Slowly Disappearing into Nothing
Artist Analysis Disappearing slowly into nothing reminded me of substances diffusing into one another or particles dissolving; this particular shot taken by Mark Hartel at railway station I thought was very relative and portrayed strong imagery of people slowly disappearing, shows faintly the movement of what seems to be 2 people exiting the train. The black and white affect really adds to the imagery - makes everything seem slightly mysterious and suspicious, faint human figures walking out of a train door. The photograph depicts a very dim how captivating atmosphere; shows the process of movement but in one still shot - one of the things I really like about bulb setting shots though the background is clear and there's no sign or alter to it the humans in the shot however are deformed, blurred. In this photograph I think Mark Hartel is trying to show the dullness of railway stations, the black and white seems to be in low contrast the colors seem relative as in they in a way blend into one another. The Canal St sign in the background I think makes an interesting addition to the photograph makes the background seem more like an railway station and also I feel adds more of a storyline; we know where the picture was taken - where the person in the photograph has stopped off, maybe Markus wanted us to know.
Inspired by Mark Hartel this photograph of a moving car I took with the intention of the theme of process and movement strongly being conveyed. The car isn’t completely notable until you realize there is a road, Unlike Mark Hartels photograph the background is slightly blurred as well as the moving car. I took this photograph while driving in the opposite direction to the car to enhance the effect of movement in the photograph. The swooshed looking car seems to be disappearing into air; made of streaks of grays and whites the car is very faintly visible and I feel strongly fits into slowly disappearing into nothing. I gradient mapped the photograph to blend the collections of colors to combine the different fields in the photographs. To enhance the idea of slowly disappearing into the atmosphere I reduced the contrast which help give the car an more stronger transparent perception.
In this shot I attempted to get an angle where the rail looked as if it was ‘disappearing slowly into nothing’ with the help of the increase in contrast and darkening of the photograph I feel this concept was successful in this photograph. The depth of the rail way seems to be emphasized and has an impacting affect. The shiny silver of the rail blends to make a really attractive shiny silver. Personally I’m pleased with this photograph; I took in day light which isn’t obvious at all, Initial it took me a while to get the rail in subject to fade into complete darkness gently but I think this outcome works really well.
Here I attempted to angle myself so the end of the tracks isn’t seen. The track comes from behind my left side leading to a destination we know not of; this I thought in a way links to slowly disappearing. A trail curving slightly and eventually out of our view so the destination isn’t know to the audience. The length seemingly is rather long this also I thought gave the sense of slowly disappearing.
In this particular shot the motif of disappearing is portrayed more strongly through the actual subjects instead of the angles or positioning of the shot. The grave stone and cross in the shot symbolizes the death of someone; the cross which has been misplaced is in focus and the sense that nature will erode this stone and eventually this wooden cross is conveyed. The body underground as well without telling will eventually disappear into nothing. I gradient mapped the shot the photograph from an angle the concept is enhanced and the darkness is slowly reaching the stone and cross leaving it in complete darkness.
I quite like experimenting with the idea of disappearing slowly into nothing and another idea I thought I could bring out of this concept was that of decay and demolition; the idea of objects or even living things being broken drown either by nature or manually. This idea linked in well with breaking down and disappearing into nothing. In this particular shot I found a set of flowers in the park and found the arrangement quite interesting I noticed that the flowers closer to me were dying/dead and the flowers out of focus in the back of the shot were still vibrant and standing, this reminded a lot of the subject as in the bunch some had began to wither and die at one side were at the other side some are still living.
Here is an alley way by my house which I thought I could also experiment with as it was quite a damp gloomy day I thought the idea of a path was quite relevant. Here my idea was to get the leafs in focus to the left of the shot and the path in the rest of the right shot going into the distance completely blurred however still notable as a route/path that goes through far ahead. The path is completely soft but in contrast to the leafs which are very clear this collaboration I felt worked quite well to create an interesting photograph. The path curves out of the shot; I angled so the end isn’t visible.
This shot of a lit candle where I focused on the center of the candle where the fire is melting away the wax you can faintly see, the straw which is in complete focus has blotches of reddish orange. I positioned the candle to the bottom right of the photograph where the rest of the shot is in complete darkness; I want the audience attention to be on the lit straw in the centre of the jar and I thought turning of the light was a good idea as nothing else is in complete darkness. The light from the candle hits different segments of the jar as some appear more visible and other segments seem to disappear with the rest of the room.
Very different to the other shots, this isn’t of an object but of light through a tree which is completely out of focus, however the brightest light in the centre of the shot appears to be higher definition than the other spots of light circling it. The idea here is the further away from the centre the more transparent in most cases. Some of the spots are very strong and bright in comparison to others. The variety of light gentle colors collect together gracefully producing a beautiful shot. You almost get the sense that the spots were moving were actually they were only glistening.
st 1
DEVELOPMENTAL SET
Artist Analysis This picture was taken by Troy B. Marden; of a bridge slowly disappearing as it goes into the fog, fogs create a very interesting effect because as you go towards the fog your path becomes clearer and the fog seems to move back as you walk towards it so you always get an interesting effect on big objects slowly disappearing as it goes into it. The fog almost seems to be pitch white however there's faint darker patches in it which seems to be objects in the far distance, without any significant use depth of field the fog seems to make the objects look out of focus and the objects closer to the camera are in clear focus. Troy also uses black and white in higher contrast than Markus did, I think - the trees and branches seem to be very dark and stands out of the fog making it seem clearer and visible. This photograph I think fits into the slowly disappearing into nothing topic; the object in main subject of the photograph - the bridge, as if goes away form the camera slowly fades in with the background the fog and does so very faintly.
Using the same image I thought that it would make a vey nice acetate print as it would be very interesting to see the sections that ere made opaque in the print out. I thought of a way of combing both developmental pieces; previous print out and acetate, I found that my set up her really manipulates the audiences sense of distortion from some perspectives. I noticed while looking at this though it is a flat image our eyes are vey similar with the lens of a camera, with very similar characteristics, you when focusing on an seemingly closer imagine loose a sense of definition of everything else on other planes.
In this development I incorporated text into the concept; the outcome looked to me like a form of collision in the centre as the original shot was of a moving car the addition of text of the text clashing in the center also like the image duplicates disappearing into one another. Contrastingly instead of conveying an slowly disappearing effect the combination has an very impacting sense of clash and strong collision. The basic colors of black white and different tones of grey add to the theme of disappearance as It relates to opacity and ghost. The image distorted looking figure in the center plays a strong part of subject however very unreadable.
Playing with perspective I distorted the angle of the shot by bending the acetate, unfortunately a very small amount was transparent so I wasn’t able to play with contrasting backgrounds as I intended. To produce a sense of disappearance at the end of the tracks I burnt through the acetate this in a way created mis-proportion as it appear to be part of the original shot. The bent section interestingly adds to the descending appearance of the tracks disappearing into nothing.
Here I attempted to tackle from an angle where I could emphasis the sense of disappearing tracks in the distance, The angle also made the shot look like it was taken from an birds eye view; however the shot actually is standing up on a surface and I took from an diagonal above angle. Strangely the bottom of the shot really does look like it’s closest though it’s a flat photograph again I think this shows the significant angle which portrayed descending in the shot.
Emphasizing the idea of burning I blacked out the background slightly, focusing on the flames; the reds and oranges. From the initial candle shot as you can see I’ve distorted the image using a photocopier machine I stretched the candle by following the light as it copied. The filter I used on top of this shot of this photograph gave an grainy almost burnt after effect which strangely distorted the subject, however successfully focusing the audience on the more feasible sections; flames.
FINAL SET
Combining an initial and developmental shot together I think I’ve produced an interesting concept of movement and disappearing in that sense, the shot of the moving car I initially I had I’ve developed from symmetrically to the addition of words. The idea in this picture was to show movement into an distance however the sense of proportion and mostly perception has been distorted. Unable to manipulate the image so it actually looks to be riding on the tracks I placed along to side to following the path, also I attempted to give the feel it’s shrinking towards to distance a sense of descending into the burnt wholes representing no where; disappearing into nothing.
Here simply duplicating the image and joining it into one it formed a interesting sense of clashing and symmetry. The cross becomes more deformed and becomes overlapped with sections of the grass, the centre section of the cross becomes slightly fragmented from the rest of the cross which interestingly almost raises up from the rest of the shot; also an peculiar structure. The above section appears to be stretched out to the far sides into the darkness gradient mapped effected I added to emphasize disappearing into nothing. The grass initially scattered looking due to the duplication now appears strangely orderly and formed when you really observe the section.
Similarly to the last shot her I duplicated and combined the image, this idea I thought strengthened the idea is it creates an formulated centre as you can see. Representing nothing and emptiness the centre of the shot here similarly to the last shot creates an perception that enhances the theme. Here the clashing images in the centre form a black shape that remind me of an cathedral portraying an idea of entrance of even exit however behind this door is complete void and emptiness indicated once again by the black. The leafs closest to the camera really add to the idea of far in the distance as you really see the differences in plane and definition between the different distances.
This photograph was taken in the south of Wales by Leon west; the upstairs of an abandoned warehouse which seems to be gradually disappearing into nothing . A strong sense of decay and erosion is portrayed from the interesting combinations of colors in the shot of browns and greens, unfortunately I didn’t take up the idea of decaying and eroding buildings as I initially intended as this particular shot you do get a strong sense of gradually changing state. Interestingly the combination of colors camouflages the appearance of the stairs looking from distance. the dark browns colliding with the pealing green of the walls strengthen the imagery of disappearances. Slowly disappearing into nothing is vaguely represented in this shot taken by Leon west as the walls do seem to be rapidly decaying from their original state.