Since I had chosen my final images it was time to play around with them in photoshop to see if I could manipulate them in any way to improve them. I was influenced a lot by Nan Goldin and after looking at her photographs I realised that they're very gritty and have good colouration to them. I really wanted to try and adjust the colours slightly in Photoshop, whilst also messing around with other features and seeing what I could create.
Brightness
The first thing I thought to adjust would be the brightness of the image. This didn't really work that much however because of the lighting I had used in my room, it made the image appear very over saturated and I didn't really like the outcome.
Levels
Levels
Messing around with the levels was really interesting as it made certain parts of the image appear really dark and shadowy, whilst not really affecting others. I really liked the outcome of the second image, however once again I thought about printing and how it might appear too dark for the viewer. Also, because this image was taken with a different composition to the others I couldn't achieve the same effect on all of them, and I didn't want them to look very different as they wouldn't match as a series.
Exposure
Playing with the exposure was very self explanatory. It just made the images too dark and I didn't really like the outcome.
Auto Colour
Applying the auto colour feature had potential, however it made the images appear really blue, harsh and almost cold. As I was thinking about intimacy I preferred a warmer look to the image so I didn't want to make the skin look really washed out and harsh.
Colour Balance
Colour Balance
Adjusting the colour balance was the best manipulation I chose to do. I started off really extreme and put the cyen tones right down to -100, which made the image too blue as you can see in the top image. However, once I adjusted this to -50 I was really pleased with how it made the images look. It kept a warmth to the photographs, but also looked very Nan Goldin inspired, with the tones being more warm but all matching with an underlying colour match. I was really pleased with how this turned out and chose to apply this effect to my final three images.
From doing some artist research on Nan Goldin, I decided I wanted to take a very candid approach to the series, still including this idea of intimacy. I went back and looked over the work of Kiele Twarowski, because she was one of the first artists to really inspire me for this project. Combining the ideas of these two artists I realised I want to capture the unconventional side of intimacy, with the portraits being of the body. However, to make it interesting I wanted to include the aspect of a mirror, as I really liked the piece of work I saw by Kiele Twarowski where she used a mirror to take a photograph of her body. I wanted to use interesting and somewhat darker lighting in my photographs, inspired by Nan Goldin, as they would be taken in my bedroom and darker lighting is more suggestive. This meant I had to take some test shots to make sure I had my camera settings correct in order to get good exposures.
Annoyingly I didn't write down the settings I had my camera set to for each of these test shots. Although I really liked the darkness and tones of the first image, I thought logically about how it might turn out when printed and decided it probably wasn't the best idea to have such dark images.
Once I had the settings correct I proceeded to do the shoot, and came out with three images I liked the best for my series:
Self Portrait / 9:32pm
Finn / 9:49pm
Intimacy / 10:02pm
I'm actually really pleased with my final images. I took a lot of photos for this shoot but these were my three favourites. I really like the effect of the mirror, because it almost makes it seem like you're getting an inside look, almost secretly. I think these images are intimate, but not in a sexual way, which was what I was trying to achieve.
I didn't want to just include myself in my photographs and I also wanted to make my images have a different, more interesting element than just simply taking them of the skin, which is why I thought it would be interesting to play around with the mirror.
I chose to take the photographs on the bed because I liked how you could play around with the sheets and bunch them up to create a more candid look.
Alice and I have decided to work together to make our experimental film, as we worked together on the Digital Materialisation mini film and really felt like we could build on this to create a better version for our final experimental film. The film is to be developed around the concept of Transgression, so the first thing I did was look up the definition of this for some inspiration
an act that goes against a law, rule, or code of conduct; an offence.
"I'll be keeping an eye out for further transgressions"
Thinking about it's context within experimental media, we related this to media or films that don't follow the same rules and codes as average films you would see today. We looked at some examples of films that would fit under the concept of transgression in our sessions with Anne and a few of them related to the short film we made together previously, such as Berlin Horse, Black Ice, Pipilotti's Mistakes etc.
Here were some of our inspirations:
Berlin Horse - Malcolm Le Grice
We drew inspiration from this film because of the colouring, Alice and I have a fascination with colour and how it can be manipulated to create different effects. We want to use lots of saturated colours, this film certainly has that. We also liked the repetition of the clips and music as it was almost hypnotising and that's what we want to try and do with our film but in a more digital way.
Black Ice - Stan Brakhage
This was another inspiration of ours as it used such beautiful colour saturation and layering We really enjoyed the calmness of it and the hypnotic feel as it draws you in more and more. Again with the same theme of Berlin Horse, we enjoyed the repetition as it created a sense of known and security and that is something we could think about playing with in our film.
Pipilotti Rist - (Entlastungen) Pipilottis Fehler
We were shown this piece in class and instantly we found inspiration. The colour, framing, lighting and all of it we enjoyed. We especially enjoyed the colour and the interesting underscore as we also want to play with music and manipulate it and make it sound as uncomfortable as the visuals. We both really enjoyed this piece and took notes on how striking the colours were and may try and explore them too.
The Concept Our concept is to work from the idea of materialisation within the digital world, as it was something we enjoyed looking at before. Thinking about the idea of transgression, we want to look at ways in which we can break the boundaries of what a traditional film should be, not following necessary codes or 'rules' of film. The Treatment Theme Thinking about materialisation in digital film, looking at examples such as Berlin Horse and Pipilotti's Mistakes Visual and Editing Style Quick cuts and lots of glitching, bright colours to play against your eyes and create almost a digital meltdown on the screen Inspirational Artists and Filmmakers Malcom Le Grice Pipilotti Nam June Paik Artists we have explored independently
Intended audience and mode of viewing I feel this film's intended audience would be for young adults to fully grown adults. This is due to the intensity of the film and viewing which might make it overwhelming for a younger audience. Plus the abstraction of it all may be a bit hard to follow for a younger audience. I personally feel young to fully grown adults would be able to connect with the film more as they have grown up around technology and it shaping our lives today. The intended mode of viewing I think would be for the film to be screen in a dark room with the film playing on the ceiling. The audience would have to lie down and there for be below the 'Voice of God' playing through the film. The audience would subconsciously submit to the film. Also the vulnerability of lying on your back allows the audience to be absorbed.
I have always found myself looking at the work of Nan Goldin, whether that be for a project specifically or just because her work intrigues me. I love almost all of the photographs I've seen of her work, as I think it's really raw and I love her candid style. In relation to my project, the work of Nan Goldin really inspires me because she loves to take candid photographs of the people around her, capturing very real moments in their lives and in hers. She also takes a lot of self portraits, and very unconventional portraits of her friends. I have looked at her book 'The Other Side' before and I love the style in which she took those photographs. It features all images of Drag Queens and the lifestyles they lived at the time, showing their most intimate moments in their lives. The people that Goldin worked with said they were extremely fond of the way she portrayed them, almost innocently, rather than just exploiting their lifestyles for her own gain.
Self-Portrait in Blue Bathroom, London, 1980
This particular photograph really stood out to me as it is a really unconventional way to take a self-portrait. Although you can't really see the person in the photograph, you can notice them in the mirror and there is a lot of focus on the location of that person, which makes the photograph really interesting in my opinion. I really love the bright colour of the blue walls and the cut of the bath that just makes it into the frame, it makes the image really interesting.
Nan and Brian in bed, 1983
This is another photograph by Nan Goldin that I really love, because I think it does well in capturing the relationship between the two people, whist giving off a feeling of intimacy because we are looking into their private life. I also really love the lighting and colours in this photograph as the natural light reflects on the walls, really bringing out the yellow tones.
Untitled, Boston, 1990
There were so many images of Nan Goldin's work that I wanted to show, however this particular photograph stood out to me, so I wanted to include it.
Something about this image really interests me, maybe it's that you can't clearly see the persons face, but it still looks like a portrait in some way. I really love the lighting in this photograph as I think it brings something different to the composition, almost splitting it in half. It keeps the image interesting that we can't make out the persons face, but you can tell that they feel comfortable around Nan, as they seem pretty calm and relaxed.
I really think that the work of Nan Goldin is beautiful, even though it shows a gritty and not so glamorous lifestyle. The ideas behind each image are really personal to her, and capturing all her memories in a candid way is really beautiful, something I do myself with my friends and family too.
I want to look into her style further and let it influence my shoots, hoping something positive will come from it and I will be happy with the outcome of my images. http://www.artnet.com/artists/nan-goldin/
I went into my second shoot just thinking about all the artists I'd looked at, and with an idea of testing out some different compositions for my photographs. I had to set the camera up on the bed beside me, and as I couldn't really see the framing that well, as I was taking pictures of myself, I sort of had to guess what I would end up capturing.
Ribs
This photo above is probably my favourite out of these three. I really like it because it captures the curves of my ribs and the shadows on my skin from the lighting. I'm not too fond of the background as it has a lot of different things in it, whereas I'd prefer to just have a plain wall so you aren't distracted from the main focus.
Face
I really like how close up I managed to get this image, and because of the flash it made my face really show up, showing all the marks and blemishes on my skin. I like it, but I don't at the same time. I think it makes the photo rather intrusive because it's so close up, but I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing. I don't really like the composition of this photo, and I wish I could relate it more to the example of Nan Goldin's work where she takes an image of a face but has the shadow of the camera over it.
Back
I like this photo because it just captures the skin really nicely. I would have preferred to have been lying on a white sheet because then it wouldn't make the image appear so dark, however because of the dark sheets it does make my skin stand out and makes it more clear.
These were the three best photos from the shoot, but even still I don't really like how they turned out. I am planning on doing another shoot with me and another person so that I can have some variation in the images.
We looked at an example of the work of Aphex Twin in our sound sessions. I had listened to some of his work before but never really thought about it in detail before we began our experimental sound workshops.
Richard David James, known by his stage name Aphex Twin, is an Irish-born English electronic musician and composer. He is most known for producing work that fits under the genres of acid and techno music.
The intro to his song Come to Daddy was particularly interesting to me as it is very techno but also not very consistent.
I really liked the intro to this song as it features a lot of different sounds that almost build up tension for the song to kick in. It sounds very futuristic and isn't very consistent in the sounds being used which is something different. The pace starts off really slow too, almost making you wait on edge. Then the voice kicks in, almost sounding like the song is glitching, or being played through really awful speakers as it's very fuzzy. The pace of the music then picks up a lot and the track gets very repetitive in the background, creating a significant beat.
I like how his use of voices is very experimental, not allowing the voice to be too clear.
We were also shown one of his tracks, Gwarek, in one of our sessions. This track comes across very experimental and features a lot of interesting sounds which really drew me to it.
I like how the track doesn't really have a clear structure, it's very all over the place which is something I wanted to convey in my own experimental sound, since I think it would be very fitting for my chosen image.
I'm going to take a lot of influence from the work of Aphex Twin and hopefully apply this when creating my own experimental sound on Adobe Audition.
I am excited to just simply mess around with the effects on the software and see what I can come up with and hopefully create a sound that reflects my chosen image.
Today I sat down with Leah to have a discussion about my ideas for the portrait project so far. I discussed how I want my idea to be thinking about intimacy and the identity of the body. I showed Leah the first shoot I've done, which was literally a look at skin and a focus on close up images. This shoot was purely to think about the idea of skin as a mean of identity and the markings that are individual to us. We discussed how it is a good shoot to start with, but now I need to further progress to take more images that will fit in a series, thinking about the idea of identity entirely. I want to go back and look at my artist research, maybe look at some new artists and do some planning for my next shoots which will hopefully bring my project together. Leah suggested to look at artist Corinne Day, who has taken a lot of unconventional portraits that reveal a lot of skin, but look very intimate as they are not so polished and perfect.
photography by Corinne Day
photography by Corinne Day
I also feel to look at the work of Nan Goldin, thinking about the idea of gritty images and the way she composes her photographs.
From this tutorial I want to go away and look at these two artists, also review the other inspirations I've looked at in the past, and do a few more shoots to hopefully take some final images I am happy with.
For our experimental sound piece we had to pick an image to inspire our work. I made a blog post including all the images we could choose from previously, but I hadn't made a decision on what image I wanted to use.
I have since decided that I want my influence to be Obnoxious Liberals by Jean-Michel Basquiat.I've added the image below for reference.
Obnoxious Liberals (1982) by Jean-Michel Basquiat
acrylic, crayon on canvas, 172.7 x 259cm
"Obnoxious Liberals shows Basquiat art at its most political, painted as a direct challenge to the world of rich art collectors that Basquiat had become immersed in. The rich social scene made Jean-Michel Basquiat very uncomfortable and it surfaced in images such as Obnoxious Liberals, with dollar signs and Not for Sale slogans appearing, along with the cowboy hat representing capitalism and exploitation. The figure on the left is Samson and his positioning is also a representation of the exploitation of African people."
While it is common in the contemporary art scene for street artists to successfully combine street art and studio based work, Jean-Michel Basquiat is one of the most spectacular examples of the crossover from street art into the world of fine art. It is clear that Basquiat had a true and unique talent, beginning life as a street artist and then taking that energy and spirit into his studio work while addressing many social issues. This was my favorite image out of all the options as I really like how there is so much going on, with not too many colors. It has a clear color theme, and after reading about the piece I can understand what Basquiat was trying to achieve through this image. I think it would be interesting to create a soundscape that represents this image, as it has a messy look to it, which would be interesting to emphasize through sound. I'm thinking about recording sounds that are loud and repetitive but also fairly basic, making them easy to edit and manipulate in audition to create a totally new sounding recording. I want to express the idea of this scattered imagery through sound, which inspires me to think about fluctuating pitches and effects. Articles I looked at regarding Jean-Michel Basquiat: http://www.theartstory.org/artist-basquiat-jean-michel.htm
For my initial shoot for this project I decided to take inspiration from all the artists I've looked at, and focus on capturing skin. I took a few pictures and I'm generally quite pleased with the outcome and how they look, although I think I can come a long way before I think about what I want my final images to look like.
Primarily for this shoot I focused on extreme close ups and capturing skin on skin. I really like the ECU's of just skin, with not much else in the background and I really like the way it appears.
I also took some photos of my hair, which was really interesting under the light. I just used the lighting in my bedroom, and had the flash on for some of the extreme close up's to capture the pigment of the skin.
My progression from this shoot will be to look at taking pictures of skin under different lighting and maybe the use of gels?
I also want to go back and review some of the artists I looked at first and see what other inspiration I can take from their images and how I can incorporate it into my own idea of identity, thinking about intimacy.
Our project for last week was to create a mini film on the theme of 'Digital Materialisation'. I collaborated with my peer Alice to make our film.
We decided to take inspiration from the experimental film 'Berlin Horse' by having repetitive audio and flashing images of different colours. We filmed lighting from a TV on our faces, and also some images on the TV. Then edited them together flickering so create a glitch effect almost. Using all still images I didn't know how well the actual film would turn out, but because of the flickering of the images it flowed really well, and worked with the audio. The colours were really saturated and bright which emphasised the experimental aspects. We also used glitch art to edit all the images before we added them to the film.
Whilst thinking about the idea of intimacy within photographs, I came across Pixy Liao's series called Experimental Relationship. The images were really interesting to look at, and work really well as a series. I love how she has captured the instant relationship between her two subjects through just simplistic imagery.
16x20 Good (Experimental Relationship) by Pixy Liao
Pinch Nipple (Experimental Relationship) by Pixy Liao
Scarf (Experimental Relationship) by Pixy Liao
Under the presentation of these images on her site, Liao talks about what the project means.
Experimental Relationship (2007- Now) As a woman brought up in China, I used to think I could only love someone who is older and more mature than me, who can be my protector and mentor. Then I met my current boyfriend, Moro. Since he is 5 years younger than me, I felt that whole concept of relationships changed, all the way around. I became the person who has more authority & power. One of my male friends even questioned how I could choose a boyfriend the way a man would choose a girlfriend. And I thought, "Damn right. That’s exactly what I’m doing, & why not!" I started to experiment with this relationship. I would set up all kinds of situations for Moro and I to perform in the photos. My photos explore the alternative possibilities of heterosexual relationships. They question what is the norm of heterosexual relationships. What will happen if man & woman exchange their roles of sex & roles of power. Because my boyfriend is Japanese, and I am Chinese, this project also describes a love and hate relationship. This project is an ongoing project which grows with our real relationship but is never meant to be a documentation.
I really appreciate how Liao has used her own relationship as the subject of her project, making it more personal to her. The images have really nice compositions and the colours are simple, yet vibrant. I love the look of these images because although there is not a lot going on in the frame, you can clearly understand the relationship between the two people, and take a lot from the images just at first glance.
I looked at some of the other projects Liao has worked on, and I really love her style of photography. She did a project called Memphis, Tennessee which doesn't really have complete focus on the photography of people, however the images are still stunning and the colours are bold, bringing life to the images. I think Pixy Liao has a really nice style and I loved looking at her work, although the Experimental Relationship project was the one I got the most inspiration from. http://pixyliao.com
