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Experimental Photography

Henry Paul

Double Exposure

Use this slide to annotate your final image

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• These ideas were quite similar to my original plans except I didn’t expect to use that many images of the church but it actually created quite a nice effect. I knew I was going to use the images that I had taken of the pond but wasn’t sure about the ones of the church. I personally thought they turned out better than I had originally intended because I thought they would be quite dark with the church involved. The inspiration for these set of photos was Jerry Uelsmann. He is an experimental photographer that focuses on multiple exposure images. He creates a lot of black and white images that tend to be quite interesting and extraordinary. I didn’t want my images to be just black and white, so I made sure there were a lot of shadows and darkness to make them look more ‘Uelsmann’ inspired. I don’t think they fully follow Uelsmanns style because they aren't weird or interesting enough, with that said I think you can see where I got my ideas from when looking at his work.

• I quite like the way the way that these photographs look aesthetically. They are quite stereotypical as double exposure photographs go. Although this tends to be a bad thing it has given them a solid feel. The final photograph that I selected is a combination of three images. One is the image of the church that I used throughout all four of the images, another one is the close up of the ducks, and the third photograph that has created the feel of the piece is a landscape photograph of the entire pond itself. They combined quite well and the final image does pass for a multiple exposure photograph. Its not overly complicated and does look professional to a certain extent. I think its weakest point is the over exposure that is at the top right. Although its not taking over the entire image I still think that it looks a bit empty where its over exposed.

• All of the original photographs were in clear focus and didn’t look that bad on their own. They definitely looked better when they were combined. To get the photos I put my camera into landscape mode and then went around my local area taking photographs. This photograph wasn’t that technically difficult to make. It was more difficult getting the original images to use. I created the images by using different blend modes on each one. I then changed the opacity depending on how visible I wanted an image to be. Although this image wasn’t that technically difficult to create I think it has a slightly professional feel to it. I like the contrast of the blue sky against the blacks and whites within the image.

• I think my work could have been improved if I had taken more care to ensure there wasn’t too much exposure. I could have done this by lowering the exposure in Photoshop. This might have made it too dark but I could have experimented to find out.

• I think these images do fit quite well together, the pond meeting the sky creates quite a nice look. It almost looks right for there to be a floating body of water above a church. I think I did take this idea as far as I could, I tried lots of different combinations that didn’t make the final cut. I like the final image the best because of how the image pieces together. I wanted the sky, the ducks and the church to all merge together so that you can’t tell how many images are involved. I managed to get what I wanted from the photograph.

• I think these images fit the brief quite well, I wanted to make some slightly dark images initially but I changed my mind after combining a few things. The final image looks quite experimental and incorporates a good mixture of light and dark. I quite like how the pond seems to reflect the light from the sun when they are both separate images. All the images create a good theme together and I was very happy with the final outcome, the theme obviously being the church.

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Evaluate: ideas eg analysis, results; How well do you feel you have realised your ideas and intentions and what results have you got? Ensure you talk critically (compare, contrast, assess) about your work. You should reference your influences and assess how your work compares.

Qualities:Consider the aesthetic qualities of your work. How does it look? What do you like about it? What are the strongest and weakest elements from an aesthetic point of view?

Consider the technical qualities of your work? How well done is it? What elements are strongest and which could need further work and development? Be sure to use technical terms in your work such as exposure, shutter speed, aperture and talk specifically about any post-production techniques you have used.

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How could you improve your work? Could you develop your work further with additional work? What would you try to achieve with this? Could you undertake further experiments? If so, what would they be?

When talking about your work, consider formal elements such as lines, shapes and patterns as well as the colour and contrast and also tone of your image. Think about the composition of your work and where this could be developed.

Finally you should consider if the images you have produced fulfil the brief you were set. Do they match the theme? Are they experimental? Explain your answers using specific examples.