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Experimental Photography – Ongoing Evaluations

(Bekki Asquith)

(Hockney Photmontage)

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Before Photoshop After Photoshop

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Evaluation: How well do you feel you have realised your ideas and intentions and what results have you got? I think that my final image matches my ideas and intentions quite well for this experiment. The image is put together in the style of David Hockney’s photomontages which is what I wanted to achieve. While I was taking the seperate photographs of the parts of the girls’ faces, I realised and invisioned what it was that I really wanted to do with this photomontage image. I wanted the sides of the face and the features to near enough match up so that it looked like one face. Once on Photoshop and once all of the images has been put together, the montage looked good and I was happy with the final result. I changed some of the levels and the exposure on the different layers of the small pictures that made up the larger face to make the parts look like they were from a few different people. I wanted to show different skin tones and hair colours etc.

Ensure you talk critically (compare, contrast, assess) about your work. You should reference your influences and assess how your work compares.I think that my work makes a good photomontage. However, I think taking more pictures and of smaller, and closer parts of the faces would have benefitted and made the overall image look better in the end. When David Hockney created a close up self portrait of his own face and top half of his body in this style, he took about three times the amount of photos that I did, and they were also from different angles. I think that doing this would have made my work look more interesting. If I were to conduct this experiment again, I would take more, closer images of the face and also take them from a few different angles to make the end image more interesting and make it fit more to what I was planning in the beginning. Using people with different coloured eyes, skin tones and hair colours would fit my theme more.

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?I really like that the pictures that have been merged together are of different people rather than just the same person, I think that this is an aesthetically strong point of my work. It also works well with how my photographs apply to the theme of ‘discovery.’ I think that this is more interesting than it just being a photomontage of the one person’s face. I think that my favourite aesthetic feature of this picture is when I changed and experimented with the levels and exposure on Photoshop, I made it so that the different parts of the same face originally, looked as if they were from different faces. I found a way to make the skin from the same person look like it was from 2 or 3 different people by differentiating the look of the skin tones. I also think that I have done quite well to make the face look like it is all one face, for example matching up the features such as the eyebrows and the lips. Most of the features line up and match to make it look like one face which was my aim.

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. I think that the technical elements of my work are good but could have been better. I think that I could have done more to the images on Photoshop before putting together in the collage style. I also think that I could have taken the images. I could have played with the exposure and lighting a bit more to try and make the images more interesting and give them a different look. I’m not too sure what kind of style would fit this technique but I could play around with the adjustments on Photoshop to see what I could create. The shutter speed was relatively fast so that the image was clear and in good focus. To make the photomontage more interesting, I could have introduced a slightly longer shutter speed into my photography work. This would have given the separate images a different effect and would have shown movement which could have made the overall image more technically interesting.

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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?I think I could improve by taking these images and composing them again. I would like to introduce a few more people so that there is more than just the two different faces for the face.If I were to conduct more experiments using this technique then I would like to try using a different face for each image but also take more and closer up images. This would make the face that I make overall differentiate between skin tones and hair colour etc so that I wouldn’t have to manipulate much on Photoshop. I would like to change the images as little as possible because then that would change the natural state that the parts of the faces are in which is what is important to my theme.

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. I think that the composition of this image is important to the technique as it is unique and fits this style well. The shapes that are included in this photograph are those of the faces that I have used to form my photomontage. There are shapes that come from the nose, eyes, lips and other features like the cheek bones. I have managed to match most of these shapes up with the other face or with other parts of the same face to ensure that the overall image still looks like a face and matches up well.I managed to change the colours slightly in some areas. I managed to change the exposure so that the skin tones looked different and to give the image a collage effect overall. I also managed to contrast some of the colours on Photoshop to make the hair from the same person look to be different colours as well.The tone changes with the smaller images in the picture to create the overall collage look that I wanted to achieve with this piece of work, so I think that this works in my favour. I think that with more warping and precision, I could have arranged the composition of these images so that the features matched up better and looked even more like the face was just one face.

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. I think that my final image of this style, using the photomontage technique fulfil the brief that I was given. I think this because the overall final image is sticking to the theme of ‘discovery’ by showing that different people may look different in their face and their physical appearance but in the end we are all the same. This is shown by the different Hayley and Jess’s faces making up the shape of a face together, and matching their features together for example their lips and nose. These photographs are experimental because they use an experimental technique which is the Hockney photomontage/joiner technique. They are something strange and different that is not an image that you would usually see and just look past. It gives the audience something to really look at and think about.

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(Vortograph/Reflections)

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Evaluation: How well do you feel you have realised your ideas and intentions and what results have you got? I feel like I have realised my ideas and intentions with this project while taking these photographs. I think that these were the easiest photographs to take and also the most interesting looking technique that I could have chosen to use to take them. I am very happy with the results that I got from this experiment because the photographs are interesting. I like the way that the subject or content is unclear due to the style of photography. The use of mirrors make the content interesting and intriguing. The mirrors that I used made a kaleidoscope-type effect and this almost gave a look of illusion to the photographs that I took. When I had taken the photographs and I put them onto Photoshop, I changed some of the levels, the hue, the saturation and the exposure to see what I could do with them and how much more interesting I could make them look.

Ensure you talk critically (compare, contrast, assess) about your work. You should reference your influences and assess how your work compares.I think that I could have made some of these images look better by doing more to them on Photoshop. I could have added other effects and techniques such as the out of focus technique and I could have tried sharpening some of the images. If you compare my photographs to other vortograph images for example, those of Alvin Langdon Coburn, he uses other techniques such as small movement or camera shake to give it an extra little something and make it a bit more experimental. If I were to take these photographs again then I would like to try and incorporate more techniques and effects such as this.

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?I like the way that each image looks. This is because there is something interesting in each picture that catches your eye. The reflections of the mirrors form intriguing patterns and and illusions that make the image interesting for the audience. Each of the images can be classed as experimental because they have an element of mystery in them and it is unclear what the subject is or was meant to be. I think from an aesthetic point of view, the strongest point of these photographs that I have taken and of the one that I have chosen as my best is the set up of the photographs. I like that I have taken the photographs from different angles to try and capture different perspectives and really try to explore the reflection and vortograph technique. However, I think that the weakest point of these images are that some of them are slightly out of focus, but not enough for it to make a significant effect on the image and benefit it. I also think that I could have done more to the images on Photoshop if I had the knowledge of how to make them look more professionally done.

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. I think that technically, the photographs were well set up and captured on a whole. The strong elements of these photographs are I think I truly explored the technique by taking images from all angles and including different ways of reflecting the mirrors in each other. I think that the way I set up the photographs to be taken was a strong technical quality; without this the photographs would have all been similarly angled and they would look more uniform and boring.The technically weak elements come from my Photoshop post-production manipulation. I would have liked to sharpen the photographs so that they looked more clear to the audience’s eye. I would also like to have attempted to control the light a bit more in the place which I took the photographs; there are odd light and dark parts to each image. I also would have liked to try and erase the small things in the images that make the photos look less professional e.g. arms and legsin corners or mirrors and smudges on mirrors.

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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?I think additional work could be beneficial to my photos here. I think that extra work on Photoshop would help to reach the professional look that I want to achieve and allow me to make the changes that I want to. I could spend some more time taking more photographs that incorporate other techniques and effects such as camera shake (movement), out of focus and high speed photography (fast shutter speed) to see what else I could make from the reflections.

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. The different lines, shapes and patterns that are made by the reflections of the mirrors in these photographs make the content so interesting. Each of these images naturally accommodate lines because of the sides of the mirrors and also where the mirrors and reflections meet and go in their separate directions. It is the reflections that I have constructed that make the lines, patterns and other shapes in these photographs. The shapes in each photograph are ever so slightly or massively different to all of the others which makes them unique. I think that this a technically and aesthetically strong point of my images. I think that I could make even more interesting lines, shapes and patterns by using more mirrors to make my reflections.

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. The reflections that I created for these images used several mirrors which when displayed in front of each other show endless reflections and a strange illusion. For example in this image, the reflection of the smaller circular mirror in the larger rectangular mirror look to be never ending, they just get smaller and smaller in perspective.I think that my images fulfil my brief, in that they show the theme of ‘discovery.’ They show this by the content of the photographs being unclear and intriguing which makes people want to ‘discover’ what is in them. The images that I have produced are definitely experimental because they use one a well known experimental technique: reflections. They can also be classed as experimental photography because their content is something that is out of the ordinary and it makes the audience think about what they are looking at.

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(High Speed Photography)

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Evaluation: How well do you feel you have realised your ideas and intentions and what results have you got? I am happy with the results that I have got from taking these photographs. I took images of things being dropped into water e.g. grapes, food colouring and more water to try and create an interesting image.

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.