Lens & Digital Media Projects

Project 1: Fine Art Photographer

For our first project we were asked to look into a fine art photographer which we had not previously heard of. I choose the work of Andreas Gursky and in particular the image "The Rhine II" (1999), a simple long landscape image of a river, which was created using a series of photographs took from different perspectives. The image is simple yet stunning and shows great depth of field with in it.

So moving on to how this image influenced and inspired me to come up with my own stunning view. The idea of merged and manipulating images really fascinates me and I felt that finding Gursky's work would be the perfect opportunity to explore and experiment with creating my own image on Photoshop.

To create my image "Improved View" i took four different photographs and combined their best aspects into one image to get an almost surreal view. Although this is an actual place I felt in the original photo the sky was too plain and due which you can see lower down the page.

Improved View (4 In 1)

The Photographs I Used

I Used The Sky

I Used The Hills

I Used The Grass

I Used The Grass

If I was to ever do this again I would definitely consider my options in merging completely random things together creating totally surreal, bizarre, weird and strange worlds. I also wish I had experimented with a larger range of images for this project.

Project 2: Photography & Time (Interior & Exterior)

For the second project we had to create two series of images showing time an interior and an exterior and each series should include at least 20 images. My "Interior Series" is an collection of photographs i took in an abandoned needle factory, I have plenty more images of the factory and found it difficult to narrow the lot down, as there was just so many interesting things going on. I believe that this factory shows the passing of time as you can see how things are often forgotten about and left behind, they then begin to rust and crumble by both the environment and by others coming and going, such as myself. 

Interior Series (Unedited)

My "Exterior Series" focuses on a woods opposite my house in the winter  and looks at my journey through it. I believe this series is showing a passing of time as not only does it represent a change in season, which is a change of time in itself. But it also shows the change in time of day as the journey goes on, the sky slowly starts to darken depending on which direction I am facing and if you look close enough you will also be able to notice the snow melting.

Exterior Series (Unedited)

After looking at these series of images i would love to start editing a few in the future and develop the idea more of looking at seasons. Perhaps I could take more photographs of the same place in the spring and compare and merge them together. I feel that I could do with shortening these series and become more choosy with my work.

Project 3: Stills & Movement

For the third project we were asked to create a moving imagine piece linking a sequence of photographs together and could chose any focus point. I have decided to be a little creative on this one and have Incorporated painting into my video. The painting is a very simple one but I feel the way in which I have chosen to present it is an interesting way.

So to create this video I began by taking a photograph of a white painted board, than i painted a little bit of the background on, took a picture, painted a bit more, took a picture... You get the general idea of where I am going with this, having completed the painting I then took all my photos and cropped them on Photoshop, so that my studio space was not in any of the view and it was purely the painting. Having do this I added them to imovie, changed the time to my liking and here is the final result.

The City 

Changes I would like to do if I could do this project again would be painting from an image, which also has some relevance e.g using an image from my other two lens projects.

Project 4: Sound

Project four was to produce an image through sound, I chosen the woods has it has been relevant in the past and wanted to continue this theme as i enjoy it. I also had this idea in my head as soon as we were informed of the project, a felt I should follow it.

My sound clip also as the image from the place i took the recordings  so you can compare the two and see if you feel that they match up, which in my case i believe they do. To create such strong, clear sounds I focused on one sound at a time and recorded it with my phone. After doing this I then downloaded this free sound editing software and had a little play around with overlapping and duplicating sounds to create a realistic yet more interesting sound of the woods.

The Woods  

I really enjoyed this project but I not sure if people would find the sound a little boring and perhaps I could focus on a busier place next time like the city or a takeaway place.



Project 5: Portrait & Self Portrait

The first task we were given for this project was to take a photo of ourselves, which now as an official term known as the "selfie" and it was recently added to the dictionary. A selfie is were someone takes a phone of themselves with a phone or camera with their arm extended out, it is often also very popular to take a selfie in the mirror and actually taking a picture of your reflection instead. I believe that this form of selfie is very popular as people what to see how they will look in the photo and by using a mirror you can achieve a desirable pose to your liking. 

A selfie do not just have to be of yourself but should at least include you in it, its also common to take selfies with a group of friends, celebrities and animals. Another thing i have noticed in selfies is that it is often young girls. I believe that its more popular among girls as they enjoy taking picture after they have had their hair done or if they have just done their make-up due to the fact they are going out somewhere nice and feel the need to show their beauty.

Red Perfume (Selfie)

For our selfies we were asked to be creative and artistic and i decided that i wanted to experiment with lights, not just having multiple lights around me but experimenting with colours and lighting. At first I experimented with a small disco ball trying to get the little mirrors to reflect shapes of light but in the end there was just not way of doing want i wanted to do with out having someone to hold thing up so I could take a picture. 

So I then played with the idea of finding colourful transparent object  to project light through using the light on my phone. I found that perfume bottles worked very well and that also the larger the bottle the better the light of colour would spread around the room. This is why i decided upon the red perfume as it was the largest and allowed to take up the whole space in the photo.

I actually feel that this technique was rather successful and would like to develop this in the future, possibly also projecting shadows of objects by using the same method.

After doing this we then had to take a portrait of an object, I thought what better way to link the two together by taking a portrait of the perfume bottle itself. I believe that this image can be classed as a portrait as the perfume is the only subject present and shows it in its full beauty and stillness, capturing every curve and shadow. I also thought it would be good if i light the bottle up with my light and hide the phone with black material so it blended into the back ground, creating a strong and impacting image with beautiful contrasted of black and red.

Bottle (Portrait Of Object)