evaluation

the more we see a person the more we recognise what defines them and how they portray that, it becomes a focal point to their being while all else fades into a single being: grandmother, mother, me, a word to a face that changes between all. the theme I hope to portray within this work is family and what they are to us, what defines them as an individual.

to represent this I have used inspiration from various artists, especially that of Rashed Haq

process

photography

to create a series of blurred and focused images I set camera to AV mode using both the higher and lower values to create a series of blurred and focused images that I later used photoshop to merge together this allows some of the facial features to be more visible than the others to give the appearance of defining traits such as the mouth and eyes, when taking the photos I had the subjects stand against a light coloured wall and illuminated them with a lamp in a dark room, this allowed a lot of contrast between light and dark areas to make the image more clear as well as to highlight the facial features so that they stand out even when  overlaid with similar images.  the greatest challenge of photography was to ensure that neither the light nor dark took over the image in addition to the background not merging in with the images, to overcome these I had to time the photos at night time since the areas would be overpowered with natural light if taken at any other time, and I used white walls to take the photos against.

photoshop

this method of editing is used to simulate the style of Rashed Haq who uses a 20 minute exposure time to create a single blurred image of a portrait.  in previous works I discover that using too many images to overlay one another can cause all the images to blur without leaving any defining traits, in addition to merging the image into the background, as a result of this it became apparent that fewer images would have to be used to make the final composition, in addition to increasing the contrast and making the image lighter to compensate for my home photoshop making an image lighter on screen than in print or on other devices. with this in mind I constructed five outcomes to reflect my theme, to create these I used not more than three images a piece with varying levels of opacity, the areas to convert to greyscale were then selected and changed using the hue and saturation tool, the colour areas were then selected and adjusted to make them brighter using the same tool, then different tools such as the colour replacement and eraser (soft, low opacity) were used to neaten up edges. the most challenging aspect within photoshop would be ensuring that the colours are brighter but do not take over the final image.

surrounding and organisation

to make the outcome more personal than coloured pictures on a wall I have organised them in order of relation in a style that replicates a family photo and surrounded them with the objects or those of similar colour to the image, to show that these belong with the individual. I have also used threat from inspiration from Jean Francois LePage and the marks he makes on images, this represents family ties in a very literal sense.

plans

an essential part to any assignment is the preparation that must be made to ensure all resources are being allocated to the right places. after researching artist styles I had decided what my theme is and who I wanted to use, however there are many potential ways to present and portray potential ideas without expending a lot of time and money.

pen lines

this style was inspired by Jean Francois lepage who uses bold lines over an image, however he uses high key lighting for his original. for these I have used harmonious coloured of red, blue and purple to represent the changes throughout individuals within a family, however I do not believe this technique works for a piece with much lower lighting as well as in grey scale, in addition to this the colours would either have to be sewn on or painted and this may be too sharp against the softer grayscale.

coloured items assortment

instead of adding to the existing composition it was suggested that instead of adding to the composition, I should edit part of the composition to make the images more natural. to achieve this I have selected an element of the image and left the colour on that white the rest of the image is left in greyscale, this will draw attention to the gradual change as a family tree grows and branches through the use of colour mixing. the issue with this is that some aspects may take attention away from other images within the final composition if some aspects stand out too much.

coloured items head

to prevent any aspect from taking over the entirety of the composition I have placed all of the coloured elements around the head area of the subjects, white using similar colour schemes. the issue with this however is that the elements are too similar removing the personal aspect, therefore I doubt this will be used within the final piece.

 experiments

running ink

as the lines in their own seemed too harsh I decided to try a technique that would blend the lines with the overall structure, this would allow colour to be a defining aspect. this would have been a technique to consider however the only colours that worked were the ones from a biro and as a result only blue, red, green and black can be used, this is a major issue as the colours are not related and therefore not useable for a final piece.

thread

instead of using pen as the focal point

pen swirl

pen highlights

pen lines

white pen

to create this I have used the images taken and edited in photoshop and drawn over them in white pen. for the more abstract photos within my work this process does work very well since it allows me to create focal points and new representations through the use of positive and negative space, in addition to this the white stands out a lot drawing more attention to this piece challenging the viewer to find the representation and make it their own. however the pieces that I intend to use are far less abstract than those used in this experiment, in addition to this the white may draw attention away from the farcical features and cover them. as a result of this it may not be In my best interest to use this process for my final outcome.

As part of a workshop to expand mediums used I printed some of the second photoshoot images onto acetate, that allowed the images to be desplayed in a transparent medium. The overall effect was not as appealing as it could have been as the photos used did not have as much variation in time therfore the acetate copies were even less visible. The outcome of this experiment would have been better have I had used images with greater variation in tone. Another issue with this method is that acetate is sat more costly than layering images within photoshop.

Layering acetate
One of the most useful materials within art is acetate, this is because it can be layered over other  other work to create a new composition, I'm addition to this it can also be used to sample a process over several peices. The image here was created by layering sheets of acetate with images from shoot 2 over each other, resulting in an outcome that is similar to what could be created using photoshop or other editing software.

Final photoshoots
after formulating an outcome plan I decided on a colour scheme to use for this project, these being a harmonious range between red and blue, these colours have the strongest connotation to emotion and personality, in which items will else be used to help guide the viewer to my intended conclusion. The representation I hope to create will be one that best reflects the subject used, this ideal is the challenge within this project as the colours need to fit with both the individual and the colour scheme.