Final Major Project (Research Stages)

In my final project I am working with the theme zeitgeist. I am taking a series of portraits of subjects with their prized or most valued possessions. This shows what different people value most in current times. In my research phase I looked specifically at the work of James Mollison, Gabriele Galimberti and Brian Sokol. Gabriele Galimberti in particular influenced my shooting style for this project.

James Mollison

Gabriele Galimberti

Brian Sokol

Anomaly

In this project I attempted my first experiment with film photography. This was a challenge as it is a format I have never used before and it took away the security of shooting digital. I used a Lomography Fisheye 2 camera and Superia 200 film in this project.

I wanted to explore the different effects the Fisheye camera could create, so I tried to capture exposures of a wide range of landscapes, buildings and shapes. The closer to the subject it is, the more effective the skewed perspective of the Fisheye lens becomes.

I had a feeling that the film I was using would have too low an exposure, and when I got around to having my photographs developed I found that I was correct. This combined with generally overcast/dark weather meant my photographs were quite dark.

Though I was not as pleased with my prints as I would have liked, I enjoyed experimenting with a format completely new to me and felt that it fulfilled the brief.

Seven Deadly Sins

In this photographic project I had to create a series of images representing my interpretation of three of the seven deadly sins. I chose lust, greed and gluttony. Early on in this project I had the idea to photograph only hands, using them along with various props to represent each sin, a concept I stuck with throughout my project.

I shot these photos with studio lighting using the Canon 550D.

I think photographing only hands was effective as it kept my concept simple but effective. I did not want to overcomplicate my photographs in this project.

I knew during the shooting and editing process that typography was going to be an important part of my final pieces. I kept this in mind throughout. I feel that the typography brings this work together, especially when presented as a triptych.

Distortion

The second part of the Distortion brief involved taking my own photographs exploring the theme of distortion and experimentation. This involved finding reflections, shadows, light effects and skewed perspectives that created strange images.

I experimented with my camera using reflections in mirrors and other objects and found that I could create interesting, unusual images this way.

I put these images together as a diptych to show and compare the differences in focus on the mirror. I found this was an effective way to show the different perspectives in the image and create a slightly more unusual image.

Using a convex mirror created a different kind of skewed reflection, distorting the images into different angles.

I think this image is a good example of a more confusing distorted image, as it isn't clear what the reflection is actually contained in. The very shallow depth of field also makes sure that the reflection is the main focus of the image.

This photograph shows another kind of distortion, showing the camera taking the photo in another kind of 'reflection'. I think this image also works as it looks as if the ground is continuing into the screen of the phone.

Darkroom Light Painting

For the Distortion brief we went down into the darkroom to experiment with light painting and double exposures.

I created pictures by using torches as the sole light source in the room, using a 20 second exposure to 'paint' light into the image with them. As well as the lights in the background of the image, behind my subject, I had to have my subject lit with torches from the front also.

Using techniques in the darkroom like this can produce lots of different results. You can 'write' with the light like in this image:

You can also create double/triple/etc exposures by having your subject(s) move during the 20-second exposure:

Another effective technique using light-painting involves creating silhouettes by filling the space behind your subject with light.

Magazine Covers

In this task I had to create two original magazine covers. I had to create and arrange the layout and photographs used myself, putting together the covers and magazine concept from scratch. The magazine could be about anything, from sport to interior design. I chose to make a fashion magazine.

I began by researching different magazine covers that I liked. I found that I am frequently drawn towards more minimal covers, often involving simple, stripped-back portraits. I compiled a few of the covers I liked and tried to work out the elements I liked in each, so I could later apply them to my own work.

For my cover I shot simple portraits to use. As my model was a male I had to think about adding more menswear elements to my cover. I decided to make a cover for a publication that focused more on culture and art to work around this.

I used the Character Palette in Photoshop frequently in this project as typography was very important on my covers. Using the Character Palette to adjust different parts of my typography helped give my covers a more custom, professional look.

I tried to make two different covers that would appeal to different audiences by using different photographs, typography and layouts. 

I enjoyed this project and feel I produced two good pieces of work for it. I think doing extensive research into covers I liked at the beginning of the project helped me produce better work later on. 

Animation

To work with Animation I had to begin using Adobe Flash. I have never used Flash before so the program and workspace was completely new to me.

Our first task to start in Flash was to create an animated alphabet. At first I just made letters go from side to side, but this quickly built up to more complicated techniques, including changing colours of letters, making them spin and rotate, making them change in size and moving them around the screen.

Shown above is the workspace in Flash. I took this screenshot after doing a lot of work on my project, which can be seen with the amount of scenes and library items on the left.

To make letters usable in animation you have to convert them to Graphic Symbols. This makes them fully customizable and controllable in animation. After doing this you can start creating frames and altering the motion of the animation.

For simple animations like this, Motion Tweening is used to fill in the space between the frames and 'complete' the animation. This means the frames do not have to be created individually and makes the animation a lot smoother than it would be if every frame had to be created manually.

To start creating a more complicated animation I created a figure, in this case a robot, in Photoshop. I created each part of the robot individually on separate layers so I could animate them one-by-one later on.

When I imported this into Flash each layer was added individually. I turned each one into a Graphic Symbol so I could control and animate them more easily later on.

After spending some time animating my robot I decided I wanted to change the look of it to make it look more interesting. To do this I changed the textures of different parts of the robot, and edited some of the shapes slightly.

I also added music to my animation, a background, and later added two smaller robots either side of my main one. These touches finished off the animation and made it more visually interesting.