coursework project 3

OUTSIDE, INSIDE, IN

BETWEEN A2PHOTOGRAPHY CW&EXAMPREP

artist analysis CARA PHILIPS

artist analysis ALEXEY TITARENKO

evaluation

artist analysis FRANCK BOHBOT

artist analysis BILL HENSON

artist analysis IDRIS KHAN

evaluation

exam artist analysis ANDREA BRUCE

EXAM FINAL OUTCOMES

EXAM FINAL OUTCOMES2

EXAM EVALUATION

I started of my exam project with a mind map of ideas on where to start the first few sets of

photographs for my exam prep as well as the initial photographs for the actual exam. For the theme

‘Outside, inside, in between’ I specifically chose to look at things ‘outside of this world’ in terms of

surrealism. I thought that my initial photographs to begin with were rather successful, however after

looking at the majority of the photographs taken I wasn’t one hundred percent happy because they

didn’t contribute to the illusion I wanted to create of levitation. However, choosing the photographs

which did create the illusion, I was happy about the outcomes.

My initial idea for the exam project was to expand the surrealistic perspective of the theme ‘outside,

inside, in between’ by looking at other ‘out of this world’ concepts such as masks and non existent

characters. Nonetheless, the idea which I had chosen to go with was the levitation idea and to

develop it by taking the photographs to illustrate a sequential story of simple events. This included

the girl in the photograph waking up from her sleep, to getting ready, to going out in some sort of

‘quest’ in search for something.

One of the main differences between the first set of levitating photographs and the photographs for

the exam was that I differentiated the location by adding the woods as part of the sequential story

as well as shooting in different places in the house such as the bedroom. Moreover I slightly altered

the subject matter by giving her a distinct character from the first levitating photographs which can

be seen in the photographs set in the woods where she is of miniature size. I thought this

highlighted my intentions of creating scenes from ‘out of this world’ in a simple way but which is

obvious to the viewer. Symbolically, the importance of this photo wasn’t only to create a surreal

world but to tell a simple story of the girl in the photographs of trying to find something. With this, I

intended to reveal that in comparison to the real world or in the ‘outside world’, there would always

be a story within it that makes the exploration of any world much more meaningful.

As mentioned, I think that even though I wasn’t able to include a majority of the initial photographs

to edit for the final outcomes for the exam, I thought that the photographs chosen were of good

EXAM EVALUATION

quality because of the minimal qualities of the photo yet eye catching feature of levitation. I think

the photographs which were most successful were the scenes of the ‘pixie’ like character getting

ready for her day; i.e. in the photograph where she is brushing her teeth. I thought that the simple

scene of her brushing her teeth was lifted out of the norm by her doing it whilst levitating. I chose to

minimise the tones of the photograph to also highlight the minimalistic features of the photograph

by slightly de-saturating the photograph but adding an almost transparent gradient filter. I thought

the least successful photographs were the scenes in the woods because it was harder to apply the

illusion of levitation. Also, I think the illusion of a miniature character wasn’t as successful as I

wanted it because I don’t think the model blends in well with the background.

To add to story board final outcomes, I decided to develop the some of the photographs through

building up on the minimal concept by using the same technique of creating the levitating

photographs in the means of layering the photographs and masking out some of the layers using

different brushes. This technique was also used in the development of the first idea which, in the

initial photographs, involved UV lighting. I decided to edit the photographs in this way because I

wanted to also reveal an alternate side of how this ‘out of this world’ universe of some sort can be

distorted to something more complicated than just a levitating character. Consequently by editing

the foreground along with the background, I believe it disfigured the view of the photographs not

only visually but also in terms of the atmosphere which can represent our own ‘outside of this world’

thinking which can occur inside the minds of us; human beings.

In the experiments of editing, due to my intentions to produce minimalistic style photographs I

wasn’t able to expand my creative thinking. Furthermore, even though I wanted a minimal concept

within my set of photographs, I personally believe that I could have pushed my creative boundaries

so much further. I think in the four developed photographs which were different from the sequential

storyboard type photographs, I think was able to push the boundary a little, however I don’t think it

EXAM EVALUATION

utilized the most of my innovative capacity of which I know I am capable of.

Nevertheless, I still think the resulted outcomes were successful in itself in terms of its visual

concept. The experiments which I produced were just simply the levitating illusion and also

the technical experiment of layering the photographs and masking out parts of the different layers

using different brushes. This experiment was a mixture of the developments of the first and second

idea of my exam prep which closely linked to the artists of Idris Khan and mostly Carrie Ancone (an

artist looked at in a previous project).

The artists which I looked at in my exam prep included Cara Philips, Franck Bohbot, Bill Henson

and Idris Khan. I think these artists contributed in small ways to the final exam outcomes as well as

a big portion to my exam prep photographs in different ways but mostly in terms of the technical

methods in creating my photographs.

However, the artist who inspired me to go with the definite minimal concept was an artist whom

goes by the name of Dejon who created a photograph called heaven. I thought it had the utmost

aesthetic qualities to the photograph as well as a concept of minimalism which had drawn me to the

concept and stood firm with the idea. I think the technical qualities of the photograph are very

attention-grabbing yet the rest of the photograph is so simple and so I think that is what inspired me

the most to stick with my experiments of minimalistic notions.

All in all, I think the exam went well terms of time management as well as utilizing the time

efficiently up to a certain extent. Personally, I am happy with the final outcomes because I think I

was able to achieve my intentions in terms of the concept I was going for. Although, I still do believe

that I could have produced more outcomes with perhaps different techniques so that the outcomes

of the photographs had more than two different perspectives of things ‘out of this world’. Not only

for the sake of producing more photographs but more to push my creative boundaries further than I

know I am capable of.

EXAM EVALUATION

The four photograph set was an example of differentiation within the final outcomes and an artist

which I linked them to was Idris Khan. I did this through layering the same photograph over and

over again reducing the opacity of each layer. But I also compromised a little through the removal of

some of the photographs details through the technique of masking. I did this as a personal

experiment to make the photographs more interesting in an attempt to push the innovative

boundaries in the final pieces.

If given more time or had another chance to do this exam project, I would most definitely go further

in pushing my creative boundaries by technically producing more final outcomes in different ways.

Artist which I may have used to inspire me to do this are Anka Zhuravleva and Andrea Giacobbe in

terms of technical developments.