Photography Evaluation

Visual Language- My work features colour repetitive patterns, geometric shape, and some watery textures.

In this photo I have used colour and repetitive shape to show how technology can enable us to discover beauty and excitement amongst boring everyday scenes. Over the majority of the picture the colours I have featured are grays and browns, though in one small section of the image where I have glitched it the colours are bright and varied. Rectangle shapes are featured repeatedly across this image to make the building seem more dull and endless. The way I made sure that the image looked repetitive and endless also was by cropping one segment of an image of a building and repeating it over and over, rather than using one solid image. I wanted to keep the imperfections in this image such as lines not perfectly joining up together as I wanted to make it clear than this was actually a tiny image copied and pasted. I wanted to make this obvious to show how technology has influenced my work.

Similarly to the photograph above, I wanted to make my influences clear by having imperfections in my editing. To create this image I copied and pasted the same image several times, and each image would be smaller than the one before, sort of like a Russian doll effect. The images are not arranged perfectly and evenly inside one another to define each image, and so the images did not integrate too much with one another. By using a lot of copying and pasting in my work I tried to show how repetitive real life is, though by having the smallest image in the centre of this image looking far away is to show again how discovering interesting exciting things amongst something mundane is possible, especially in art. Again, most of the colours I have used in this image are dull. It only features grays and browns throughout most of it.

I have tried to make this image look as if it is of a reflection in water. To do this I have used colours and textures. I decreased the vibrancy of the colours in this image and I distorted around the lamppost to create the look of ripples. I wanted to create the look of rippling water in this image to represent how editing photographs using technology such as photoshop is only a distorted reflection of reality. All the contents of my images feature everyday scenes for people who live in urban areas of England, further showing how technology can effect how we view everyday scenes.

This image has every single pixel separated into individual squares. I did this by cropping a large picture down to a tiny picture and zooming in. To keep it at the size I wanted it I had to screen shot the image, otherwise the image would shrink back down to a tiny image and the pixels would not show up individually. I wanted for all the pixels to be separated into individual squares to reveal the image as more of an arrangement of colours. I wanted my audience to discover how a camera sees and captures our reality, compared to how we see it, and discover the colours of our world down to its bare structure.

Audience-As the theme to my work has been strongly technology based, I think my audience would be a younger generation. People into computer programming or IT may be interested in my art also for the technical side of things. The contents of my photographs are of built up areas, meaning I may attract people more into urban living. The main audience I am attracting though will people into modern art, photography and people who enjoy attending art galleries. Typically people into modern art and photography are a mixture of young men and women aged between 17-27. I think many people of this age range attend art galleries, and so would have access to viewing my work.

Context-All of my work has been influenced by modern photographers. The two key photographers that have influenced me are Michael Wolf and Rob Sheridan. Wolf photographed content that I wanted to photograph also, such as people from far away and densely packed buildings. Sheridan glitched his images, though I used a different technique to do so his work inspired me. They both used colours and tone in their images that influenced my work, Wolf using natural, if slightly dull lighting, and Sheridan using a vibrant range of colours. An example of how I have used this combination of natural and vibrant light is shown below, where the outer images are slightly dull, and the very inner image is vibrant with lots of random different colour.

Here is an example of the work of Michael Wolf that has inspired my work.

This is an example of one of Rob Sheridan’s pieces that also inspired my work.

Realization of intentions-I slightly changed the content of my images. I was going to focus much more on people than on architecture, though I only ended up with 1 final image of a person, and many of buildings. This was due to the areas I was photographing in, they were both completely deserted buildings where people didn’t go very often. However I stuck to everything I intended to do for the post production process such as glitching, distorting and pixilation of my images. While taking my photographs I originally intended to slightly distort the images by using zoom an excessive amount to get a more pixilated image, however this was not the case as when I zoomed in on things I wanted to photograph it only made it blurry, this was partly due to zooming in and not lowering the shutter speed. Another thing I had to change was the original method I intended to use to glitch my images. Originally I wanted to edit the HTML code of the image, though I had to change my method as editing the images code was a lot more difficult than I had anticipated. Another thing I originally intended to do was get inside of high up buildings and take pictures of other tall buildings in order to take the photograph from a better straighter angle rather than having to look up from down on the floor. However I was unable to do so, and had to make some sacrifices in terms of the quality of my photographs.

Fitness for Purpose-I intended my images for art galleries or books. My work is fitting for this purpose as the images serve no purpose, but to express an emotion or to put a point across. They would be useless in many other contexts as the images are too distorted and glitched, they do not give a true reflection of the content I was photographing. I can see a few of my pieces making it into a gallery as glitch art is becoming more and more popular and respected. I also think that some of my pieces are thought provoking and interesting to look at.

To demonstrate how my images would look in context, I created a book for them.

Here are a few example pages. I think my images are good for a boom is because they work together very well, they all run on the same theme and tell a story when they are all put together.

Technical Qualities-I had some technical difficulty with my images, as I had left the shutter speed quite slow when I zoomed in on things many of my images came out blurry. I kept the f number fairly high, as I was sometimes taking photographs from a distance I did not want anything closer to the camera obstructing its view. The majority of work I put into these photographs went into the post-production. One of the main technical aspects to my post-production process was glitching my images. I did this by converting them into a photoshop raw file format and lowering the pixel width and height. Though this method was not what I originally intended, it was very easy and efficient. On images that had blurred slightly I tried to sharpen them, which reduced the blurriness but only slightly. I worked on the curves, levels, saturation, brightness and contrast to get the colours of my images to the way I wanted them. On some images I wanted to make the colours duller, so I lowered the saturation and played with the curves to get it to the right tone. On my glitched images I wanted the colours to be as bright as possible so I raised the saturation, contrast and the brightness. I also used the dodge tool on some parts so make the bright colours seem as if they were almost glowing. Though the amount of images I finished and was happy with was the amount intended, if I were to do this project again I would probably do more.

Aesthetic Qualities-Here numbered below are my 2 favorite images that I created during this project. I like the combination on dull and vibrant colours in number 1. I worked a lot with natural light during this project but I think the lighting worked best in this particular image. I really like the imperfections in the image, such as each image not being places evenly inside one another. It sort of adds a human though to such a technology influenced piece. Though I did want it to be heavily technology based I did want some natural elements to come through, as I made more apparent in the book that I created.Image 2 was also one of my favorites. I glitched the image, and I really like the way it turned out with brightly coloured windows some bright lines, though still with a more natural browny tone to the bricks. The best thing about this image though is the way using a square wave created this

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dislodged look to it. It looks as if I have split the original image up into strips and reassembled it.

Skills and Knowledge Gained-I have learned how to create glitch art a simple way through photoshop. I have learned about camera settings such as DOF, shutter speed and white balance which has enabled me to tailor my images to how I want them rather than taking photos on intelligent auto. I have learned about more of the tools available on photoshop. One tool I experimented with and learned about was the wave tool. This photo here is an example of what I createdwith the wave tool. I altered the wave length and frequency dramatically to create this beautiful pattern. The original image has nowcompletely been distorted leaving me with beautiful waves of different shapes and colours.Though the image below differs from the top one in so many ways, I also created it using the wave tool. I altered the same things, though in a different way to the one above. One thing Ichanged however was the shape of the wave,instead of using a classic wave shape I used a square shape.I also now have a much better understanding ofthe artists that inspire me from studying themprior to taking my own photographs.

The Production Process-Since starting the module I have learned more about how important the composition of the content of the photograph is to the over all look even if you plan to edit the photograph a lot. I have learned more about what content and camera angles make a good photograph and what does not. On this particular project I managed my time very well, despite not having all my photos taken on time. Initially I had all of my written work finished and up on my blog on time, then I managed to catch up very quickly on photo editing. Because I had all of my work finished prior to taking my photographs I had the freedom to focus on my photographs and post production of the photographs allowing me to put the time I needed into idea generation.