Week Nine: Image Processes: Exhibition

This week the group came together to print our Image Process sheets out on the ink jet printer to displayed in the exhibition space. Hanging the work required measuring out the wall and choosing appropriate spacing between each image. We also used a laser level to ensure that the images were all straight and in line. The ordering of each print had to be considered too, for example not putting a landcape or black and white image next to each other. Images were fixed to the wall using clear headed drawing pins, pinning the image just outside the corners without piercing the paper itself. 

I'm really happy with the final presentation of this exhibition, I think it is the most professional looking of all of the exhibitions we have hung for this module. 

My print discussing Alma Haser's "The Ventriloquist"

Week Eight: Image Process: Alma Haser

The Ventriloquist

Alma Haser

Exhibition Visit

Tim Walker 'Story Teller'

Somerset House, London

Somerset House Website
Tim Walker Official Website

"...And when everything comes together and you look through the viewfinder, there is a window to something magical. Something you have never seen." - Tim Walker

For the past five years Tim Walker has been one of my heroes of the photography world, I first came across one of his shoots in Vogue and have been obsessed ever since then. As a result I was overjoyed when I heard he would be exhibiting his photographs here and have visited the exhibition three times already. The exhibition spans twelve rooms, filled with photographs of different shapes, sizes and content, often partnered with the incredible props Walker uses in his shoots, a real treat for a fan like me to see with my own eyes. Works featured included images from his Mechanical Doll Series and The Wilder Shores. Photographs from inside the exhibition and further reviews of the exhibition can be seen here. My personal favourite photos from the Exhibition included Xiao Wen & Liu Wen As Samurai Nuns and Agyness Deyn in Doorway.

"Walker sees the world through a child's eyes- singularly beautiful, others primed for the monster under the bed." - words from the exhibition

Inside the gallery 

(image source)

Exhibition Visit

Jochem Hendricks

John Hansard Gallery, Southampton

Hansard Gallery Website

Jochem Hendrick Official Site

On Tuesday 6th November we visited the John Hansard Gallery to view the works of Jochem Hendricks. Exhibits featured 'Part-time Sculpture' a piece that would easily go unnoticed as being part of the exhibition, a Mazda MX5 parked outside the gallery. We then entered a room that appeared to be completely empty until you went up close to the wall and followed a long line of black human hair that traced all around the room, attached to an alluminium spool. Other exhibits included a series of aluminium and brass canvases shot with bullets, three synthetic diamonds in seperated cases, initially beautiful to look at but on later knowledge revealed to be made from the remains of canaries, budgarigars, a hen and a crow and even more grusome, a human leg. There were also viles and glass containers supposedly containing one million grains of sand and one thousand tears, a series of collapsed casts of Luxus Avatar's head, Eye Drawings and photographs from an old police archive. At a first glance, much of Hendricks work is aesthetically pleasing, but when you learn the back story behind the pieces of artwork, you immediately see them in a different and perhaps not so beautiful light. There is also a sense of believing and trust required with Hendricks work, the audience is being expected to trust what Hendricks has put in front of them as being true, such as the diamonds, even Hendricks himself wasn't present when the diamonds themselves were made, he can only trust what he has been told by their creators is true.

Week Seven: Digital Workshop: Visual Histories Exhibition

This week we had to hang the exhibition displaying our Visual Histories (Digital Workshop) exhibition. Firstly, everyones images had to be uploaded alongside each other on Photoshop and presented in a grid before being printed on a large scale printer.

After all three of the sheets were printed, a similar hanging process to the pinhole exhibition had to take place: using a laser light and tape measure to get the correct measurements and adding bull dog clips. These prints are alot more expensive than the pinhole prints were and we handled them with cotton gloves to cause no damage to the print. The final prints that hung were in a lot better condition showing that as a group we have all improved in handling prints (using gloves, rolling prints instead of carrying them flat and causing potential creases.)

Week Six: Digital Workshop: Final Outcome

After I uploaded my 10 images to Photoshop (CS6) I started merging layers together. I used a variety of tools on Photoshop to create my final outcome such as layer blending modes (darken, multiply etc.), crop tools, Lasso and finally altering the colours by using Channel Mixer, Color Balance and Selective Color as well as Curves. These are basic tools I have been using on Photoshop for the last few years but it was good to be able to experiment with them again. Overall I am quite happy with my final outcome and look forward to seeing what it looks like alongside the others.

Week Six: Digital Workshop (Photoshop)

This week's session involved using the images we took in the photo studios a couple of weeks back and uploading the images to photoshop to be merged together and create a collage. Each member of the group had to fit their images to an A2 size (420 x 594) and use their photoshop skills to merge each object together. The final outcome will be a series of tiles each expressing the identity of everyone on the photography course and this will be displayed in the exhibition space. 

Photos of my objects I took in the studio:

Week Five: Pinhole & Wet Collodion Exhibition

This week's image lab involved hanging our groups series of pinhole photographs and wet collodion plates in the exihibition space. For each of us it was the first time hanging an exhibition and having to deal with prints on a large scale. We were instructed on how to handle prints carefully to prevent them from being damaged or dinked however many of the prints were damaged at some point during this process. Alot of the prints would also have been damaged from being in the large black bins themselves, so it could be argued that their imperfections were appropriate to display the process of making that image, much like the uneven paper edges and curling of the paper. My preference however would be to have put clips on the bottom of the prints to keep them flat as I felt the curving of paper was distracting from the pinholes themselves. We used a laser light to make sure that the prints were straight and measured wear to hammer nails in which to place the bulldog clips to secure the prints to the wall. 

 

We also had to spray the back of the wet collodion plates black and did this using a black spray paint after making sure the plates were clean from dirt, spraying along the line of glass plates in horizontal streaks.

Final outcome of wet collodion plates:

Overall I really like how the plates look on the white wall, it's very symmetrical and crisp. I think I would also like to have see what the plates would have looked like with 3x4 rows rather than 2x6.

Week Four: Digital Workshop (Photo Studios)

This session was my first time working in a studio environment and using other digital equipment besides an SLR camera. We were required to use studio lighting and soft boxes to shine onto the surface area and object we were photographing (a collection of 10 personal objects that say something about our identity). We used the light meter to find out if the light was equally distributed on the photographing area. Our group also used a macro lens as we were using smaller objects. I really liked working in the studio environment and would like to do it again soon.

The Set Up:

Studio Lighting

Softboxes
Light Meter

Camera used: Canon 5D with macro lens

My Objects

Harajuku Lovers perfume bottle & box, Wallet, London Underground tube map, 'Don't Quit' poem, Glasses, Tiffant & co. bracelets, Pandora bracelet, 'The Fashion Book', Box Brownie, Dreamcatcher

My objects are relevent to my identity because of my strong interests in photography (box brownie), fashion (the book and jewellery), Asian culture (perfume) and London (tube map). The dreamcatcher is something I have had as a form of comfort since I was a young child and the poem called Don't Quit was given to me by my mother before I moved away from home.

Week Four: Pinhole Practice Continued

'Cracker Cam'

Pinhole camera made from a cream cracker

Week Three: Further Pinhole Research

Bethany De Forest

 (about the artist)

Bethany De Forest is a pinhole photographer who works by creating her own fantasy worlds using everyday accesable objects such as food, insects and other materials. She makes fantasy worlds in a case or box and builds up a set, much like a child furnishes a dolls house before photographing the final outcome with a pinhole camera. The result is a quirky and brightly coloured image which screams out adventure and magic. I find her work to have an almost Alice In Wonderland feel to it.

Abelardo Morell

(official website)

In the above series of photographs, Morell's pinhole images involve reflecting the view from a window onto the wall from that bedroom. 

Stephen Gill

(official website)

The above images are from Gill's series: Outside In. 

"Recently, I've been trying to photograph not just what the place looks like, but also trying to include as much as I can of what it feels like. I started collecting little bits of stuff from actual places, and then putting them inside the camera. Bits of plant life, seeds, or glass: I drop them in just before loading the film. I've even used insects. These objects then sit on the film emulsion when I'm taking the picture. It's a way of encompassing the actual essence of a place in an image, the visual noise and chaos." - Stephen Gill, extract from The Guardian online article 'Photographer Stephen Gill's Best Shot' (full interview)

Week Two: Staged & Constructed Photography

From this lecture I was made aware of how many painters took their inspiration from literature and these paintings would later go onto influence photographers work also. A prime example of this is Shakespeare's character, Ophelia (Hamlet) and the painting by John Everett Millais (below)

This iconic painting has since been replicated by photographers such as Tom Hunter and Gregory Crewdson (below)

Other Photographers who works are constructed and staged:

Jeff Wall

Andreas Gursky

Week Two: Pinhole Photography (Practical)

After recieving a lecture on the art of pinhole photography, we were split into groups and shown how to construct a pinhole camera from something as simple as a large black dustbin. Because of the bin already being black,  it became a perfect container in which to photograph some large prints of our surroundings. We experimented with different aperture sizes that were exposed to a setting for more or less time, depending on the size of the hole. After the group activity, we were split into small groups and given the task to take a pinhole camera and photograph something. We set up our pinhole (minus a lid) making a lid out of black plastic wrapping and alot of duct tape, lining it with a large sheet of photographic paper. After that, we decided to photograph outside of the University's grounds by the main road, in an attempt to capture some of the moving light of car's headlights that passed us. We exposed the paper for around 25 seconds before returning to the darkroom and this was our outcome. As you can see from the negative, the static objects such as the trees and the buildings are very clear, but there are lines streaking across the photo from the headlights of cars.

(image reverted to a positive image)

Week Two: Pinhole Photography (Research)

Renowned pinhole photographer Justin Quinnell (website)spent the day with my photography course, broadening our minds and introducing us to the quirky and creative world of pinhole photography, an art that knows no limit to the weird and wonderful things you can use to create an image. Here are some examples of some of his work that I really liked.

The above images show the passing of light from the sun, moon and the stars at night. The trails of light they leave behind create and eerie and ghostly effect that is particularly creepy in the image of the gravestones.

Week One: Deadpan Photography: Candida Höfer

When researching deadpan photography, Candida Höfer's series of photographs of libraries caught my attention most of all. Höfer's work is very sober and sterile in its feeling, the lack of people in a place that should be bustling with life; the atmosphere remaining undisturbed. All these factors contribute to the deadpan aesthetic.

Week One: Deadpan Portraiture & Photography

What is the deadpan aesthetic?

emotional detachment

cool and detached

sharp and scaled

clarity

Photographers of Deadpan Portraiture:

left to right: Thomas Ruff, Rineka Dijkstra

Joel Sternfeld: 'Summer Interns Having Lunch' Wall street, New York, 1987

Week One: Wet Collodion (Primer)

Here is the wet collodion plate that my group had made. 

The portrait is quite clear but will hopefully be clearer once the back has been sprayed black. 

I found the Wet Collodion process very interesting and would consider experimenting with it again.