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Q&A

How did I feel about the project?

At first I was slightly worried about the project but then realised I could really take this project in any way I wanted. I thought it was going to be really hard to find some inspiration from Gosta Green but after I'd thought about it and I found the slides I realised it wasn’t going to be that hard after all. I got some really good inspiration from the slides and images shown to me about Gosta Green. This then excited me about my project and got me thinking about ways to make it something I am much more excited about. 

What have I learnt in the project?

I’ve learnt alot about colour and composition especially when displaying your work you want it to be the best it can possibly be. I’ve learnt a lot from Andrew if I am completely honest I find his methods really encouraging and he really does help you and gets you questioning things I have never thought about before such as “How my work exists in the world?” He has also encouraged me to borrow a lot of books from the library. To push my work further he also helps you think about where you should go next with your experimentation, he has taught me you need to try things LOTS of different ways rather than just trying it once. Therefore, I think Andrew has really helped me over this module and I hope to have him teaching me again in my third year. 

What would I do differently?

If I had to do something differently in my project I would make it clearer in the photographs that the images were from Gosta Green maybe a landmark or something that everyone knew about which could catch their eye and they could automatically say “oh yes thats Gosta Green.”

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2/5/18 - Successes, down falls & what I’d do differently

After todays session we had to talk about anything we’d do differently and what went well and what didn't. I believe my exhibition went well and the piece I displayed was successful in my opinion. Due to my piece being so big but yet the images on it so small a lot of the public who came to our exhibition had to get up close to my piece to be able to see what was going on in each photograph. This is something I didn’t realise I wanted to happen. That is definitely a positive I feel as the viewers are getting up close and personal with my work and interacting with it. Another positive thing about the exhibition was the paper I'd chosen to print onto. The matte paper I chose because I didn't want anything to distract from my piece. I wanted to make sure the light didn't interfere with the images from a distance. Also I think the matted paper went well with the wooden MDF I used to display my work. As they both share the same texture. I’m also quite glad I didn’t make the piece any bigger than I did, as this was printed onto A0 I don’t think I would’ve been able to make it any bigger without having to stick several pieces together. Which I think might have ruined the effect it had as you would be able to see it wasn’t a single piece. The colour collaboration I also think looked good when I printed it out the colours were bright and vibrant which is the exact idea I was going for. Making my idea throughout the project a success, them contrasting with the grey and dull images. 

On the other hand, I also did think some things could have gone better considering I did need to have a quick decision made when it came to the exhibition. As you can see previously in my project I did display enthusiasm with acetate and using it to contrast two colours together. This was not something I could have produced in time for the exhibition or in time for the deadline. As I looked around on the Internet there wasn’t any acetate I could find that was 100% able to print onto which was bigger than A4. Other than the one Luke was able to order. (However, this didn’t arrive in time for me to use. He asked Christina to authorise it but she forgot, therefore I must continue with other things.) This did put me in a bit of a tricky situation. Using the acetate method I think wasn’t even really an option which is why I took it upon myself to buy some acetate in A4 and make some mock ups and add them to the body of work I have created for my project. This isn’t ideal but at least you can see what kind of ideas I had in my head towards this. 

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30/4/18 - Session with Andrew

During our last session Andrew had us think about what has gone well whats not gone so well and how we could potentially progress this project if we had more time. 

Therefore, I came up with how I would have displayed it if I could have used the whole wall in rom g04. I would have tried to blow it up as large as I could however this may be hard as I don’t think the printer nor there is any paper big enough in the university. So I might have had to stick each piece together. Anyway this is an example of what I came up with, while also improving my photoshop skills.

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27/4/18 - Acetate pieces to go along with my contact sheet

Along with my contact sheet I decide to have a few of my acetate pieces to go along with it just to show my experimentation along the way in this project. 

The idea of these pieces is to make you look at the real picture and to realise that there is a contrast of excitement and boredom in the city of Birmingham, and sometimes they overlap. You have to explore Birmingham to find its inner excitement, vibrance and colour. Now I know all these objects of colour are ordinary boring objects however they contain colour which is what Birmingham contains within its nightlife, culture, events and people.

My favourite I think is still the yellow piece. A yellow chair overlapping a grey boring paved floor, I think is genius as it contrasts the two showing how dull and mundane the objects are but contrasts with the colour which really catches your eye when overlooking the images. It also makes you look really hard at the image to uncover what it really is. The other two I think are rally interesting also the orange I like how bright and vibrant the colour is but the pink thinks really interesting as it shows an action from the people of Birmingham. Maybe an art form of theirs or an action played on their behalf. Considering they all have interesting qualities I still feel the background of the yellow and the foreground still match up best as they provide a pattern and bright bold colour to be very eye-catching. 

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To Do:

Make sure blog is ready and up to date

Ensure all acetate pieces are suitable and reach my meaning

See if Luke’s order of acetate has been delivered yet

If not I will have to make do with A4 

Display them with my contact sheet in G04

Present this on my blog

Document all my proceedings and reflect

Do an evaluation 

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24/4/18 - Information leaflet

This is one of the leaflets we designed for our exhibition. Each section explains what our work is about in a very brief description. I feel my group sometimes made decisions without me or without consulting me. As I was in one of my other module sessions while they were doing this I had no idea this was going on. I did ask the members of my group if I needed to do anything or if I could help in anyway and they said there wasn’t really anything for me to do. However, I gave them a brief description of my work and they designed this brief leaflet to let others know what our work was about and who was involved. 

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24/4/18 - Exhibition poster

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23/4/18 - Exhibition set up 

For the exhibition tomorrow I have set up my work on a board of MDF from one of our own exhibition set ups from last term. I feel this is a bright and obvious place to set my piece up when you walk into the room it is in front of you immediately. I like the space I have attained for my piece however, I did think about using the floor space to show my work BUT the imagery and theme of the work I think would have been lost on the floor especially next to Emilys as hers is a island with her work upon it. 

The MDF I think works well with the matte paper the piece is printed upon. As they have the same surface they work well together working next to each other, I did have the option to present it on a white walled background BUT I thought this would wash out my piece too much and distract from what I am trying to show. 

I was worried about the security of my work hanging on the wall, as Andrew helped me secure the nails in the wood I was still worried it might fall off as the paper is quite heavy. Therefore I put some sticky back tape and glue dots behind the piece to secure it even more. I did consider command strips but somebody told me they’re not work friendly and will rip your work when trying to get them off the wall. 

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23/4/18 - The finished contact sheet 

After losing my actual contact sheet on photoshop somehow on my laptop I managed to create a new and even better one! This time I was able to get the right measurements for the file to be able to print in actual size on A0 sized paper. As I wanted this to be quite large I went for A0 and cut it down to size, I went for matte paper as I wanted the focus to be primarily on the images and the contact sheet to rough look because they are rough pieces that photographers use on a daily basis not for presentation. Also I think the wooden MDF board I am going to place it on was a good match for matte paper as it would be a good background for the paper to sit on, seen as they have similar surfaces. 

I had to ensure all my images were the same size as it was quite tricky for me to get them the same size because some of them come from a different camera, obviously some cameras shoot different sizes. 

Obviously my idea behind this was to show the public what goes into a photographers work. As I saw for myself when doing work experience at Andy Gore Photography. I learnt how there is ALOT of behind the scenes work that goes into these perfect images seen on screen or in magazines. Therefore I wanted to show how many photographs I actually captured in the process of choosing a few or one perfect image which was my initial plan. 

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23/4/18 - Setting up the exhibition space 

I did think about using my work as a floor piece but I thought them together wasn't coherent enough to make that decision.  

Considering where my work fits in the world and its purpose, I must consider what I am even trying to achieve with this piece of work I’ve created. Basically. I’ve tried to show the public that Birmingham isn’t the boring and dull city people make it out to be. It is the second biggest city in the country, London being the first. We have an extensive array of creative individuals in Birmingham who study, work and exhibit here. The culture and nightlife is loud, big and brilliant when experiencing the elements Birmingham has to offer. I wanted this to become apparent in my work.

Without even looking at the actual images I’ve used in my piece you can immediately see the colour and vibrance coming from them. Keeping this in mind the feeling and visually pleasing vibe you get from my piece should be what people feel like when they come to Birmingham due to the immense creativity and freedom Birmingham offers. However, there is an array of boring and mundane images mixed into this piece also contrasting the two and showing not all is as it seems at a first glance. Similar to the Gosta Green slides I found when we visited the first week. the images I found were very boring, mundane and simple. This is what I wanted to turn around in my project exactly what people see Birmingham as. 

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22/4/18 - Large contact sheet 

As I’ve had some problems with the acetate I decided to jump into another route I have taken. Considering this is my second choice I really feel like it is coming along nicely and portrays something I think is interesting and a big part of my project. It is in no way the worse of two options. 

I begun by opening a photoshop file at 90cm wide and 180cm long. This was easier for me to be able to insert the single contact sheets to form a bigger one. I made sure each contact sheet had the photos all landscape and ensured they followed the pattern in which I took the images. I think I will present this at the night school exhibition on Tuesday. I just need to get Luke to help me with the printing and the sizing of the image to be able to accurately print this out at university.

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22/4/18 - Tehching Hsieh 

Tehching Hsieh at the Tate has produced a series of images of him punching in on a time clock every hour over a year and captured it with a camera. Using extreme duration and endurance he produced something that has a repetitive edge and showing how everyday of our lives we probably are doing the same thing again and again. 

Thinking about this and my own project I can take some inspiration from this and my contact sheets to see how I can display them in our exhibition on Tuesday. I probably won't be able to take up the whole wall but the ay it is played out could be helpful. I have created a large contact sheet that resembles wallpaper and I will be planning to experiment with both ideas until I have definitely decided on the two, because I have a problem with finding A3 or bigger acetate to use in my project thus I have began playing with the idea of contact sheets and putting all my images I have once found together to follow my progress through Birmingham and what I could find which caught my eye such as vibrance and mundane contrasting in the same proximity. 

http://www.tate.org.uk/visit/tate-modern/display/performer-and-participant/tehching-hsieh

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19/4/18 

I do really like the last image I feel like the background goes well with the green splash of colour. I think I will try to recreate this with acetate and paper to see what the effect will look like displayed for our exhibition next week. I showed all these to Andrew and the group on Monday and realised they had a different opinion and I listened to take on board what they thought. 

As I was showing all of these experiments to my fellow peers and Andrew they all seemed to be more interested in the multiple contact sheets I had printed out. They began looking at those laid out all together on the table as it made one very large contact sheet. They made it very clear they preferred looking at the magnitude of photographs all together than the experiments I’d done. (Not to say they didn't appreciate those.) I began to realise what they were taking about and thought I would carry on looking at how I could compose them all together to see if I could make one giant contact sheet on A1/A0.

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16/4/18 - Examples for night school

I might attempt to print these examples on acetate for display next Tuesday night. However, Luke doesn’t have any acetate bigger than A4 at the moment in stock and I cannot find any which is suitable for the printer bigger than A4. Therefore in relation to night school I will have to use acetate in A4 size. I'm hoping for the end of my project the university will have some in a bigger size, so I can experiment in a different size to make a bigger impact. This is one option. 

However, another option is to create a contact sheet as big as the wall to create a magnitude of a contact sheet to present all the images I have taken to show the volume and complexity of the project I have undertaken.

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13/4/18 - Experiments

I decided to continue experimenting with acetate. Even though I haven't got a piece bigger than A4 this is no reason for me to stop trying to see different ways to further my project. I really like the right top corner one due to the colour contrast and the difference in the two images making it hard to differentiate between the two.

The bottom left is also interesting as you can’t actually see the bottom layer but can see that there is two image overlapping showing my experiment to be successful.

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15/4/18 - More level adjustment 

In the last ones you can definitely see a significant difference.

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8/4/18 - Level adjustment

As I had taken these photos with the DSLR from university I thought I'd better do some edits on them as they’re not always perfect straight from the camera.  I learnt from Luke it is always best to edit the raw images the CR2 file as they hold the most information and a lot of info can be lost when transferred to a jpeg file.

The levels tool is very clever as you can take out as much white and black as is needed to have the full capacity of the image. These screen shots show how I’ve demonstrated how to use the level layer and edit images to ensure they look good when being printed out.