L E A N N E WA R R E N

EXTRAORDINARY BEINGS

ARTIST INSPIRATION – JERRY UELSMANN

•  What I find particularly interesting about this photograph is the way that the fist and the face actually blend quite well together, and how the manipulation has become very particular on which aspects of each image are and aren’t within the image. I think that this kind of photo manipulation seems like it could be simply done on software such as Photoshop, however, Jerry Uelsmann took this photograph in one shot, using a film camera and then retaking another image over the last. This fascinates me even more by the fact of what details were kept, and what wasn’t.

•  I think the initial idea of using photo manipulation to put two images together is what really catches my attention. I feel that if I were to really go into detail about which details go where, then I would be able to make an effective photograph. Particularly with photoshop software. The technology would really help in order to mold the photographs to meld together.

INITIAL PHOTOGRAPHS

INITIAL PHOTOGRAPHS EVALUATION

•  My initial intentions with these photographs was to purely get the images that when blended together would work efficiently. Many of the shots of mechanical objects may not be as high a quality as perhaps the images of the boy, but I do believe that when the two images are manipulated together, they will look effective. Pictures of wires for example could probably work in any angle and would be able to be manipulated into another image. I feel that these images did turn out efficiently however, and did achieve what I wanted them to.

•  I feel that my favorite photographs out of this collection may have to be the ones of the boy, in particular, the one where he’s laying on the grass and we have a low angle from his head. I just feel that this is a photograph that on it’s own looks mysterious and would work well on it’s own. I also think that although some of the photographs ended up a little bit fuzzy, the angling of the images of mechanical work did work really well. In particular the one with extremely shallow depth of field. I think that some of the textures inside a car engine are just extremely fascinating, and most people don’t tend to see it due to it being hidden. I think this is why composition of some of these photographs really work. Some of these photographs I don’t really think have that much of a visual impact. However, there are images that do stand out to people who don’t look into many mechanical objects, as it may begin to bring on more of a mysterious aura.

DEVELOPMENTS

EVALUATION

•  I think that the majority of the photographs I took were effective. There was the odd one or two that I look back at and I think I could have retaken them and made them into a better quality. However, I do think that I managed to take the kind of thing I was aiming for, and they were well composed photographs. It was just a little bit difficult when it came to photographing the inside of the car engine, as some of the photographs that I took were hard to take a good look at, as it was harder to see what exactly I was photographing.

•  I feel like my creative boundaries weren’t really pushed that much within this project, as we were pushed for a shorter amount of time during this project. I did spend quite a lot of time on my final developmental photographs, trying to get exact details on them. However, I think that there might have been a way that I could have developed them further, for example, placing metallic objects on top of the photographs or crumpling it up to give it an almost discarded look. Either of these ways would not only develop the image, but would then possibly bring a new symbolic meaning to the images.

•  I think that my choice of artists was effective, and helped in getting me to decide which kind of technique I would be using for this chosen theme. I overall feel that this inspiration was only a minor inspiration, as I had the idea in my head of mixing People and technology for quite a while. However, it wasn’t until I got to this project that I divided that now was the appropriate time to do it. I do however think that this artist inspiration did help to show my that mixing the two photographs together was easier than expected, and so did and inspire and urge me to use this technique for my own photographs.

•  I’m partially happy with my final outcomes, as I do believe that the kind of thing I was aiming for was achieved. However, I do think that they could have been done with better quality, as I think that some details and such would have looked better if I had taken photographs of more metallic objects, or if I used more photographs of metallic objects within my photographs. I just found it a little bit difficult to really bring forward that notation of man and machine mixed together when I perhaps didn’t have enough photographs. I feel that only having three developments is also a little bad, as I feel as if I really didn’t get round to doing enough for this project. However, I do still feel that the photographs I did end up with did look effective. Though, I tend to think this about small details within each photograph. For example, I like in the first photograph how the wires flow into the grass, and within the second photograph, the texture of the grate going along the boy’s head and hands. I also think in the second photograph that the wire going along the side of his head looks slightly like a brain stem, bringing a darker element forwards on the photograph.

•  In order to push these photographs to the next level, I feel that I would need to think about techniques and ways that could have pushed them onwards, like mentioned above. I overall do not think that I have developed my photographs enough, and further development would have been more effective. However, due to time reasons, I wasn’t able to. I think that if I were to develop these photographs onwards, I may have used inspiration from someone like Steven Gill, as I find that a lot of his images when he places small objects over the top do often make the initial photograph look completely different, and bring in a new element. However, I think that I would need to really think about composition of the photograph if I were to create something like this in the future.