commission unit 1

7/29/2019 Commission Unit 1

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Summative Assessment

Commission Unit


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Environment

For this project I wanted to look at people being at one with nature. We now

live in our man made world and we stand out if we go to natural landscapes. I

want to show, through a series of photographs, that we still can be at one

with nature, even with our normal clothes. I intend to show this by

photographing a series of different terrains and dress models in the same

colour scheme as the landscape.


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Research David Spero

Settlements Off colours work

Blends in well

Composition

Hides the subject


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Justine Kurland Models match colour scheme of landscape

Divide between colour on clothes does nothave to match divide in landscape

Helps me with varying composition

Relaxed and natural feel with the models


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Alex Soth Broken Manual

Composition

Colour of clothes are off but still blend

Positioning of models

No one else in frame


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Economands.org

After reading about Soths Broken manual I thought it might be interesting to

look into the people who decide to live away from society. I found a website

called www.economads.org and I searched for places where Spero

photographed his Settlements. I found a place called Tinkers Bubble which

was a place where people lived that was only heard about through word of

mouth. It was a decision whether to go down this route but as I did not have

enough time to change my concept I decided to stick with my original plan.
http://www.economads.org/http://www.economads.org/


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Location scout

First location scout on google maps Walked to location to shoot

Learnt hard way not to do this!


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Failed shoot

This was due to poor organisation of

model.

Late at night, camera shake.


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First Final Girl in field

Plants rise to waist

T shirt matches sky well

Softness adds to the image

Sky wasnt washed out

Colours blend well together


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Second final Boy in forest

Alex Soth man in forest

Gradient from ground to sky

Path creates clear background for model, away from hectic branches

Leaves on path match models skin/hair tone

Model blends in well


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Third Final Boy in field

Try to show the Bare Essentials

Plain landscape

Only 2 major colours in this picture, they blend well

Plain image


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Series

If I were to put my work in series it would go: boy in forest, girl in field then

boy in field. I would do this because there is a gradient from the hectic forest

to the plain bare essentials and a good in between for both of them. I ended

up putting them all in the same position because I think this dehumanisesthem, making them look less like us and it makes them look as if they are

trying to blend into the landscape.


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City

For my city project I wanted to the look at the main center of each town. I

found it interesting how businesses rely of the towns local people to stay

afloat. These people move around un noticed but all of them keep each town

alive. I thought it would be interesting to show this by doing long exposures of

people walking through parts of 3 different locations.


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Research Alexey Titarenko

City of Shadows St.Petersburg

Shadow people

People looks like flowing water

Clever use of inanimate objects

Places seems very busy I dont want my work to be as dark


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Mathew Pillsbury

Photographs popular places

More similar to my work, focusing on people passing through

Makes area seem timeless

People seem less important

Objects seem more important


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Test shoot - Chatham

ND filter with studio light ND filter

Wet, trying to play with shadows/reflections

Titarenko, trying to look for objects to look good still

Use digital camera to help meter

Worked well for test Shoot on 6x6 next time to make it more of a snippet of the area


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First final St Albans

Used path to lead into the photo

Photographed on raised platform to be above people

People make the area seem alive

Different types of building make area more interesting


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Second Final Harpenden

Hint of Gursky, horizontal lines

High vantage point

Still man adds more life to the image

Car trail at top fills up top of the image


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Third Final - Chatham

Couldnt find elevated vantage point

Monument and tree match up nicely

Tree branches lead towards monument and main subjects are in the

middle

Good separation between subjects in foreground and subjects inbackground


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Series

If I were to present these images in a series I would have them in the order of:

St Albans, Harpenden then Chatham. I would do this because I think the path

in St Albans leads you well into the next picture. Then the horizontal lines of

Harpenden lead you well into the next picture of Chatham which stops you at

the monument. I think this flow works well as a series.


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Critical Appraisal Part 1If I were to display my work I would put both series in a exhibition but I would

not exhibit them together. I do think both series can be linked up if I started

talking about people being more whole when they are at one with nature

but I didnt want to look into this so I would exhibit them separately. For my

city project I wanted to try and show that these towns are alive. The only way

I thought of portraying this was by doing long exposures of people moving.

For my environment project I just wanted the clothes to match up with thecolour scheme of the landscape so I had to have a lot of clothes to choose

from and a lot of locations. For the first shoot of my environment I was poorly

prepared thats why I had a failed shoot. After my formative assessment I was

eager to get on top of my work. I did and I was comfortable with the time I

had to get my work together. The same was for my city, after the formativeassessment I was more motivated to work. The biggest challenge I have come

across is finding a model who is committed to work when you can. I overcame

this by leaving a few days open to shoot and making sure the model was

available at the most important times.


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Waste

For my waste project I wanted to look at waste created by light pollution. I

was struggling to find a good way I could photograph this and then came up

with a clever comparison. I noticed that the light that is damaging our Earth is

similar to how light effects photographic paper. I then stumbled across NASAs

picture ofThe Earth at Night and thought I could use this image to get 3

images out of and make a photogram. I first thought of making a stencil tomake the photogram then I decided to make a negative that I could print on

acetate and then make a photogram of that.


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Preliminary Research NASA The

Earth at Night Beautiful but horror Gives our world another perspective

Lights mimic galaxies and stars


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Jim Richardson

Photographs work on light pollution

Uses the mist and clouds to make lights look

like stars and galaxies

Landscape of salt lake, night sky star trails

ruined by light pollution

Baby turtles get confused as to which way istowards the ocean so many die


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Artist Research Ori Gersht

Rear Window

Light pollution from night sky effecting the sky

Beautiful horror something bad in beautiful way

Subtle hints of what you are looking at, buildings just enter photo at bottom

Natural gradients in the photos make it appealing to look at, more interesting


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Susan Durges

Stream and Shoreline First saw this work at V and A in Camera-less photography

Shapes created by water are so intricate and detailed, great

way to capture these patterns

Leaves add sense of surroundings

Some leaves further away out of focus, adds depth

Waves cause a natural gradient


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Photograms Man Ray

Rayograms

Dada style

Uses different objects and textures to create

abstract

Plays with depth

Symmetry is used to add order in this randomness


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Laszlo Moholy-Nagy

Photograms from 1920s

Played with direction of light

Gives us another view on photograms


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Contextual Research

From www.njaa.org: Recent studies estimate that nationally more than 30% of the electricity

generated for outdoor illumination is simply squandered by being misdirected into the sky. That

comes to $4.5 billion annually.

It takes, on the average, 0.47 tons of coal (940 pounds) to produce 1000 kWh of electricity, so

one ton of coal can produce 2100 kWh of electricity. It takes about 1.8 barrels (76 gallons) of

crude oil to produce 1000 kWh of electricity, so one barrel of crude oil can produce 556 kWh. The

wasted light therefore equates to an annual waste of at least six million tons of coal (think of theadded acid rain and air pollution!) or 23 million barrels of oil (think of the added oil imports).

From www.britastro.org: On average, 30% of the light from a streetlight shines upwards and

outwards. The light wasted by the UK's 9 million streetlights costs 110 million a year in

electricity bills.

In Britain alone, over 120 million worth of electricity is wasted per year from inefficient street-lights. A third of the light from an average street-light never actually hits the street - 120 million

a year worth of electricity is simply wasted.
http://www.britastro.org/http://www.britastro.org/


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Digital edits

These are the crops and the final images I used for my prints. I decided tochoose North America, Europe and India because I thought they were the

most interesting places on NASAs picture. All I did was go to Photoshop,

change the preset to a negative and then play around with the curves. I then

test printed them, then edited some more then printed again. Before I had

my final edit I used a preliminary edit to print off on paper then I made a

photogram of this and decided to pursue this idea.


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Presentation

I decided that I wanted to show my photograms in a special way. I then

started to think more about this idea of beauty and how these people in the

highlights of my print are blind to the beauty. I decided to represent this by

poking holes in the main highlights of each print. I then want to backlight the

image so the light that shines through looks like stars in the night sky. This is

similar to Richardsons work where he makes the ground looks like the nightsky. After printing my finals I tested this and I was happy with the results so

this is how I will present my work.


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First Final - America


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Second Final Europe


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Third Final - India


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Series

If I were to present this work in a series I would do it in the order of a map,

like the original photo by NASA; North America, Europe then India. I wouldnt

have to have all these pictures together but they all would have to be backlit.


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Critical Appraisal

I would want my work to be displayed in a exhibition. They would not have to bedisplayed together as each print tells the same story. I decided to go with an

experimental approach towards this project because it is something I am not used to

doing, I wanted to try something different. Using these techniques I can say I am a lot

more knowledgeable about things I can do in photography. I gave myself a lot of time

for research at that start. This is because I found it hard to find a way to portray light

pollution through photography. I still had enough time to round my idea andcomfortably test it, which luckily worked. I think I need to try to get back up ideas

incase things do fall apart. I was lucky this time but I should have maybe been

prepared for worse. The hardest challenge I have found in these units is trying to get a

good idea I want to peruse early in the project timeline. I think this is due to lack of

inspiration so I need to go out more and get more inspired.

commission unit 1

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