Final evaluation

Evaluation

• How has your research influenced the images that you have created (name some influential artist that inspired you and explain their impact on your work).
• What new technical skills have you developed and how has this impacted on your work 
• technical (learning new techniques in camera operation, shooting, studio lighting, compositional techniques, etc.) 
• Has the way you take photographs changed/improved.
• In what way have you demonstrated your ability to experiment (computer experiments, physical experiments, etc.)
• Is your work is developing in a particular direction e.g. abstract, compositional, etc.)
• In what areas of your work were you most successful in what areas were you the least successful.

This was my first year doing photography and component one shows my progress and journey of gaining knowledge about image taking, During this time I have looked at many photographers and their different intakes on photography and how they capture this uniqueness, by researching these artists they have very much influenced most of my work because they gave me different ideas and just gave me a starter point and then I used that to expand that idea. For example; when starting portraiture I was not interested and did not have any ideas as to what I should do and what should I get people to do - so in my work you can see I chose Thomas Ruff. Thomas Ruff inspired my portraiture work because his idea was very basic and easily achievable so I thought "I can do something similar to this", in my final edits you can clearly see where the inspo came from and I have shown his work in my work. 

When it comes to actually taking a photo, at the start I did not know how to manually focus or change most of the settings - I was very much clueless as too how a camera worked, but now I have learnt these basic skills and I have expanded this by experimenting with the settings. Also, I have learnt new skills on photoshop which I found very interesting and fun to just mess around and experiment with the different filters and ways to edit. The two images in this section show one of Thomas Ruffs' photographs (left) and my photograph (right) - this comparison shows that I was clearly inspired by Thomas Ruff when doing portraiture. They both have a colourful background and the faces are quite plain. 

As I talked about my camera skills and knowledge improving, this relates to the improvement of my images aswell. My images have definitely improved, even if it is just the slightest improvement. From my images in the formal element LINE to my LANDSCAPE PORTFOLIO I have concentrated on making things look more professional and I actually started trying to take proper, nice looking images. I am still attempting to make the composition of my images to improve - but I can only do this by either using a tripod or setting the camera in something to reduce the shakiness.  
I have demonstrated my ability to experiment by using a lot of decisive moment and just photography whatever appears in front of me. Also, in my portraiture I worked on telling my subject what to do and how I wanted them to look. For my computer experimentation, on photoshop I have tried to find different ideas and think "what can I do to make this different" - I have shown this in my COMPOSITE IMAGE, in my final edits I have shown a wide range of editing and I have managed to change the image completely and made it my own. I feel my work has no specific style, as I am still experimenting and deciding what I want to do - but from my most recent work it is mostly compositional, as I enjoyed the compositional work and also my LANDSCAPE PORTFOLIO (where I put a polaroid image onto a landscape). I enjoy the compositional aspect of photography because I can expand my creativity and be pleased with an outcome of my final product. 
During this component I found it difficult to start of my ideas and find things that I wanted to photograph because I wasn't that invested in photography yet. As I wasn't invested in this subject I didn't put much effort into my photographs at the beginning of the year which made me want to improve and show a difference in my work in the future - which I feel I have done. Also, I found the writing part of photography a struggle as I felt I could not write enough and I did not put that much detail in, which is why at one point I went back through my work and added sentences and paragraphs on.

Personal photoshoot - LANDSCAPE

Landscape independent shoots

Independent shoot 1

Independent shoot 2

    

Composite image

Composite image

Definition & Theory

Digital compositing: is the process of digitally assembling multiple images to make a final image, typically for print.

"Dada"

An art movement of the European avant-garde in the early 20th century. The Dada movement consisted of artists who rejected the logic, reason, and aestheticism of modern capitalist society, instead expressing nonsense, irrationality, and anti-bourgeois protest in their works. a common story is that the Austrian artist Richard Huelsenbeck plunged a knife at random into a dictionary, where it landed on "dada", a colloquial French term for a hobby horse. Others note that it suggests the first words of a child, evoking a childishness and absurdity that appealed to the group. Still others speculate that the word might have been chosen to evoke a similar meaning (or no meaning at all) in any language, reflecting the movement's internationalism.

                                                                                                               

RAOUL HAUSMANN - "The Art Critic"

This image is of an art critic who is looking angry and frowns upon art and how it expresses emotion. Behind the critics neck is a bank note (money), Raoul wanted this to show how he is controlled by capitalist forces. To some people this may have looked like nonsense as they would have just looked at it and thought nothing of it, but there is reason behind this image.

HANNAH HOCH - "Flucht" (Flight)

This image shows a person with half a monkey face and a bird with a mans face. This image may not have a significant meaning behind it, Hannah Hoch may have just seen something or may have been inspired by something and decided to produce this image.








Composite editing - test

Steps:
1- File, open images that you want (the duck and the bridge - out on two different pages)
2-Use the selection tool and select the background of the duck - inverse - edit - copy
3-Go onto the other layer (page) - command b (pastes duck)
4-command j (layers the image)
5-command t (makes objects larger or smaller)
6-Create mask (square with circle)
7-Brush tool - brush colour has to be black

Research of artist

Jerry Uelsmann was born in Detroit on June 11, 1934. He began teaching photography at the University of Florida in Gainesville in 1960. He became a graduate research professor of art at the university in 1974, and is now retired from teaching. He lives in Gainesville, Florida. His photographs are in the permanent collections of many museums worldwide, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Chicago Art Institute and many more.

Jerry Uelsmann uses composite art to make objects look unrealistic. His images are very strange but also interesting to look at, because they are 'out of the box' and are unexpected. The first image is of a boat on the sea, it is as if Jerry has selected a section of the sky and sea, turned it up side down and made it in the shape of a circle to emphasise the change, and composited a boat in the centre. The second image is similar to the first, as he has emphasised a square section of his image - but he has darkened it and has made it look like its floating above the sea by making the square 3D and putting a shadow underneath it. The last image is of a highlighted cloud in the centre of this photograph as if it is blinding. I like all of these ideas and I will definitely be attempting these edits on photoshop.

Editing my composite image

This is the image I started of with, this was taken towards the entrance of school lane near the greyhound pub. This graffiti has been on this wall for a while and this statement was very appealing to me because it just is very heart warming to whoever looks at it, which is what was intended by the artist behind this graffiti. The first thing I did was use the quick-selection tool and selected the sentence, then I copied what I selected. Next I started using the spot-healing brush tool and started to get rid off the sentence so I can then paste the sentence back on and rotate it. To rotate it I used the keys 'command+T'. After rotating it I turned the filter to black and white, and changed the sliders to the settings I wanted each colour to look like. I then used the burn and dodge tool (did not screenshot) to just brighten up the wall and then darken it more around the words. Next I used the curves tool to just highlight some points in the photograph.

The final edit:

I am pleased with this final outcome as it looks abstract and different to something I would normally produce. This came out how I wanted it too be and it looks appealing to the eye. There is no real meaning behind this image or why I have done this, this idea just came to my mind when I saw this photo and I just did it. I believe I was slightly inspired by Jerry Uelsmann as his work is very abstract and interesting, so I took this concept and made it my own.

My composite images