As a student photographer the themes I have chosen and studyed in photography over the past two years have been thought about and analysed from differnt perspectives. Where as previously my mind set was different and a photo was simply a photo. However now I see it as a piece of art which has captures a specific moment in time which can never be recaptured or recreated in exactly the same way again which makes it individualy unique. Now my knowledge of photography has been expanded greatly and I can think about different components that make up a photograph. Whenever I capture an image I study it and think about the initial ideas and parts that make up the photograph for example the shadows, tones, direction of sunlight, framing and so much more. Throught out my time as a photographer I have been taking inspiration from a number of people and places such as, The Tate Modern, Dafna Talmor and The National Art Gallery; I have researched so many artists who have inspired me to change my perspective of photography and move out of my comfort zone. Also they have inspired me to think outside the box, dare to be different, accept my mistakes and learn from them in a creative and artistic mannor. This has helped me to refine and develop my work with much research. Where as previously I would have been satisfied with any old photo as long as it was in focus and the main subject was clearly displayed. Over the time that I have been studying photography I have been looking at how best to link the background to the main subject. For example how you frame and crop your images and where you place your main subject. I have also been playing with things like lighting and tone; looking at how I can play with a range of techniques. I have been looking at how the diretion of sunlight can make a photograph stand out and refect the colours and make them look more virbrant.
I have explored a range of media, processes and techniques in this project including apps like layout, Sketch,*print, photoshop, Microsoft word and so much more I have used so much digital and non digital media such a books, ebooks magazines, newspapers, advertisements. e.g. advert boards, ad breaks, and multiple printers and scanners. I have learned to use a wide variety of these medias during the time I have studied photography developing my use of media helped me for both in and outside of my photography class and have used apps to help me with the layout of my work and I have been able to change things like the arrangement of my photographs in gallerys. I have a natural eye for pattern and arrangements and am able to pick up on small changes and tweeks that need to be made.
I have experimented with four sub-themes in the mail theme of personal projects however my main two projects have been abstraction and rituals. I have been perfecting my use of photography techniques and finding inspiration from artists and their work, I have been creating collages and weaves, lanscapes and portraits. All of which were made unique and abstract by using different insperational pieces. My starting point for abstraction was looking at the formal elements of a photograph and how they can be hindered and changed in different was to change the affects of the photo. I have been reflecting my work and looking at how it could be made better or developed into my next piece. Looking deeper into one particular piece such as the dark room work I can take it further and make multiple pieces out of one idea and show my understanding and show how my ideas are unfolding and emerging further in each piece. I have been presenting my work in different ways throughtout this project and documenting them all along the way. I began to develope an eye for the ways we arrange our images, to make it more affective and I began looking at pictograms and how I could use the gallery of my abstract photographs and reflect how each one can raise questions and can be set out in a meaningfull mannor. I started looking at how I could take a normal, original image and make it abstract via lots of different techniques to change and distort the image. For my final piece I use a simple image of a tree and I deciede to crop it down so as you couldnt see the edges, then I began looking at the brightness, the hue, the saturation and the contrast I was looking at how you can change one aspect of the photo and get a completely new look.I had decided to change the contrast of the image to make it slightly darker and more intence which brought out the colours and outlines which made it stand out. i began to look at weather I should add a frame or a grid and I wanted to explore collage and arrangemtns more so I created a collage where I had broken my image into eight peices, cutting down to the same size and refleted how I could display my final outcome and how I could reflect my understanding of the theme as a whole and make sure that it was an effective piece so that it could be mounted and diplayed in a way that it could be as affective as possible when being veiwed by others.
My second sub-theme was Rituals which I began to explore the ideas and opinions of others in greater detail. I began asking people "what a ritual was to them?" and if they believe that they follow a ritual or if they have an idea of the sort of things that they would class as a ritual. I was researching famous photographers and artists and looking at the sorts of things that have taken insperation from and how they have dislayed their images and looking at a range of techniques that they have used to try and widen my knowledge of the components and formal elements of a photograph. I began looking at my own opinion of a ritual which was that it had to be a pattern or a regular thing that is followed and this sort of thing has been mentioned when I have asked others about there opinion. I began to look at some of my other hobbies and things that I took interest in to see how any of those could be seen as a ritual as I used to do them all of the time. I developed an idea that was related to origami and folding and I stared looking at the different orgami that could be created and was looking at which was the most affective or that looked the ones that I was most satisfied with and the ones that worked best. I turned to the idea of paper planes when I began looking at how they are all made in the sme way and all are folded uniquely and how they can be complete and incomplete and successfull and unsuccessfull but they are all made in relitively them same way and how you can get a large veriety of out comes all from one set of instructions or one technique.