brief Essay Title: To experiment with using different forms of appropriation including digital and physical to recreate fashion photography with a twist.
My Pinterest of Initial Ideas in response to the brief
http://www.pinterest.com/katewingrovex/fine-art-based-brief/
Digital Appropriation Mood Board
Florian Imgrund
Jon Duenas
Christoffer Relander Oliver Morris
Dan Mountford
Sarah Byrne
Artist Inspiration for Initial Images
Artist Analysis: Dan Mountford •
Photographer Dan Mountford is a twenty one year old multidisciplinary freelance designer and graphic student living and studying in Brighton. He works predominantly in photography, illustration, editorial and motion design. The photographs selected are from his series titled The Worlds Inside of Us are described by the artist as “a visual journey through our minds by calm and tidy means which the reality of everyday life does not show.” He explores the use of double exposure in his photographs, successfully isolating parts of an image in the camera with no use of Photoshop. His images are captivating with their thoughtful execution and composition.
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The things about his images I find to be aesthetically pleasing is the simplicity of them. They are not crowded and still focus on the main subject matter while exposing natural elements such as landscapes or urban landscapes over the subject which is effective as the photo does not look accidental or does not look like there are too many distractions. Each image has been shot in a monochrome filter which helps to create depth and added texture. The elements in these photographs which have inspired me in my initial set are the themes Dan Mountford has explored including collaborating headshots with natural elements. Natural and cultural images may have been used when merging the images with these female models as it could symbolize beauty and highlight clear contrasts which may compliment all three images. However, as my theme is appropriation I will select one photographer and select a some of their images in order to experiment on Photoshop the different effects of layering natural landscapes on professional images. In the style of Dan Mountford I will also make the subject images monochrome and fade the colour of the nature landscape in order for it to appear calm and neutral.
Inspiration for Developmental Images
Mood board of images exploring textures
Artist Inspiration for Initial Images
Artist Analysis: Asfoon Ghafouri •
The things about these images I find to be aesthetically pleasing is how they appear lively and are visually stimulating in terms of the bold background colours juxtaposing the old style portraiture images of influential people. Although there is a lot happening in the images, they do not appear to be too crowded and still focus on the main subject matter while exposing vintage and cultural meanings which the artist may have had in mind when constructing the background. This is effective as the photo does not look accidental when studied nor does not look like there are too many distractions. Each image contains the subject of an influential figure from different parts of the world which could have been an interest of the artist or just a theme for their artwork. By collaging the background with replicates made up of decrepit stamps, wallpaper and small photo collages it helps to create depth as well as an underlying symbolic meaning – religion and added texture.
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The elements in these photographs which have inspired me for my further developmental set are the themes Ghafouri has explored including collaborating headshots with traditional backgrounds. Natural and cultural images may have been used when merging the images with these female models as it could symbolize beauty and highlight clear contrasts which may compliment all three images. However, as my theme is appropriation I will select one photographer and select a some of their images in order to experiment on Photoshop the different effects of layering on traditional English wallpapers into professional images shot by the photographer Terry Richardson. In the style of the image of the Queen (left bottom corner) I will also make the subject images monochrome overlay a bold and patterned background in order for it to bring excitement to the image.
Evaluation for Idea One •
• My original intention when taking appropriation into consideration was to explore the fashion shoots by a chosen photographer, in this case I was interested in looking and experimenting with Terry Richardson’s photographs and merging natural and cultural landscapes in the style of digital appropriation photographers Dan Mountford and Matt Wisnieski. For this project I spent a long time experimenting with various young models from Terry Richardson’s portfolios dating back to 2010 in • order to find a variety of different models. I then visited a lot of pale blogs on Tumblr and found countless images of cultural, urban and natural landscapes which I then merged with Terry Richardson’s photographs. This took a lot of time as some images worked better than others and combining the images was very time consuming. The main purpose of choosing the theme • appropriation was to gain a stronger understanding of the meaning and the ways in which the theme can be interpreted and presented in, for Idea 1 digital appropriation was the main theme.
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Taking the technical qualities of my photographs into consideration, I found out that some of my outcomes which did not make it into my final selections did not carry enough detail or did not have the same effect as some of the others did. However, after I became familiar with which images would work well with each other, the editing of the images
became quicker and the stronger photos began to develop. As well as the main theme of appropriation, I also had a theme of young people within the images as fashion was the other key theme, in this case fashion photography. I am pleased with the visual qualities of these images as I believe I made these images my own by creating composed theme whereas before there were no emotions attached. Taking the second set of initial images into consideration, I wanted to experiment with using different textures in order to give my images more depth while also highlighting tints and tones in order to enhance the technical quality of the image. I overlaid a range of different materials to see which texture worked well with which image while still screening the initial image underneath. Moving onto the further developmental set I was inspired by the work of Asfoon Ghafouri and although these works were a lot different to how my initial set of images appeared I wanted to incorporate similar themes within my work to experiment and to test if it could work. The elements such as the contrast of the bold background to the monochrome subjects I believe has worked well. Even though the subjects have natural elements within them giving the image more tones and tints, I believe this has worked and does not cause too many distractions. I chose to focus on traditional English wallpapers as this is an interest of mine and I believed they would work well bringing culture to the image.
Physical Appropriation Mood Board
Cariou verses Prince
Afsoon Ghafouri
Vanessa Fanuele
Derek Gores
Raoul Hausmann
Erin Case
Maurizio Anzeri
David Salle
John Baldessari
Artist Inspiration for Initial Images For Idea Two
Artist Analysis: John Stezaker •
John Stezaker’s work re-examines the various relationships within images and tries to make a connection between them. In his collages, Stezaker appropriates images found in books, magazines, and postcards and uses them as ‘ready-mades’. Through his well-designed juxtapositions, Stezaker adopts the content and contexts of the original images to convey his own amusing and nostalgic meanings.
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In his marriage series, Stezaker focuses on the concept of portraiture both in a historical concept and public identity. Using publicity shots classic famous people, Stezaker splices and overlaps faces in order to create hybrids of famous faces that disassociate the familiarities in which they stand for. Coupling male and female identities into unified characters, Stezaker highlights a disjointed harmony where the different aspects of the images both compliment each other and detracts from the overall meaning of the image.
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The elements in these photographs which have inspired me in my second set of initial images is the collaboration of two images which may juxtapose against each other. I will collect my images from fashion magazines such as; Elle, Vogue, GQ and Vanity Fair in order to portray the latest fashion and advertisements in which I will be appropriating these image together. I will try to overlap images which may share the same colour theme but with different subjects in a way to make a comparison against the models used and to create a comparable and neutral image