This unit of work is called environments, we will be doing a number of tasks revolving around landscape and composition to develop our photography skills.
Looking Up - Half Term Homework
For this task I decided to visit bank in the evening and photography the multitude of buildings in the urban paradise, surrounded by a plethora of modern architecture which created interesting shapes and angles whilst working with the rule of thirds, balancing, triangles and levels.
These were some of my favourite images that I had taken
And these were some edits that I made playing around with the hue/colour balance and black and white/levels
Andy Yeung is a photographer keen on landscape, architecture and aerial photography. A decade has past since he picked up his very first camera in 2005. As a born-and-raised Hong Konger, he learned to cull inspiration from the familiar especially when coming up with shots of this over photographed city. Capturing great moments and transforming what he's seen into something new and artistic is a rewarding experience.
Reflected Image
Using the work of Andy Yeung for inspiration we had to create a series of mirrored images from the 'Look Up' images you took during the holiday. Upload all images taken to weebly and then load your favourite image into photoshop. Once we had done this we followed the steps to create a mirror image.
What went well in this assignment is I created good abstract images and images with different compositions with bold lines leading you eye to the center of the images. I also created GIF's and took screenshots clearly showing my process. Even better if I edited the pictures using colour or hue editing tools.
Framing the Environment
When looking at an environment we are often distracted by the many different parts that make up the scene. We can miss interesting details that are right in front of us. Today's tasks aim to make you look closer and create more interesting compositions within your work.
In this project ,“Zuma” he has described being interested in the relation between real artworks and representations of them, and the issues of the natural and the artificial. Divola said "I attempted ... to develop a practice in which there could be no distinction between the document and the original."In his series of photographs from 1977, he used deserted houses on Zuma Beach on and covered their walls in graffiti He photographed the ocean from the house's interior through windows and cracks.
Wild Concrete - Romain Jacquet Lagreze
Focusing solely on the phenomena of trees sprouting from residential buildings in Hong Kong, Wild Concrete compares the living conditions between plants and humans. Such peculiar sight of ‘wild concrete’ is by no means exclusive. They can be found everywhere in the heart of the city: roots spiralling down the external pipes of a Mong Kok loft; shoots lurking behind a window frame of an apartment in Central hills; or branches spreading across a residence in Sham Shui Po, collapsing it from the inside out.
Second Response
For this second response we were asked to recreate the images using the inspiration of Lagreze to work off. We went to a different area of the school to take these and we were working with different textures, mediums and layers.
Sun Ji
Sun Ji, a Shanghai-born artist whose photo collages suggest a nuanced view of the city’s past and present. A curator says the 29-year-old artist’s two-part “Memory City” series is “part cubist collage and part hyperreal landscape.” In one work from his “Memory City I” series, Sun juxtaposes black-and-white photographs of factories, smokestacks, and industrial errata. Glimpsed from across an art gallery, the kitchen-window-sized collage resembles a real photograph. But move closer, and the skewed lines of perspective and improbably dense arrangement of buildings reveal a whimsical critique of China’s late-twentieth-century economic “miracle.”
Anastasia Savinova
Anastasia Savinova is a russian-born artist living in Sweden. A background in architectural studies led her to create these large scale photo collages. Each collage is comprised of multiple layers of photographs shot in various European capital cities.
Layered Landscape
First response:
My first response wasn't the kind of response I wanted to create so I used new pictures and different backgrounds to creat an image is was more pleased with
Second responses :
Physical Layered Lanscape
I then used my second response as inspiration for my physical response. I used building from my area like Alexandra Palace and buildings from the center of London.
Development - Wild Concrete
Romain Jacquet-LagrezeFocusing solely on the phenomena of trees sprouting from residential buildings in Hong Kong, Wild Concrete compares the living conditions between plants and humans. Such peculiar sight of ‘wild concrete’ is by no means exclusive. They can be found everywhere in the heart of the city: roots spiralling down the external pipes of a Mong Kok loft; shoots lurking behind a window frame of an apartment in Central hills; or branches spreading across a residence in Sham Shui Po, collapsing it from the inside out.
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For this project I am aiming to create images inspired by this artist. I will try to achieve these images by visiting the pergola in Hampstead Heath Parkland Walk, and Abney Park Cemetery in order to find plants taking back their land and fighting for survival.
Abney Park Cemetery
Hampstead Heath Pergola
Parkland Walk
I have chosen this section as I think the juxtaposition between the nature and the statues and stone is really interesting and I like that you can see the nature fighting back against the taking over of their natural environment.
I then made a mood board of my ideas and inspirations
I subsequently at a shoot at school did a pre-shoot at school to use as basic inspiration and starting to format ideas.
Wild Concrete First Home Response
For this response I visited Hampstead Heath Pergola and photographed this stunning, historic architecture.
The history of the Pergola goes back to 1904 when Lord Leverhulme, a wealthy philanthropist and lover of landscape gardening, purchased a large town house on the Heath called “The Hill”. Over the following year Lord Leverhulme expanded his estate by acquiring the surrounding land, and with this new found space he decided to build a legacy; his Pergola. He wanted it to be the setting for extravagant Edwardian garden parties, while at the same time being a place where his family and friends could spend long summer evenings enjoying the spectacular gardens.To turn this idea into reality Lord Leverhulme enlisted the help of Thomas Mawson, the world famous landscape architect, and construction on the Pergola began in 1905. Unfortunately, after Lord Leverhulme’s death the Pergola went into a slow decline, and to this day is still a shell of its former opulence. However, what it lacks in sparkle and shine it more than makes up for in atmosphere. Today the Pergola and Hill gardens are distinctive, moody and eerie. The sense of faded grandeur is everywhere, and even with the recent restorations it hasn’t lost this unique character.
The history of the Pergola goes back to 1904 when Lord Leverhulme, a wealthy philanthropist and lover of landscape gardening, purchased a large town house on the Heath called “The Hill”. Over the following year Lord Leverhulme expanded his estate by acquiring the surrounding land, and with this new found space he decided to build a legacy; his Pergola. He wanted it to be the setting for extravagant Edwardian garden parties, while at the same time being a place where his family and friends could spend long summer evenings enjoying the spectacular gardens.To turn this idea into reality Lord Leverhulme enlisted the help of Thomas Mawson, the world famous landscape architect, and construction on the Pergola began in 1905. Unfortunately, after Lord Leverhulme’s death the Pergola went into a slow decline, and to this day is still a shell of its former opulence. However, what it lacks in sparkle and shine it more than makes up for in atmosphere. Today the Pergola and Hill gardens are distinctive, moody and eerie. The sense of faded grandeur is everywhere, and even with the recent restorations it hasn’t lost this unique character.
These were my favourite shots of the day:
On reflection, I really like the contrast of the plants against the stone of white and grey. I also love the pictures with elegant statues or architecture wrapped/engulfed in nature and plants almost like there being consumed by it. To further this I will shoot in other locations with people in my shots too ( Abney park cemetery and the parkland walk ) and I will shoot in school with previously made sculptures and ivy or other plants.
Additionally I would like to use some of the photographers I researched in the start of toolkit Tim Walker focusing on the etherial beauty of people and statues in nature.
Additionally I would like to use some of the photographers I researched in the start of toolkit Tim Walker focusing on the etherial beauty of people and statues in nature.
Tim Walker rose to prominence in the late 90s with his highly imaginative and fantastical photographs inspired by his love of fairy tales. Since then he has photographed for Vogue, Vanity Fair and many more.
Development Shoot Two - Abney Park Cemetery
These were my favourite images I took from the shoot at Abney Park Cemetery :
These were some edits I created on photoshop during a lesson :
Next I am planning to print and distress these images to create a ghostly, fragile, etherial, kind of cracked feeling and creating images that make my models appear to be part of the environments landscape.
I used sand/sugar paper to distress the images to create a ghostly affect and created layers with ivy found in my local environment.
Further Development
Artist and me
This image style is largely inspired by Deborah Turbeville, an American fashion photographer becoming a photographer in the 1970's whose ghostly style even in high fashion magazines really stood out. I was trying to recreate this effect by having a very elegant silk dress in a forest setting. I also took the picture through the lense of a disposable camera which adds to the vintage feel of the image
For this version of my photography i used a higher contrast but still lower brightness and saturation to create this high contrasting affect between the white of the dress and the darkness of the scenery around it to recreate the affects of my reference photo on the right hand side which similarly uses plants and ivy to contrast the light parts of the image.
For the images incorporating the frame i was taking inspiration from Tim Walkers "fairy tales" as well as his images with gold frames and greenery. In really like the experimental nature of Tim Walker by using very delicate looking clothing which are starkly contrasting to the forest settings. I tried to emulate the light shining on the frame as well to create an further separation between the framed area and the forest
Final piece
To present my final piece i wanted to do a collage and landed on the idea of a film strip. I edited it on photoshop using rotaion tools and layering to produce this.
I really like that my final piece show the delicate relationship of man made and nature but in two different ways. One is more eery, ghostlike and haunting focusing on artists like Deborah Turbeville and one more etherial and make believe more inspired by the work of Tim Walker.