UAL Art Foundation

Tuesday, 4 April 2017

Bibliography

Books:

· Light, Paper, Process, Reinventing Photography – Virginia Heckert

· The Polaroid Book – selections from the polaroid collections of photography – edited by Steve Crist

· Experimental Photography; A handbook of Techniques – Thames and Hudson

· The Darkroom Handbook – Michael Langford

· Mirage - Richard Long

Internet:

· https://www.lensculture.com

· https://www.magnumphotos.com

· http://mikedeere.com

Monday, 3 April 2017

The last two years prior to the UAL course I studied a BTEC Level 3 Extended Diploma in Photography, also at Weston College. This made me realise how much I loved photography and gave me the starting point fuelling my ambitions and curiosity. Starting the foundation course, I knew I had Photomedia as a preferred pathway choice and I also wanted to take the opportunity to learn new skills and techniques within art that I hadn’t used before. Part 1 and Part 2 of the course has allowed me to do so. In the Fine Art option, I learnt how to transfer 2D work into 3D and using repeated patterns. The Visual Communication option allowed me to explore collage through photography. I have found that I am still drawn to photography and doing this course has really opened my eyes to how much I enjoy this subject.

Project Concept

For my FMP I will be looking into idea of a sense of place where I will be investigating people’s memories and capturing that memory within a photo. I plan getting people to talk about their memories of a place, take quotes from them and use them within the exhibition. This creates an opportunity to see how I can capture and portray this memory in a single photograph. I also want to investigate the experience of a place through looking at the term Genius Loci. The meaning of Genius Loci has changed through the ages and I aim to investigate how it has changed from looking at appreciation of a classic landscape to the feeling or atmosphere any landscape and place can hold.

I aim to investigate photography and literature through artists’ work, which will allow to expand my theme further. I plan on looking into Mike Deere as he has links to the idea of a ‘sense of place’ and he also use landscapes, which I am drawn towards within this project.

I plan to use audio recording as a recording tool with my subjects, to ensure I can keep coming back to their memories, get the quotes in their words etc. This might have a part within my exhibition, matching their audio quotation with the photography output.

The materials and physical resources that will be required for this project will mainly be photographic or moving image equipment, both analogue and digital cameras. I have decided to use film photography and want to experiment with different formats such as medium format and silver based processes. I might use digital cameras as a backup/ addition.

Evaluation

I will be documenting each stage of this project on my blog to ensure that nothing is forgotten or left out. I will also be having regular tutorials to make sure I stay on target for my FMP but also to ensure I can get the right advice when needed. I will also use the people on my course for feedback throughout this project though peer assessments.

All work, experiments and development will be dated on my blog to show the journey of my project and how it’s adapted along the way.

Thursday, 16 March 2017

The Cube Cinema

we went to the cube cinema and did a workshop where we had a couple of frames of a film where we scratched into the film as well as painting ink over it. After this we got an opportunity to put everyone’s work together and screen it.

We also got the chance to look round the cinema and go behind the sense to look at all the equipment that not ever cinema has these days.

Wednesday, 15 March 2017

Photomedia and Fine/3D Art Collaboration

Defacing Body Image

For this project I was working in a group of two other people (one other photo media student and a fine art student). We decided to base our project on body image. To get this idea we decided to take the idea from Natalia’s project based on breastfeeding in public, we tool this idea and decided to focus on the female body. We then decided to take the skills Georgia and I shared through film photography. We then started to discuss what we could do with the photos with these links and it was decided to try to portray varied feelings women have of their bodies, by destroying them (creatively), by burning, painting, embroidering, scratching etc.

In doing this we took inspiration from three artists/photographers.

The first artist was Gerhard Richer we took his technique of dragging paint over Images (on a smaller scale). His work Is very much about covering, hiding and filling up space, so this links to views to body image.

Jessa Fairbrother is a photographer that we looked into. She uses mixed media within her work, for example her project ‘conversations with my mother’ where she destroys photos of her mother and herself by burning, embroidering, ripping, placing objects on top as well as other ways to destroy or cover up photos.

We decided to use Annette Messager’s presentation style. We chose to take the hanging collage style as we thought it would look well with the amount of work we were going to produce for this project and even though there is so much going on with the work itself this style looks very put together and makes each individual peace look harmonise with each other.

Burning

Because it was to windy outside we had to go into one of the work rooms with an extraction fan, we burnt both images from the darkroom and digital.

we found that because of the type of paper the darkroom images where on it was easier to control the flames and it also started to bubble and give the photos more texture to it.

Painting

We did a mix of putting the paint on one end of the photo and dragging it across the image with some card, dripping paint onto the image, putting paint at the top of the image and letting it drip down the page, smudging a thin layer of paint around over the image so it isn't covering the image just putting something between the print and the eye.

Different ways to develop

We decided to try different ways to develop the images in the darkroom, so we dripped developer onto the undeveloped images and use a paint developer onto the silver based paper.

Solarisation

Solarisation is a technique that brings out the silver in the photographic paper (done in the darkroom). To do this you expose the Image twice, first you print the image onto the paper, develop it and the put it into cold water. Once this is done you put it back under the light (only a couple of seconds not too long) and then develop, stop it and fix the image to the paper.