Experimental Photography

Richard Burn

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Full family body photomontage

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Evaluate: ideas eg analysis, results; How well do you feel you have realised your ideas and intentions and what results have you got? Ensure you talk critically (compare, contrast, assess) about your work. You should reference your influences and assess how your work compares.My ideas for this photomerge/montage was to use the full body photographs of my family. This was the first full body photomerge/montage I have created using my family & the second I have created overall. Compared to the one a made using the model, this one was far more complicated because the body parts are different colours & shapes. This made it harder to align and match up different body parts. As this is my first one produced using my family, there are mistakes visible in the work that I would like to avoid in future (I will go into this further in future slides). David Hockney was my main influence when it came to the photomontages, although my work has definitely got a modern twist as I am using Photoshop, whereas Hockney would manually line up prints of the very close up photographs he had taken to create the photomontage.

Qualities:Consider the aesthetic qualities of your work. How does it look? What do you like about it? What are the strongest and weakest elements from an aesthetic point of view?Included in this photograph is 5 members of my family. Aesthetically, this is very interesting to look at compared to the other photomontages as there is such a stark contrast between each persons body part. The legs in the photograph are the weakest part of the photograph & I will learn from this in the future. I thought this was weak because you can still see the persons leg I was trying to hide & I could not figure out a reasonable was to remove them.

Consider the technical qualities of your work? How well done is it? What elements are strongest and which could need further work and development? Be sure to use technical terms in your work such as exposure, shutter speed, aperture and talk specifically about any post-production techniques you have used. Technically speaking, I feel like this work did not have a lot of technical skill involved in it & therefore I feel like it failed to be what I wanted it to be. I used the clone stamp tool to create this piece of work, yet I feel like it did not work well. I may have worked to fast on it and did not experiment with features enough whilst working on the image. The exposure, shutter speed & aperture are all the same on each picture which allowed me to edit easily.

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How could you improve your work? Could you develop your work further with additional work? What would you try to achieve with this? Could you undertake further experiments? If so, what would they be?There are a few improvements I could make to this piece of work. The first being the quality of the clone stamp tool on the legs. This would increase the quality of the work overall. I would also like to improve the work by removing the objects that can be seen on the border of the image, as I believe this would increase the quality of the photomerge again. I decided to edit around the rough edges just to see what it would look like.

When talking about your work, consider formal elements such as lines, shapes and patterns as well as the colour and contrast and also tone of your image. Think about the composition of your work and where this could be developed. Again, like mentioned on previous PowerPoint’s, the lines of the human body are very interesting to me. I believe photomerges/montages show the different lines, shapes & patterns in the human & the similarities and differences featured within them. The colours featured within the image also natural colours found. Everything is natural about the work. Composition wise, there are elements I would change like the border around the image as this would change the composition just to be on the focus of the person/people.

Finally you should consider if the images you have produced fulfil the brief you were set. Do they match the theme? Are they experimental? Explain your answers using specific examples.I wanted to produce a full body photomerge/montage, meaning I have fulfilled the brief. I have experimented with this work.

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Evaluate: ideas eg analysis, results; How well do you feel you have realised your ideas and intentions and what results have you got? Ensure you talk critically (compare, contrast, assess) about your work. You should reference your influences and assess how your work compares.With this photomontage, I wanted to refine my full body skills. That was the idea behind this photomontage, before I produce my final full body one. Compared to the previous one, I found that It was more effective to keep the changes to a minimum, so that they still had a high quality look to them. Therefore all I changed in the was the face and the arms (my brothers lips are used instead of my Nan's & my dad's arms and hands are used instead of mind). I found this looked more effective than any others I have produced.

Qualities:Consider the aesthetic qualities of your work. How does it look? What do you like about it? What are the strongest and weakest elements from an aesthetic point of view?Aesthetically, you can see what I have changed in the picture but it is meant to be noticeable. One of the weak points in this photomontage is that it is very hard to remove the background of every image and it becomes harder when you confuse the layers. On my final one I will remove the background altogether, which should combat this. This is one of the stranger photomontages because I have used a females head on a males body & the oldest head on the youngest body. I think this is a strong point aesthetically as it makes it look even more unique, which is a key point to this work.

Consider the technical qualities of your work? How well done is it? What elements are strongest and which could need further work and development? Be sure to use technical terms in your work such as exposure, shutter speed, aperture and talk specifically about any post-production techniques you have used. Technically, the photographs I have used before have been used again. So like mentioned before, the exposure, shutter speed and aperture were all kept the same on each photograph which makes them easier to work with. I found using the clone stamp tool is actually quite difficult so I have been using the eraser tool again and my skill in using it well has improved, so my photomontages also look better. Something I will look into with my next photomontage is using the colour match & paint brush tool to create a smooth background for my work.

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How could you improve your work? Could you develop your work further with additional work? What would you try to achieve with this? Could you undertake further experiments? If so, what would they be?Like mentioned on the previous slide, I will be producing my final full body photomontage after I've produced my final portrait photomontage, so this was the final practise one. I will be developing my work with the final one by creating a plain background so you cannot see the boxers in the foreground and background. This will improve the quality of my work overall.

When talking about your work, consider formal elements such as lines, shapes and patterns as well as the colour and contrast and also tone of your image. Think about the composition of your work and where this could be developed. Like mentioned in previous slides, the human body has countless different kinds of shapes and this set of work really shows this off. Particularly in this photomontage, you can see the vast differences found with age & gender which I personally find very interesting. Development will be made with the composition of the next photomontage as the objects that can be seen in the foreground and background will be removed which will allow all the focus to be on the photomontage.

Finally you should consider if the images you have produced fulfil the brief you were set. Do they match the theme? Are they experimental? Explain your answers using specific examples. Yes the image fulfils the brief I was set. The theme was family and the photomontage features three members of my family. I have experimented a lot with the photomontages. You can tell this is the highest quality one so far.

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Evaluate: ideas eg analysis, results; How well do you feel you have realised your ideas and intentions and what results have you got? Ensure you talk critically (compare, contrast, assess) about your work. You should reference your influences and assess how your work compares.My intention was to create a high quality photomontage and my idea was to use photographs of the members of my family. I believe I reached my goal with successful results. Compared to my previous photomontages, this one is of a much higher standard, one of the reasons being that I made the background all one colour which allows all the focus to be on the subject. Again, I was influenced by David Hockney but you can clearly see my work is a much more modern take on his work which was simply a collage of individual photos.

Qualities:Consider the aesthetic qualities of your work. How does it look? What do you like about it? What are the strongest and weakest elements from an aesthetic point of view?This whole photomontage has many strong aesthetic qualities that have built up from the first photomontage I ever did. It looks a lot more professional as I've learnt what works and what does not work for example I found that using less people provides a better photomontage aesthetically. Making the background all one colour has also improved the aesthetic qualities of the photomontage drastically as the focus is all on the subject.

Consider the technical qualities of your work? How well done is it? What elements are strongest and which could need further work and development? Be sure to use technical terms in your work such as exposure, shutter speed, aperture and talk specifically about any post-production techniques you have used. The technical quality of my work has improved a lot over the process of producing these photomontages. I believe this is the highest quality one I could produce. I used photoshop to produce them and used tools like the clone stamp tool, eraser tool, colour match tool & the paint brush tool. These all allowed my produce a high quality piece of work. Also, this was the first time I altered the brightness and contrast on a photomontage which I believed benefitted it. Like mentioned before the photographs all had the same exposure, shutter speed & aperture so they were a lot easier to edit with.

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How could you improve your work? Could you develop your work further with additional work? What would you try to achieve with this? Could you undertake further experiments? If so, what would they be?I feel like this is the highest quality photomontage I could produce. I could carry on producing more that feature different members of my family in, but I am very pleased with the results that can be found in the photomontage. All the experiments before this photomontage have allowed me to produce one of this quality.

When talking about your work, consider formal elements such as lines, shapes and patterns as well as the colour and contrast and also tone of your image. Think about the composition of your work and where this could be developed. Like mentioned on all of my previous slides, the human face has many different lines shapes and patterns that alter only slightly from person to person but make for a very interesting photomontage. i am happy i explored something like this in my photomontages as it has created very interesting end products.

Finally you should consider if the images you have produced fulfil the brief you were set. Do they match the theme? Are they experimental? Explain your answers using specific examples. Yes the image fulfils the brief I was set. The theme was family and the photomontage features three members of my family. I have experimented a lot with the photomontages. You can tell this is the highest quality one so far.

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Evaluate: ideas eg analysis, results; How well do you feel you have realised your ideas and intentions and what results have you got? Ensure you talk critically (compare, contrast, assess) about your work. You should reference your influences and assess how your work compares.My intention was to create a high quality photomontage and my idea was to use photographs of the members of my family. I believe I reached my goal with successful results. Compared to my previous photomontages, this one is of a much higher standard, one of the reasons being that I made the background all one colour which allows all the focus to be on the subject. Again, I was influenced by David Hockney but you can clearly see my work is a much more modern take on his work which was simply a collage of individual photos.

Qualities:Consider the aesthetic qualities of your work. How does it look? What do you like about it? What are the strongest and weakest elements from an aesthetic point of view?This whole photomontage has many strong aesthetic qualities that have built up from the first photomontage I ever did. It looks a lot more professional as I've learnt what works and what does not work for example I found that using less people provides a better photomontage aesthetically. Making the background all one colour has also improved the aesthetic qualities of the photomontage drastically as the focus is all on the subject

Consider the technical qualities of your work? How well done is it? What elements are strongest and which could need further work and development? Be sure to use technical terms in your work such as exposure, shutter speed, aperture and talk specifically about any post-production techniques you have used. The technical quality of my work has improved a lot over the process of producing these photomontages. I believe this is the highest quality one I could produce. I used photoshop to produce them and used tools like the clone stamp tool, eraser tool, colour match tool & the paint brush tool. These all allowed my produce a high quality piece of work. Also, this was the first time I altered the brightness and contrast on a photomontage which I believed benefitted it. Like mentioned before the photographs all had the same exposure, shutter speed & aperture so they were a lot easier to edit with.

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How could you improve your work? Could you develop your work further with additional work? What would you try to achieve with this? Could you undertake further experiments? If so, what would they be?I feel like this is the highest quality photomontage I could produce. I could carry on producing more that feature different members of my family in, but I am very pleased with the results that can be found in the photomontage. All the experiments before this photomontage have allowed me to produce one of this quality.

When talking about your work, consider formal elements such as lines, shapes and patterns as well as the colour and contrast and also tone of your image. Think about the composition of your work and where this could be developed. Like mentioned on all of my previous slides, the human face has many different lines shapes and patterns that alter only slightly from person to person but make for a very interesting photomontage. i am happy i explored something like this in my photomontages as it has created very interesting end products.

Finally you should consider if the images you have produced fulfil the brief you were set. Do they match the theme? Are they experimental? Explain your answers using specific examples. Yes the image fulfils the brief I was set. The theme was family and the photomontage features three members of my family. I have experimented a lot with the photomontages. You can tell this is the highest quality one so far.