Artist Inspiration

I am always finding inspiration from art and I feel that this greatly impacts my photographic work so I wanted to explore some artists work that I think will help me with my theme:

Kerry Miler - Flowering Plants of Great Britain - Vol 3 

 

Miler is truly an amazing mixed media artist, her work is hand made and centred around books. This particular work shows a collection of wild flowers sprouting from a book. What I like about her work is the use of nature in an non common place  as well as the idea of the book being taken from nature (pages made from trees) and then nature reclaiming it. From this work I can now see that the form of nature can be show in many ways and the power of it can shine through when it it represented in a place not usually seen.   

Barrett Biggers - Life and Death 

This work uses nature to build the form of a female face, it shows the depth and beauty of it and the power it holds. As someone who grew up around nature I feel it has build a part of me and this art work truly shows this. I really enjoy the colours in this work, the darkness and cold tones seem to blend so well into the rich lively colours at the lower parts of the work. This idea has also been done in photography with overlaying images and using a double exposure, however I want to explore this idea in a new way, by combining art with urban life and nature.  

Sharmon Davidson - Transformation 41

This work is a mixed media layer piece, using nature itself (leaves flowers). I really enjoy this directs use of nature, it adds a dimension and depth to the work. The whimsical nature of this work gives a magical feeling and reminds me of childhood, the small face has a fairy like look, again adding to the nostalgic tone. Instead of the work using bright colours the work used muted and dulled tones showing a more darker aspect of nature, perhaps suggesting the chemical effect on nature.  

This look into art work has really helped me to understand what I enjoy about the representation of nature, I have begun to think about how I wish to present nature and what I can say through my display of it. I want to use a cold tone to my work but have a whimsical and cinematic look also 

Studio Lights

This week we looked at lighting, though I am not planning on using the portable lights for my work, it helped to widen my knowledge on how lighting is picked up and used in photography. These are the images I took:

The Beauty of Decay

I have been exploring my project idea further by looking into the themes of decay and nostalgia and how they can be tied together. Sarah Arnold, in her 2016 work 'Urban Decay Photography and Film: Fetishism and the Apocalyptic Imagination', explores the human fascination with decay and ruined or "dead" urban buildings. When looking at some work she stats "The images are charged with nostalgia and instilled, with a sense of the spectral", I want my work to hold this sort of sense.

I also produced some slides to show the class in order to present my idea:

Through this project I aim to display the beauty of decay and the power of nature. I shall do this by photographing old or abandoned buildings that hold an eerie feeling and have a sense on nature taking over. The aesthetic will be shown through a cold and sombre style.

Street task - Shopkeepers

This weekend I took the camera out in town and photographed shopkeepers. The task helped me to work with the camera however I faced many issues. When working in spaces I was unfamiliar with, the lighting was space was a big issue. Many of the shops were very busy and there for there was no much time to take the photos, they were also mostly very dark so I had to put the ISO up a lot, which compromised the quality of the image. Some of the subjects were also uncomfortable with the camera but gave it a try. As I did not know the models I was friendly and talked to them in order to make them feel a bit more comfortable. These are the images I took:

I had to use the flash on this image as the shop was rather dark, the model was very friendly and open to taking a picture, which really shows in the image as she had an energy about her. 

unfortunately this image came out rather grainy because the ISO levels were put very high to compensate for the darkness in the shop. Although the image is bad quality I think the subject placement looks good and shows his laidback nature. 

I really like these images, I think the space around the subject works very well to show the shops style. The subject also looks right at the camera and opens the viewer to look at his gaze then the surroundings. 

These images are more candid and the subject continued to work as I took the pictures. The lighting was very bright because of the large windows all around, I think these kind of portrait photography is my favourite as it is so natural and shows a true moment in time.  

For these images I experimented with framing, I took the the image for outside the shop, though it is over exposed I like the use of the door fame. I think the image in landscape works better then the portrait photo.

I enjoyed taking these images as they used nature to add colour and the subject looks at one with his surroundings. I like the portrait image much more then the landscape as I feel the shop is more involved in the portrait. 

This subject was friendly but said he was not comfortable in front of the camera, I took some images before he got nervous which helped as after I took this he began to fidget and try to pose and use props. 

I had to use the flash for this photo again as it was too dark, but I think the colours in this image are very bright and vibrant, and the subject smile adds a friendly nature to photo. 

I think this subject was my favourite to shoot, though she said she was camera shy the photos have a rich green through the plants and her soft expressions make her feel one with the nature. The lighting was also bright. 

This shopkeeper was again camera shy but the bright colours helped to bring a liveliness to the image. I had to use the flash again in this photo as the shop was very dark and small. 

Overall I enjoyed this task but I feel models and portrait work is not my style, though this task helped me to understand the importance of preparing the camera and working with the model to achieve the best image.