For component 1 I researched many photographers to help understand what the brief included and to help inspire my own work. Some of the photographers I looked at were Keld Helmer Petersen, Mads Perch and Duane Michals. Another photographer that I researched and probably the one that influenced my work the most was William Eggleston. I came across him while browsing through a Pinterest board of photographers that experimented with the human condition. His work interested me because of how the bright colours that he uses interferes with the lack of emotion and feeling of the subjects in the pictures. I was influenced by his work all through the topic and my final piece incorporates many of his ideas. For abstraction Mads Perch was the main photographer that spiked my interest and I love the way that he used projection of colourful patterns on a model to create a sense that the photos are dream-like and a bit out of this world.
The two themes I have investigated are abstraction and the human condition. At the beginning of abstraction, I was a bit sceptical about how I would enjoy the theme as I wasn’t much of a fan of taking strange photos that don’t really resemble much. However, as I researched the topic and photographers, I found out that there was so much more that counted as abstract photography. I really enjoyed experimenting with pattern and for this I depended on threshold concept 6 which explains how photographers rely on chance to create their photographs. Many of the pictures that I took in this theme were interesting sights that I came across.
For the human condition I was much more confident from the start and I was very excited to explore the ins and outs of humans. Before taking any photos, I made sure that I completely understood what was meant by the human condition. I learned that the human condition is all about what make us who we are and the things that define us such as characteristics and emotion. I played with a few different concepts under the human condition for example companionship and feelings and tried to bring them all together in my final piece.
Throughout component 1 I have explored a range of media, processes and techniques including: photograms, Photoshop, mobile photography, duotones, diptychs, triptychs, DSLR cameras and different ways of printing. One of the first things I did in abstraction was experimenting with abstract photograms. With this, I played around with duotones and after I had made a couple of them, developed the process by blending a contrasting photo with the photogram. I used Photoshop a lot all through both personal projects and my skills using the application definitely improved over the time. At the start I had no idea what all the little processes were but after research and a lot of Youtube tutorials I am much more confident now. What I found the most challenging was when I had to take photos of people that I didn't know for a response to Marianne Olaleye. I was a bit worried about taking picture of random people, so I got very limited photos for that. I would love to keep persisting with street photography and get my confidence up so that I can produce a good amount of content.
For my final piece on abstraction, I was influenced by Mads Perch. I chose to present my final outcome as a 3D model. I created a photo of my sister and blended it together with a photo of space. I did this because of how Perch takes the photo and makes it look like something from a dream that couldn’t possibly be part of real life. Instead of just leaving it at that I decided to develop this idea by using my earlier experiments with cutting out shapes and creating a composition to use to create a photogram as inspiration. I sliced the photo into smaller parts that were all different sizes and stood them up on a table. All the parts of the photo were then on the same level and you can tell that it’s still her, but it’s distorted slightly. I chose to do this so that when displayed everyone looking at it say a slightly different version of it.
For my final piece on the human condition I incorporated many of my ideas from earlier in the project and tied them all together with the idea of growth and memories. This links to threshold concept 10 where it talks about time and how photographs are a way of remembering and staying attached to those things that have been lost over time. I chose to present my idea on a little light box display. I created two photographs of the same person with a time gap in between and layered them on top of each other on the light boxes. You can clearly see both photos and ideally you would be able to notice the difference in how the person looks, however I would have liked to have a lot more time to carry out this project so that the difference in the photos could have been way more noticeable. If I had more time, then I would have left years between the photos. Originally, I had wanted to display the two photos on the wall or on a board that folded in the middle to resemble how people display their photo memories (in photo frames on the wall and in photo albums or scrapbooks). I wanted for my final piece to remind people of their own memories and for it to be a way of remembering the past. I am very happy with the way it turned out and ideally, they would be displayed on a wall or on a table in a gallery.
Out of the two personal projects I feel that the human condition was the most successful. I think that I had a more detailed investigation into what the brief included, and I think that I produced a better final piece with more meaning and thought behind it. It probably turned out this way because the human condition came after abstraction, so I was more confident in my self as a photographer and I had better experience in developing my ideas.