Attachment
For my unit two section, we were told to pick between 12 different themes and pick the one that stood out to us. I felt the word that stuck out to me the most was the word Attachment. After doing some research and looking at different artist and ideas on different websites such as pinterest which helped me decided that the word attachment gave me lots of ideas and a lot of creative freedom to take my project further. I looked into man made attachment, people being attached and generational attachment.
MEP Paris - Zanele Muholi
Zanele Muholi, the internationally renowned South African photographer and activist whose work documents and celebrates the Black LGBTQIA+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual+) community. Zanele Muholi, who defines themself as a “visual activist”, uses the camera as a tool to confront and repair injustice. During the 1990s, South Africa underwent a significant social and political change. Democracy was established in 1994 with the abolition of apartheid; this was followed by a new constitution in 1996, with the first in the world to outlaw discrimination based on sexual orientation. Despite this progress, the Black LGBTQIA+ community remains the target of brutal violence and prejudice to this day.
Strand 1: Man made attachment
My shoot:
Final edit:
Strand 2: People being attached(May Xiong)
May Xiong is an American surrealist photographer who did a series based on portraits that surround the of geometric shapes on her images and a black and white surrounding the ideas of the structure of the mind. Xiong either draws on her images after printing them, having the paint embody both light and dark sides of a person. Xiong started in 2005 when she was 15, after being given a digital camera for her birthday, she quickly found that photography could be an outlet to explore and capture narratives.Heavily inspired by light, music scores, and attention to detail, she creates photographs that encapsulates unusual beauty; bringing forth her subjects delicately and intimately with their surrounding environment. Xiongs' photographs are fantastical, and rely a lot on viewer interpretation. But, because of their soft, almost hypnotic aesthetic the viewer is never made to feel uncomfortably lost but rather he photos give a sense, that her images are part of a tale you already know, and simply need to remember.
My shoot:
My final edits:
Strand 3: Generational attachment(Bobby Neel Adams')
Adams followed his last project 'age maps' with Family Tree, a photography series that juxtaposes the portraits of two relatives. He wanted to rather show that simply seeing a before and after shot of one person, we see two people in the present day that display a similar version of themselves from the past or the future in their own family member. This series also address the ageing process, it takes an additional look at the likeness between individuals who share bloodlines, specifically those that are immediate family members–father/son, mother/daughter, father/daughter, mother/son. When i shoot my photographs i don't want to just do mother-daughter and so on.. i wanted to do cousins, siblings, ect... Adams presents a intriguing look at “the visual DNA passed from generation to generation.” I wanted to show how similar or unique people who are related facial features are.
My shoot:
The editing process:
Final edits:
COUSINS
To create these images I used photoshop and pulled the images together one on top of the other, then added a layer mask into the image I dragged across. after doing this I used the free transform tool to make the images sit on top of each other accurately. Finally i used the brush tool to help removed half of one of the faces to show the visual features/ DNA which is passed through different family members.
While doing this shoot and edits I found it hard to layer the two faces on top of each other symmetrically, which mad the composition of some of my final edits look deformed and constructed rather than the images flowing as one. Next time I will consider mashing/ mixing up more than 2 people to create a college of different generations, for example grandmother, mother and child. i think what went well in this shoot is the turn out of the images and how seamless the composition of some of the edits turned out. I then chose to develop this strand of attachment because I really liked the idea of creating a whole new person/ image by layer different facial features on top of each other.
While doing this shoot and edits I found it hard to layer the two faces on top of each other symmetrically, which mad the composition of some of my final edits look deformed and constructed rather than the images flowing as one. Next time I will consider mashing/ mixing up more than 2 people to create a college of different generations, for example grandmother, mother and child. i think what went well in this shoot is the turn out of the images and how seamless the composition of some of the edits turned out. I then chose to develop this strand of attachment because I really liked the idea of creating a whole new person/ image by layer different facial features on top of each other.
Artist and me:
Development 1: Lisa Leverseidge, generational attachment continued
Lisa Leverseidge started off her photography career by taking self portraits which then lead her to her love of photography and proceeded into fashion photography. This image in particular has been made with at least six different photographs to make the one photo. Each photo have been cut up into pieces and blended into each photograph and been coloured differently. There are no harsh lines in the photographs them self and is a little confusing to the public eye as you don't know where each image stops and starts. When taking inspiration from her i wanted to mix up different generations for example grandmother, mother, son and cut out pieces of their faces to combine them into one.
My shoot:
Final edits:
For my first development I wanted to introduce generational attachment by doing a mash up of 3 generations for example grandmother, mother, child to create a whole new person. I took inspiration from the photographer Lisa Leverseidge who wanted to make her images confuse the public eye as you don't know where each image stops and starts. I liked the idea of mixing multiple images into one to create a whole new outlook, however when taking inspiration from her i wanted to mix up different generations and cut out pieces of their faces to combine them into one. From this shoot i liked the idea of mashing generations up, However i think that the final result didn't reflect what i was trying to achieve which was to be able to create a seamless image where its very hard to be able to tell when one persons image ends and the other starts. If i re did this shoot i would make sure all the backgrounds of my photos are the same and i would also make sure they are the same or similar lighting because i found that if the lighting was different the whole images would not look right and would no create the desired affect i wanted to create.
Myra Greene: development 2
Myra Greene is an American artist born in 1975 in New York city. She received her BFA from Washington university in 1997, and a MFA in photography from the university of New Mexico in 2002. She currently works at Columbia collage Chicago as a associate professor of photography. In 2006-2007 she created a piece of work called character recognition which she created because she was forced to think about what people think of her when they see her, is she nothing but black. She stared to think about all of her characteristics and ethnic features. She then started to photograph different features of herself for example her lips, nose, teeth, eyes, ect... She uses portraiture to investigate the construction of racial identity and focuses on how her body/features relates to other people. Greene uses the wet plate collodion process a 19th century photographic method that was implicated in the slavery movement and used as a tool for ethnographic classification.
My response:
To make these images we had to take close up photos of someones facial features then turn them into black and white. After we had done that they were printed out onto .Then we went into the dark room and put masking tape over the corners of the paper and also tried different effects such as dripping on the developer using paint brushes. I liked the turn out of images because you an see all the different features of her face and I think the tape made it look more rustic and unique. I think I could have used a shorter time under the enlarger on the photos of her ear because they came out quite dark making it hard to see the definition of the features. I wanted to create an image in the dark room which really highlights everyone's unique features. I thought doing it in the dark room would really show every detail, bringing them together in just black n white.
Development 3:
My shoot:
My final edits:
To create these images I wanted to continue exploring the idea of facial features but bring attachment in more, so instead of just taking photos of relatives I want to take photos of different people with their unique features. However this idea made me move on from generational attachment. I aim to show how mixing different things/people up will create a whole new meaning to the image. When doing this shoot I took several photographs of different people's facial features for example there eyes, mouth, nose and ears from all different angles to turn into a digital collage. To edit these images i used photoshop to add the different images of my models facial features to layer on top of one face on photograph, which help me construct a whole new face. I then experiment on photoshop with how I wanted the final results to turn out, I played around with different exposures and saturations but decided the images looked a lot batter in black n white.
Development 4: Juan Manuel Sanabria
Juan Manuel Sanabria is an Argentinian artist who is apart of the new contemporary movement, pop surrealism and cubism-digital. Sanabria was influenced by watching movies about painters, before he had anything to do with painting, and sometimes without not knowing who the artist on the films were. One thing he realised was that art was always there for him, even when he didn’t knew it was. He likes the talk about dis-connection in his work and says its a concept that is constantly moving and changing. The world we live in is a cruel world, and we live through it, connected and disconnected at the same time. Where by mixing colours, and geometries, with a hyper-realistic painting in a style that is totally recognisable, Juan Manuel gives a magical and tragic sensation of what, according to him, is currently happening.
My shoot:
The editing process:
Final edits:
To create these images I was influenced by Juan Manuel Sanabrias' pixelated type of artwork, which shows how people are disconnecting and connecting from the world all the time. When doing this shoot I used two models and took portraits of them from different angles, I wanted them to not really have much emotion on their face to represent these disconnections to life/ the world, and have some photos where they are smiling/ happy to represent the connections. I then deconstructed some of the images to layer on top of one of the portraits and started to pixel/ blur parts on the images on photoshop adding bits of colour to the pixels which I believe shows the disconnections to the world and the slight moments when people connected/ attach.
Artist and me:
I noticed some comparisons between the artist and my response when looking back through my work so far. We both used colours in the pixels which i think brings the images to life more and it also makes a focus around the model. I noticed that most of his artwork has one thing in common which is that he has characters in everyday situations, totally decomposed and digitalised. Therefore i decided to photograph this a a development in my work on attachment. I took inspiration from Juan Manuel Sanabria in the way that he mixed colours and used geometric shapes to create a new perception which could be a magical and tragic sensation. I wanted to use this in my work because it gave an accurate representation on what attachment can feel like for someone, bring trapped in a space where all you can think about is how you look to others/ self image and for the viewer to depict the image on a deeper level through the layers.
Development 5: Pablo Thecuadro
Pablo Thecuadro is a Madrid based artist and photographer, he uses fashion editorials some shot by him and others by different photographers to create something completely new. He constructs abstract art by cutting different picture composition digitally as well as physically and builds an extraordinary imagery. He breaks away from the habits in the fashion industry, even when the artist works in fashion, he likes to play with the norms. He likes to use the negative space in his work to reflect that hidden part, there’s apparently nothing in there, but it’s still there and it’s part of the composition. He took a lot of inspiration from Nick Knight, Susana Blasco, and Jesse Draxler work. In a statement Pablo Thecuadro explained his works: “The collages I make express the duality in the human being, who we want to be versus who we really are and what part of us we show to others. Collage art is a never ending process, you can put as many images you want together over and over again.“
My shoot:
Final edits:
To create these images I took inspiration from the work of Pablo Thecuadro when making my model try out very exaggerated and over the top movements to represent his style of using fashion editorials in his work. I then edited some of the photographs into black n white and kept some in colour to create a contrast and printed them onto paper in different sizes. After they had been printed I started to cut out the images and left 2 without being cut out,To construct my images i began by cutting the different picture compositions to build an image that would break away from the norms of the fashion photography world.
Development 6: final exam, Lucas Simoes
Lucas Simones is a Brazilian artist based in São Paulo who has a background in actacture. His architectural background leaves a very clear trace throughout his photographic work. He aspires to creates artistic pieces from his photographs, burning, cutting and physically distorting his images to create an unrecognisable image. Simoes' uses source materials for example maps, books and photographs, which he then folds, cuts and deconstructs into new forms which then creates his abstract final image. For his burning images, Simoes has used fire to distort the image and remove all or some of the facial features of his subject. The lack of facial features removes the identity of the subject, drawing the focus to the burn and to the the other aspects of the images, rather than the face. Simones was largely influenced by the 1990s, a group of artists working in the UK, who came to be known as the YBAs (Young British Artists), defined the artistic culture of the 1990s. I was influenced by Simões’ work in many ways; not only does he use a similar technique to what i wanted to produce but his concept is also along similar lines. Simões wants to prove that erasing an image will also erase the memory behind it, and I want to see whether the viewer can still understand the meaning of the images without the faces.
My shoot:
First stage of editing:
Final piece:
To create my final piece I took inspiration from my last development where I printed out my images into black n white and left some in colour then cut my model out and layer the images to create a collage. I chose to develop from that because I feel as though it shows how people can get so attached to themselves and get so self obsessed they are all they see anymore. I also wanted to add the technique of burring my images, lack of facial features removes the identity of the subject, drawing the focus to the burn and to the the other aspects of the images. I wanted to see if the viewers could still understand the complex meaning of my images without being able to analyse their faces.
To create these images I tuned some of my photos into black n white and left some in colour and got them printed onto paper. After they had been printed I then started to cut out the images and left 2 without being cut out, I did this so that I could layer them on top of each other to add visual depth to a two-dimensional medium, and to create a deeper story. Next I got the new images I had created printed onto shinny and matt photographic paper which I was then able to burn through the images. When burring my images I had to think about where i would want to burn and where I would like the charred look to be.Finally i layered one of the images i didn't burn under the ones i burnt to create visual depth to a two-dimensional medium, and to create a deeper story.
I thought these images turned out well because of the composition of my model which creates the the viewer that he is obsessed with himself/ attached to himself. The use burring the images relates back to society and how my model could have lost himself in his path in life, which helps to create a deeper story.
To create these images I tuned some of my photos into black n white and left some in colour and got them printed onto paper. After they had been printed I then started to cut out the images and left 2 without being cut out, I did this so that I could layer them on top of each other to add visual depth to a two-dimensional medium, and to create a deeper story. Next I got the new images I had created printed onto shinny and matt photographic paper which I was then able to burn through the images. When burring my images I had to think about where i would want to burn and where I would like the charred look to be.Finally i layered one of the images i didn't burn under the ones i burnt to create visual depth to a two-dimensional medium, and to create a deeper story.
I thought these images turned out well because of the composition of my model which creates the the viewer that he is obsessed with himself/ attached to himself. The use burring the images relates back to society and how my model could have lost himself in his path in life, which helps to create a deeper story.
Artist and Me:
Developments chart: