Kevin Fitzpatrick EGRD2002 0905195
independent practice
Previous years, I had believed that this practice would dictate a variety of processes in numerous fields of work, was neccessary to bulk out my work and gain more credits. I had found that regularly that my work was an unorganised, no fluidity, continuity: it went nowhere. I am a procrascinator. I was unable to focus on one agenda and develop my interest. I didnt no what I truly wanted to do. However, in order for my work to flourish, I decided that I needed a game plan a process of categorisation, endless lists prioritisation, allowing my work to bare fruit. This portfolio is not only a development of my work, but also of my working method. I endeavour to show this method It is just as fundamental to my progression and practice, as the output it’s itself. Lets begin...
Contents IP intention 4 Macro 5-6 Shutter speed 7 ISO & Aperture 8 Long expsoure photography 9-23 The girls workshop 24-29 Terry King Workshop 30-32
Independent Practice Intentions Through my independent practice I plan to endeavour to develop my understanding of various areas of interest. Through the course I have learned to use the basics of a DSLR camera but have not fully understood nor fully utilised the lens available to myself. I plan to research through various sources such as the British Journal of Photography, various photographers such as Nick Ut and Baron Wolman as examples and others the poignancy of a photograph. Also using information I gathered from previous art gallery shows such as Eadweard Muybridge. I would like to further my interest in Illustration. A past time which I have always enjoyed, I aim to begin to coordinate my sketching, and drawing and focus it towards a particular style of drawing I enjoy and develop it creating an identity as such through this. How to improve this throughthe research into various illustrative designs such as cartoons/ animations, signage and icons, computer arts using various print magazines to bring my pencil drawn sketches onto the digital and bridge the gap between my
lacklustre knowledge of programs such as Illustrator and Photoshop. Using digital tools such as my gdnm blog I can post my work visually to a larger audience notably others at first to university students receiving feedback and use that to improve them further. Use my illustrations as a means to portray myself, convey ideas, satirise my opinions of particular subjects. Design layouts is a particular subject matter I never feel to have properly understood, how to “correctly present my work” and how the way it is presents can monumentally affect my work.
Due to the fact this particular year requires a digital hand in of portfolios this is an essential part of my design; which I believe through researching and developing my presentation skills will inturn encourage greater discipline in my work and rationalise my thinking increase my work output as such. How to achieve this? use of a devoted sketchbook to these designs as a creative output, a gratification if you will; as well as the photographing and recording of artwork I see around my surrounding environment; artists such as Seak One, Le Rat, RT creaw to name a few as well as peers who undertake these areas of design. Furthermore I intend to carry on research from my previous year of the course and begin to read the novels of Jack Carrauc.
apply my independent practice: · Utilisations of cargo-collective account to present completed portfolios and illustrations, developing a basic knowledge of css and html coding. · Use of blog to publish my work to a wider audience i.e. peers. · Use of sketchbook to record · ideas no matter how small or large. · Learning of screen printing and bringing digital work into a manual print based process. Due to continued frustrations with what I perceived ( and was) a lack of output, and never-ending distractions. How could I focus myselfallowing my work to floruish. Simple complete catogarisation. Of everything, everything, every detail of everything I occupy myself with. I discovered that I regularly forget what I was doing. I would attend workshops, tutorials, not write down what I had done, what I was going to do. I woudl
I decided enough was enough and to stop the rot I woudl compile a variety of lists and plans formulated that allowed me to know what I was doing what I needed to do. A main focus of my work has been photography its something that I have been interested in for a while but is something I truly do not understand. I have intended to change this. A discussion with mark radically changed what I decided to for my independent practice, a statement of intention. Not only did i score a low grade in terms of how it was written but the enormity of what i asked myself in terms of the numerous practices i wanted to apply myself was recognised by mark and he pointed me towards one practice. That being photography. A number of photographers notably Robert Frank, and I decided to really get to grips with my photography and
Shutter Speed
Variety of shots elected from those I took my digital camera using the 65mm macro lens. The level of detail was incredible, using the image of the eye for example, being able to see the different colours that make up the eye, and the reflection from the eye. This was the first of many cases in which I discovered that trial and error are required to get the desired outcome. Strangely enough as displayed on the previous page patterns can emerge and from attempting to take a photography of the lens from my 35 mm camera I created an image of the camera out of focus but have now pieced it together to make an abstract image of the camera.
In order to strengthen my understanding of the amera setting I decided to create simple tests or experiments. Primitive as they were but a visual repreentation of the difference in terms of iso setting gives me my own first hand research of the setting, giving me a better understanding of the difference rather than just neccessarily using it from information froma book or text. Therefore I researched the definition of the term then createdthe test. I decided that a simple enough test could be done from desk. Here I have experimented with the shutter speed with fixed aperture and iso setting to give myself constants in the process as the difference in those two settings will have a profund effect on the photographs and create two more variables diminshing the effectivenes of the test. What is shutter speed? Shutter speed can be simpled be defined as the length of time the film or sensor is exposed to light through the oepning of the shutter and closing of shutter. I created a simple test of this in my room photgraphing the same image numerous times using a variety of shutter speeds to compare.
Shutter speeds ranging from1/50 to 1/4000.
Aperture and ISO setting
ISO setting is how sensitive the sensor is to a light source or how quickly it is exposed. Here shown in the two images is examples of this in practice with fixed aperture and shutter speed the difference in ISO setting is profound the above image with an ISO setting of 3200, you can see the grain appearing and the light eating away at the image removing detail and texture from the photograph, causing parts of the image to blend in with eachother.
Aperture is the opening in the lens that limits the light that can be emitted through said opening. It is measured in f values. The higher the aperture or the smaller the opening the greater depth of field you will have whereas the lower the aperture the wide the opening the shallower the depth of field and the more focused closer objects will be to the camera.
Images shown are attempts at the shot by the side of the road. Here I tested a variety of iso setting, aperture and shutter speeds, notably higher ISO settings and longer shutter speeds.
Final shot taken at the side of the road. I had come to the conclusion that on the side of the road from this angle 6 seconds was the correct exposure time for the shot. Having used various aperture values, f/22 produced the best result providing a greater depth of field. ISO setting of 800 allowing a moderate sensitivty to the light, on a slower shutter speed I may have used a higher ISO setting due to the reduced time for the sensor to be exposed.
Numerous photographs denoting various shutter speed mainly 6 second and 8 second; f/ 22 was used for all of these. Photos due to position and position of tripod attributed to reposotioning of shot.
6 second shutter speed f/ 22 iso 800
iso 800 6 second exposure F/ 18
The photgraph here is what I considered my desired outcome. What I did achieve here is a desried focus of the two stationary sides of the road, slight texture on the large building to the right, and an unexpected pattern of light along the left side of the road. The emergence of a police car from underneath with its siren lights on, accompanied by the long exposure and flashing pattern of light created this. What was also surprising was the trail of light gave insight into direction the cars were travelling. The lower aperture enable me to keep in focus the foreground due to the use of a light wide angle lens and the postion i was photographing from meant that a depth of field was exaggerated, further emphasised by the gradient of the road.
8 second exposure F/ 22 iso 800
Long Exposure Photography
In colloboration with two others Ville Niemi and Drew Willis we decided to take some long exposure night photograph. This was something I had undertaken the previous year in my independent practice. However rather than using light to create words and images I decided to use what I had begun to learn about the settings of the camera to create abstract representations of the scenery around ourselves. The photographs as such were a production of trial and error playing about with the ISO setting kelvin setting aperture and shutter speed, a variety of lenses were used to create these images notably 50mm f1.4 lens 18-55 mm lens and 12-24 mm lens. The following images came out exceptionally well using what I had learned before I took those ideas further and used longer exposure times, with lower aperture and ISO values.
22 second shutter speed f/5.0 ISO 400
What was becoming to be quite evident was that a reduction of a light source did not at all reduce the quality of photographs I had taken in fact it gave mysefl a more interesting environment to work in, taking some peculiar shots that gave me strange outcomes. We had decided early morning would be a good time to photograph various buildings and scenes. A new colour spectrum if you will was unfolding.
30 second shutter speed f/ 5.6 iso 800
30 second shutter speed f/ 4.5 iso 800
20 second shutter speed 5.0 aperture 400 iso
15 second shutter speed iso 400 aperture 5.0
The Girls Workshop
http://freeartlondon.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/papereaters3.jpg
Group Portraits & Working Method The girls are a colloboration between Andrea Blood and Zoe Sinclair. They are curators of various exhibitions that present self-portrait photography and performance. Themes that they explore count the numerous such as childhood, gender, englishness. They have produced exhibitions at various places around the UK such as the Tate Britain, Selfridges London, The Photographers gallery. (http://www.thegirls.co.uk/) Only one of the two presented the workshop. What She communicated to us was her working method. The importance of the colloboration that made them one artist. The effort needed to suffice and the impact of such an intense working relationship. We were set the simple task of creating a group photograph, as such there was no real limitations which gave us freedom to do as we wish in context of the brief, it was openended. We decided to book a studio in the university, and as such have control over the lighting in the area and effectively play with the light and use longer exposures something which I had been doing before with Ville.
We didnt really have a plan whatsoever other than to use whatever was around us and use various shutter speeds and settings. We used a tripod at first but found it was too restrctive and that the best photographs were coming from just being playful and holding the camera and fooling about. This is where these photographs had came from. We had conceptualised that we could perhaps present the way our persona would appear if presented as facial features. This however did not come out too well so instead just made faces and saw what happened. Again we found that due to the shutter speed the camera recorded travels of lights and its trails left.
Images present photographs recording movement of subject in various ways, including a light source (mobile phone).
The lab as a whole was a very different event as a whole compared to the previous year. Rather than an opportunity to do as we please to a degree, various speakers came to the university and presented their working method and what they did. Even though we was told we was only able to attend one workshop I intended to go to as many as possible. I ended up attending three; the girls workshop, hellecuar and Lewis and the Robert rubbish workshop. Three very different working methods but all emphasised the benefits of collaboration! The girls workshop tied in well with my photography and even then my preconceptions were that the workshop would not necessarily benefit me. It did gave me some great photographs, an opportunity to see someone else’s working method and be less over compulsive in my work, the best photographs and the ones which in turn resulted in Zoe Sinclair presenting us with numerous prints of hers were in fact the ones that were not orchestrated. This had a profound effect on me and as such impacted my opinion as a whole on the working method I set out to implicate. I do not need as it were be “anal” in my categorisation of images and work, I should just go and do it, shrug off misconceptions of bad work, or worry of critique and let the creativity flow. The hellecuar and Lewis invited us to create analogue physical prototypes of digital ideas. The first being a abstract alarm to get you out of bed. As a group consisting of various 1st years and Katrina Scott and Olly Whybrow we conceptualised a bed which when an alarm sounded dissolved and dropped you into a bath to wake you up. The exercise was enjoyable and the time limit forced us to be creative quicker and use only paper to present our ideas.
We then went onto to present two other ideas for varying concepts one being an application for a handheld device such as an iPad. We decided on a game of “Snake” in which the users had to move with the iPad and turn it keeping the snake on a path, Bluetooth would be used to dictate the area in which the snake can travel and if it came out of distance from a device the game would end. A main benefit from this workshop I found was that short and concise is better than over elobrationg when pitching, if you can shorten it down for the client they will not only receive the idea better but will understand it better too. Finally the Robert Rubbish Workshop was the one I had chosen as the workshop I intended to attend. It was brilliant rough drawings, collaboration with others who enjoy drawing, the day as a whole was a success. It invited me to take less care over my work and be less possessive. Each piece we created had input from others, the eventuality being a enormous corpse which everyone who attended made their mark on it, constantly switching around so each person took someone elses work and developed it in their style. This brief particularly influenced the work I created with Ville and Matt for the biography brief. As a whole the Lab was a success in my opinion in terms of what I gained from the week and what I learned. The next step is where I can take what I’ve learned and use it to develop my own work, in some respects I already have but may use their working methods to plan my future work out and also keep an eye on the work the speakers produce in the future and take influence from it. The fact Hellecuar and Lewis create open source work is brilliant and constitutes in my mind the morals of the pair and the political correctness regarding copyright. We have been given the tools to share, develop, interact and create pieces of media but are unable in some respects, its like giving someone a pencil and telling them they cant draw with it.
Print Processes with Terry King Arranged by Brian Whitehead we was invited to a workshop with Terry king, Terry king who can be regarded as the world authority on print processes. This particular workshop was of great importance to myself as it enabled me to come full circle in terms of knowledge ragrding photography. The term should not be interpreted as an omnipotent statement, I have learned about various settings that affect photographs, a process as such to create the picture you want, perfectly exposed. and now how to develop these prints maually. Terry took us through a brief history of photography. I recorded a list of notable scientists, designers, photographers I will intend to research further such as Famir, Fox Tolbort, Joh Hershaw to name a few. We spent the rest of the day watching a print be processed. What I took from this workshop was not only a resurgence to research print processes further but experiment with this and create my own prints. One notable point o be made is the patience and methodlogoy in this practice, it doesnt just happen, you have to follow a method to acheive desirable results.
Example of Terry Kings cyanotype prints
As a whole this semster in terms of Independent Practice I have been more precise in my practice and taken one particular practice, being more attentive to what I have been studying and as such have producing a larger output. However, I have some greviances Id like to share, one being the fact I had intended to look in detail into the Zone system manual and the idea of perceiving an image before its taken. I would have liked to develop some of the medium format images I took and process them in some of the methods shown by Terry King. This again further identifies with the lack of organisation I have in regards to the composition of my work. This as such has begun to be amended I am now keeping lists, categorising my work and was the actual intent of my independent practice. What I have gained from this unit is varying methods of practice to apply to my work and analogue processes I would not have learned about and was not aware of. For the future I intend to create negatives of the photographs I have taken digitally and analogue, enlarge them and create prints in various processes. Notable cyanotype as this process was the one print process that caught my eye the most.
This is not to say I will disregard other processes, I intend to create a dark room of my own and begun creating prints looking to create bodys of work in the future. I intend to further develop my knowledge in illustrator, after effects and indesign. Develop a style of presentation in my work akin to me, discriminating as such my work from others, I want it to be identifiable. In terms of after effects I would like to learn how to manipulate videos further, use the various effects possible on the film and create short films of what I am unsure of at this present time. In terms of illustrator I intend to take little sketches I have created and work created for example at the Robert Rubbish Workshop and take them into illustrator and develop them further. In contrast to last year I have neglected my drawing which one among several things I am unhappy about this semester, however I need to take note that I need to have a direction in my work and not get distracted by various practices and be more thorough and precise. I intend to continue to collaborate with others in my class and look to collaborate with others as this has not only developed my work further than I may have myself but has been an enjoyable experience as a whole. I also will look to begin to research in more depth into various artists suggested by tutors and others to compliment my work, as well as being inspiration if you will. I have lists upon lists of desginers, artists and photographers and am unsure where to start. The inclusion of this into independent practice may also benefit me in my studio practice, as it will give me a wider range of practices to identify with and I may draw connections between the two.