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End of Project Evaluation

On the whole, I am quite happy with the photographs I have for my project because I feel as though I have carefully considered the subject, framing and composition. I believe my photographs effectively reflect the concept of limitation associated with memory and vision that I have been exploring, due to the distorted and ‘noisy’ but visually-strong experiments I have edited alongside my photos. On the other hand, I have been a bit disappointed with some of my photoshoots because I believe they could have been much better, subject and technique-wise. Photoshoot ‘Belonging’, which features my feet as I travel and photograph around London, appear to look quite flat and simple. This set isn’t as visually pleasing as the other photographs I took because they look muted in terms of the colour and contrast. I was able to fix this slightly in Photoshop by adjusting the saturation to bring out the bolder colours you can see where I’m standing in the road (double-yellow lines) or on the train platform. I also feel the experiments have helped to bring out the colour, especially the set where I have used coloured blocks to literally block out parts of the photos. I felt the need to retake some of these photographs because the first set featured a lot of shadows and overexposure in different places and the perspective/how I cropped the picture with my feet was uneven compared to other photographs. After retaking them and editing them, I am happier with the later shots because I feel I have managed to use natural lighting correctly and achieve a stronger contrast.

I struggled quite a bit at the start of the project because I didn’t have a clear direction about the journey I would go on with my ideas and photoshoots. I had a small idea that I wanted to explore vision and memory, based how on much I enjoyed my Component 1 project and how effective I think this previous project was. I knew I wanted to focus on these personal ideas, and once I had decided on what sort of look I was after in my imagery, I then began to settle down to brainstorm ideas and consider what techniques I could experiment with to achieve the atmosphere and emotions the viewers could feel from looking at my work. I think that my idea of using collage to reflect the concept of how the brain functions to register and remember information worked well because this technique naturally distorts an image to give a semi-abstract, unfamiliar look.

Looking back, I think that if I had used more art-based techniques then I probably could have produced imagery which would be more unusual but accurate in terms of how the brain works. I also think that art-based techniques feel more personalised and evoke a personal touch, and this would have complemented the atmosphere of my project. I do believe that on the whole, my experimentation was somewhat successful because I was able to develop my imagery and create glitching gifs to emphasize my overall idea.

Overall, my final pieces have reflected my personal experience with memory, and what it’s like from a personal perspective to remember and forget parts of memories. I wanted to explore all this technology but what was most important to the topic of memory was the memorabilia and the connection I have personally with the objects. 

I believe the gifs are much more effective compared to the simple zine because the moving image really brings the concept of memory to life, and they reflect the style of TV signals and the static image when it’s unavailable. I think if I had more time to complete the project I would have definitely took more time in thinking about my ideas for photoshoots and experiments, and think about what I wanted to achieve at the end of the project. I would have felt more confident to also work on a bigger and more artistic scale instead of working digitally most of the time. I think that if I had explored more ideas related to Freedom and/or Limitations, then I could have produced overall a more diverse range of final pieces because I would have had the experience of combining elements together. I don’t think my digital editing skills are very complex because I didn’t challenge myself enough to create more effective imagery, and this would have really helped to create an impact on the audience. 

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‘Documenting Memories’ - FINAL OUTCOME

I created this zine to represent a diary or scrapbook, a way for me to record memories and the photographs and memorabilia collected from my trip to Falmouth. The object which is placed next to a photograph was specifically and personally chosen as I most associate the object with that moment and place.

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Experimenting - Polaroids for the final zine

These are some small experiments placing the photographs into a Polaroid frame, and selecting a coloured background.

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Photoshoot Memorabilia

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Photoshoot ‘Memorabilia’ // Exam Day 3

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Exam Plan: 3rd 5 hours

For the final 5 hours I will be:

Editing photoshoot memorabilia

Experimenting with page design 

Creating the final zine, which will act as a scrapbook/diary of my trip

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Ansel Adams

Yosemite Falls - 1979

Ansel Easton Adams was born February 20, 1902, in San Francisco, California, and died on April 22nd, 1984. He was a photographer and environmentalist, but had a previous love for music, teaching himself the piano before taking interest in photography. Adams’ black and white landscape photographs of the American West, especially Yosemite National Park, have been widely reproduced on calendars, posters, books and the internet.

Natural shyness and a certain intensity of genius, coupled with his distorted nose (the result of an earthquake), caused Adams to have problems fitting in at school. Despite his different childhood, the most important turnout of these events was the joy that he found in nature, as evidenced by his taking long walks in the still-wild reaches of the Golden Gate.

The Sierra Club was vital to Adams’s early success as a photographer. His first published photographs and writings appeared in the club’s 1922 Bulletin, and he had his first one-man exhibition in 1928 at the club’s San Francisco headquarters. Each summer the club conducted a month-long High Trip, usually in the Sierra Nevada, which attracted up to two hundred members.

What is the location in the photograph? This polaroid was taken at Yosemite Falls, San Francisco in America. Although the majority of this photograph is made up of blossom and flowers, you can see the waterfall in the background, taking up approximately ¼ of the square print.

What is the photographer/artist trying to communicate?  I believe there isn’t anything for certain that Adams is trying to communicate, but what we do know is that he had huge admiration for the nature that surrounded him in San Francisco. Taking walks around National Parks on a daily basis with his camera, Adams found tranquillity and beauty in nature he saw before his eyes and seemed to prefer the peacefulness of nature compared to the hustle and bustle in cities of America. To share the beauty and perfection that Adams saw in nature, he took Polaroids and ordinary photographs for an audience to also appreciate.

What is the most striking visual element of the photograph? In my opinion, the most striking visual element of the photograph is the blossom in the foreground of the image, surrounding and drawing attention to the waterfall in the background. The close-up shot and how the majority of the photo is taken up by the flower emphasises the concept and reason for why it was taken and the artist ’s admiration for nature. While Yosemite Falls and the powerful movement of falling water can be seen in the background, and that it’s quite breathtaking to see in the image, I still believe that the simple and white flower is just as visually effective.

A quote from the artist himself reads: “Landscape photography is the supreme test of the photographer - and often the supreme disappointment.” What is being said is that a photographer must use rules and skills in their photography to take an effective image, including making use of light, perspective and angles, use the correct equipment and using manual controls. If this cannot be done successfully, then the photograph becomes boring and an ordinary, basic shot with no exciting visual features/elements. If a photographer can use these rules and skills, they can take any kind of photographs once they have ‘passed the test’ of taking a landscape photograph.

What is your personal response to this photograph? How does it relate to your own work? This is one of my favourite polaroid images due to the composition and the blue tint to the print, which adds to the calm and peacefulness you experience when you look at the image. Adams took his Polaroids to create a physical copy of his memory which he could always have with him when he wasn’t spending time in the National Park. I am inspired by his idea of taking photographs to always have the memory with you and this means you’ll never forget what something looked like, even if a photograph doesn’t do justice compared to the real vision. I have my own Polaroid camera but it’s a modern-day version so any photos that I take of Falmouth to maintain the memory I have of it, won’t look as ‘old’ or tinted compared to Adams’ outcomes.

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Damaged Memories - Experiments using bleach

I have created these experiments using bleach, to purposely damage and distort the photograph, representing the blur of a memory/forgetfulness due to time.

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Making Experiments: Screenshots

To create these distorted memories, I adjusted the RGB channels and added a distort - shear effect to create the waves. This effect creates an atmosphere of signals, particularly with radio and TV and how annoying it is when we experience interference, however, this is what it is like to remember a memory and how a memory changes when we learn new information.

To enhance this effect I added Gaussian noise, to make it look more like a lost signal. To develop this even further I used a previous technique of pixel dragging and selecting sections of the photo to add more noise.

I feel as though I have achieved the feeling of memory loss and the difficulty of retrieving memories, and symbolised how the brain works, according to scientific research.

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Experiments: ‘Retrieving’

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Experiments ‘Retrieving’ // Exam Day 2

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Exam plan: 2nd 5 hours

For the second set of 5 hours, I am planning to:

Produce experimental images for photoshoot ‘a trip to Falmouth’

Create GIFs which symbolise retrieving memories

In the style of my inspirational artists Frances Berry, Diego Collado and Monica Reede who used scanners to distort their photographs to represent memory like I am doing in my project, I am going to create experiments where I will be using a glitch effect to demonstrate a damaged and manipulated memory. I will be changing the RGB channels and applying distortion techniques to create these, and later I’ll transform them into GIFs to give a more real-life, personal perspective on the concept on how our brains work.

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Video Editing: Screenshots

To make the first video, I imported the original time lapse into iMovie, and simply added a filter on top. There are many to choose from so I spent time considering and experimenting with those filters that symbolised age and dreams.

Experimenting with the range of filters^

To develop this video, I took this newly edited video and opened it in Adobe Premiere Pro to see what I could add on top to add further concept and effect, which would, therefore, bring out the idea of a blank moment and forgetting things.

I found a selection of options for editing my video. I selected the filters for adding noise, dust and scratches (to show damage) and posterise and solarise to take away important details. Again, this reflects how a memory would look like it is was a physical object.

Saving these two videos individually, I brought them together again in iMovie. Here I have split the videos so when the whole clip plays it will switch between two different states of mind.

Screenshots from final video:

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‘States of the Mind / Flashbacks’ FINAL OUTCOME

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2nd Experimental Video

This edit was developed in Adobe Premiere Pro as this software allows you to create more advanced edits with different filters compared to iMovie. Here I added the effects Solarise and Posterise which has taken away the majority of the detail and has blacked out the darker parts of the original video. This reflects the brain’s process of handling information. I have also added noise to the video to show ‘damage’ and how something can wear due to age and how it is handled. 

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1st Experimental Video

This time-lapse represents the amount of time quickly flashing by. The dreamy/flashback filter emphasises the fact that this will one day seem unclear to me due to the amount of time that will pass by, making me naturally forget details of this short trip.

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Photoshoot: ‘A trip to Falmouth’