Research
Artist Models
Tim Walker
Tim Walker's style of photography is very out there. I love the way he challenges our beliefs and perceptions with every new photograph. He does this with funky angles, interesting clothes, hair, makeup and props, and by sometimes adding to the photo afterwards (such as rephotographing the image of Margot Robbie with an egg on top). The way he has rephotographed inspires me to try this technique with my own work because it can be so effective.
Margot Robbie
Los Angeles, USA
W Magazine
Volume One 2019
Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie
Los Angeles, 2019
W Magazine
Volume One 2019
Carey Mulligan
Los Angeles, USA
W Magazine
Volume One 2019
Suzanne Saroff
I actually found Suzanne Saroff's work through Pinterest and it immediately caught my eye. I love the way something we know is so quickly transformed into something weird and different, sometimes ugly, sometimes beautiful.
These images are all part of the series 'Perspective'.
Felicia Simion
Felicia Simion's photographs all have an element of dreaminess to them. They all have beautiful, natural colours, and often soft light. They are very different when put in comparison with Saroff's images above, but I feel inspired by both photographers to create work that feels unusual.
These images are all part of the series 'Diary of an isolation'.
Jack Bool
Jack Bool is a relatively unknown photographer, who works entirely with film. I am drawn to his work because of the colours, and the way that the image often doesn't feel right. It looks like it hasn't been edited but there sometimes feels like there's something slightly off about it. I like this, the feeling of unusual, not right, weird, off colour. I want my work to produce that feeling too.
The photos I have sourced are not from Jack Bool's instagram (he seems to have no website), but they are from an interview and the corresponding article about him by 'It's Nice That'.
My Thoughts
The family photo album and social media are now somewhat one and the same. The thing they both have in common is editing out ugliness. When we view someone's feed and believe/assume/judge something about that person it is because we only have one unreal, filtered perspective.
I want to play with the ideas of ugliness and perspective.
How I could do this:
- mirrors
- water
- glass
- weird angles
- masks (paper, plastic...)
- manipulation to add the weird and wonderful
- clothes, hair, makeup, props
Videos
Notes
Pen tool cuts things out using vectors whereas the selection tools select actual pixels.
Command + A = select whole canvas
Command + R = rulers
Instead of brushing mask on, mask the mask using selection.
Magic wand tool
Tolerance: 31
Contiguous: ticked
Make edge more accurate
Tolerance: 12-20
Contiguous: unticked
Soften the edge with feathering
Preserve a selection
Select, save selection, load selection brings it back
Use feathering, expand and contract to make the edges of selections more natural
Pinterest is a bit of a controversial site. For me I always find inspiration there but it is seriously difficult to track down the original creator of each piece. Regardless, I used Pinterest to inspire me this time as I had done quite a lot of artist research but hadn't had any light bulb ideas for my first photoshoot.
I found some really cool photos, and I have posted the ones that inspired me although I could not find original creators for any of them.
What all these photos have in common are that they are unreal, untruthful and show something different to what we expect. Since my idea is focusing on perception of people within the space of social media I am interested in creating a series that speaks to this. I want my photos to be unrealistic, or at least weirdly untruthful without any major editing.
Photoshoot
As well as recreating the Pinterest photo, I also decided to use Suzanne Saroff's 'Perception' series as inspiration.
If my ideas work out I would like to do this shoot again in the studio, especially for the photos of the glasses filled with water.
Edits
Putting my photos in Photoshop and playing around with them.
Looking back now, this is my favourite edit because I love the way the back image sinks into the background, and how the primary colours make it feel tidy and clean.
In Class Work
In our group we scanned the background image from a photography magazine, picked a flower and photographed it in the studio and sourced the vintage photo of the two people on deck chairs from Flickr.
If I was to do this again (or by myself) I would definitely change the composition and placement of all the images, but I do really like the images together. I think they really speak to the idea of nostalgia which is what we were going for.
Comments
Post a Comment