OUTSIDE, INSIDE, IN BETWEEN A2PHOTOGRAPHY CW&EXAMPREP
artist analysis CARAPHILIPS
artist analysis ALEXEYTITARENKO
evaluation
artist analysis FRANCK BOHBOT
artist analysis BILL HENSON
artist analysis IDRIS KHAN
evaluation
exam artist analysis ANDREA BRUCE
EXAM FINAL OUTCOMES
EXAM FINAL OUTCOMES2
EXAM EVALUATION I started of my exam project with a mind map of ideas on where to start the first few sets of photographs for my exam prep as well as the initial photographs for the actual exam. For the theme ‘Outside, inside, in between’ I specifically chose to look at things ‘outside of this world’ in terms of surrealism. I thought that my initial photographs to begin with were rather successful, however after looking at the majority of the photographs taken I wasn’t one hundred percent happy because they didn’t contribute to the illusion I wanted to create of levitation. However, choosing the photographs which did create the illusion, I was happy about the outcomes. My initial idea for the exam project was to expand the surrealistic perspective of the theme ‘outside, inside, in between’ by looking at other ‘out of this world’ concepts such as masks and non existent characters. Nonetheless, the idea which I had chosen to go with was the levitation idea and to develop it by taking the photographs to illustrate a sequential story of simple events. This included the girl in the photograph waking up from her sleep, to getting ready, to going out in some sort of ‘quest’ in search for something. One of the main differences between the first set of levitating photographs and the photographs for the exam was that I differentiated the location by adding the woods as part of the sequential story as well as shooting in different places in the house such as the bedroom. Moreover I slightly altered the subject matter by giving her a distinct character from the first levitating photographs which can be seen in the photographs set in the woods where she is of miniature size. I thought this highlighted my intentions of creating scenes from ‘out of this world’ in a simple way but which is obvious to the viewer. Symbolically, the importance of this photo wasn’t only to create a surreal world but to tell a simple story of the girl in the photographs of trying to find something. With this, I intended to reveal that in comparison to the real world or in the ‘outside world’, there would always be a story within it that makes the exploration of any world much more meaningful. As mentioned, I think that even though I wasn’t able to include a majority of the initial photographs to edit for the final outcomes for the exam, I thought that the photographs chosen were of good
EXAM EVALUATION quality because of the minimal qualities of the photo yet eye catching feature of levitation. I think the photographs which were most successful were the scenes of the ‘pixie’ like character getting ready for her day; i.e. in the photograph where she is brushing her teeth. I thought that the simple scene of her brushing her teeth was lifted out of the norm by her doing it whilst levitating. I chose to minimise the tones of the photograph to also highlight the minimalistic features of the photograph by slightly de-saturating the photograph but adding an almost transparent gradient filter. I thought the least successful photographs were the scenes in the woods because it was harder to apply the illusion of levitation. Also, I think the illusion of a miniature character wasn’t as successful as I wanted it because I don’t think the model blends in well with the background. To add to story board final outcomes, I decided to develop the some of the photographs through building up on the minimal concept by using the same technique of creating the levitating photographs in the means of layering the photographs and masking out some of the layers using different brushes. This technique was also used in the development of the first idea which, in the initial photographs, involved UV lighting. I decided to edit the photographs in this way because I wanted to also reveal an alternate side of how this ‘out of this world’ universe of some sort can be distorted to something more complicated than just a levitating character. Consequently by editing the foreground along with the background, I believe it disfigured the view of the photographs not only visually but also in terms of the atmosphere which can represent our own ‘outside of this world’ thinking which can occur inside the minds of us; human beings. In the experiments of editing, due to my intentions to produce minimalistic style photographs I wasn’t able to expand my creative thinking. Furthermore, even though I wanted a minimal concept within my set of photographs, I personally believe that I could have pushed my creative boundaries so much further. I think in the four developed photographs which were different from the sequential storyboard type photographs, I think was able to push the boundary a little, however I don’t think it
EXAM EVALUATION utilized the most of my innovative capacity of which I know I am capable of. Nevertheless, I still think the resulted outcomes were successful in itself in terms of its visual concept. The experiments which I produced were just simply the levitating illusion and also the technical experiment of layering the photographs and masking out parts of the different layers using different brushes. This experiment was a mixture of the developments of the first and second idea of my exam prep which closely linked to the artists of Idris Khan and mostly Carrie Ancone (an artist looked at in a previous project). The artists which I looked at in my exam prep included Cara Philips, Franck Bohbot, Bill Henson and Idris Khan. I think these artists contributed in small ways to the final exam outcomes as well as a big portion to my exam prep photographs in different ways but mostly in terms of the technical methods in creating my photographs. However, the artist who inspired me to go with the definite minimal concept was an artist whom goes by the name of Dejon who created a photograph called heaven. I thought it had the utmost aesthetic qualities to the photograph as well as a concept of minimalism which had drawn me to the concept and stood firm with the idea. I think the technical qualities of the photograph are very attention-grabbing yet the rest of the photograph is so simple and so I think that is what inspired me the most to stick with my experiments of minimalistic notions. All in all, I think the exam went well terms of time management as well as utilizing the time efficiently up to a certain extent. Personally, I am happy with the final outcomes because I think I was able to achieve my intentions in terms of the concept I was going for. Although, I still do believe that I could have produced more outcomes with perhaps different techniques so that the outcomes of the photographs had more than two different perspectives of things ‘out of this world’. Not only for the sake of producing more photographs but more to push my creative boundaries further than I know I am capable of.
EXAM EVALUATION The four photograph set was an example of differentiation within the final outcomes and an artist which I linked them to was Idris Khan. I did this through layering the same photograph over and over again reducing the opacity of each layer. But I also compromised a little through the removal of some of the photographs details through the technique of masking. I did this as a personal experiment to make the photographs more interesting in an attempt to push the innovative boundaries in the final pieces. If given more time or had another chance to do this exam project, I would most definitely go further in pushing my creative boundaries by technically producing more final outcomes in different ways. Artist which I may have used to inspire me to do this are Anka Zhuravleva and Andrea Giacobbe in terms of technical developments.