Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Project 3: THINGS - final photos + sum up

Final photos for project 3 consist of 3 abstract renditions and 3 transformations.

The 3 objects were:

*Party mix
*Licorice
*Licorice All Sorts


A documentation of a typical New Zealand party mixture assorted into separate colours. This technique was derived from Levi Brown and his chewing gum imagery. The idea was to capture the essence of the type of confectionery and record each diffferent characteristic. Overall, a successful photograph because it is well colour coded and arranged in an ordered manner.


A replication of a well known game called Tetris using Licorice All Sorts confectionery. Simple geometric forms are repeated and stacked on top of each other as if to somewhat generate an abstract artwork in itself. Aside from focus, the photograph is overall well composed and aesthetically pleasing. A noticeable downside is that the fact technically in real game full rows would disappear, however for the purpose of the aesthetic side of the image, this is insignificant.

An abstract representation of red and black RJ’s Natural Licorice. They are alternately arranged to form a pattern which can then be interpreted as abstract. The image is square and tightly cropped to appear like an art piece however it only offers the start of a continuous pattern.

The image shows a transformation from a selected range of the party mixture into a baby mobile. The shapes and colours reflect a sense of childishness and are often made to appeal to children. There are a few things that could be adjusted in this photo such as the focus or point of interest, structure and composition. Lighting could be brighter.

The black licorice rods are placed vertically to create the illusion of a cityscape. A low angle shot determined the scale and breadth of the image cropping out the unnecessary background. Although the licorice could have more detail to be more convincing, the photo is still relatively reminiscent of high rise buildings.

A simple ledge structure built from yellow licorice all sorts acting as a base for a fishing scene. This image is humourous and ironic as no one fishes in the pool plus the stool and fishing rod resemble a giraffe form. It was originally supposed to be a lonesome fishing rod on an empty wharf. The photo should be better focused towards the fishing rod and stool and compositionally a long shot down the ‘wharf’ would have been more successful and effective.




Each of these three objects have their own unique characteristic in that their shapes, forms, textures and sizes are all different. They have a similar quality of having a simple and playful nature allowing them to be associated as a group yet all different objects.

Monday, October 4, 2010

Project 3: THINGS - shoot 6 contact sheets

The 6th shoot mainly focused on the party mix transformation and the abstract licorice all sorts. These were the results of the shoot. I found that the baby's eye view shots weren't as successful as the shots taken from above where the mobile was best visible.


















Project 3: THINGS - ideas prior 6th shoot

"Awesome images, a great improvement on where you were. For the mondrian allsorts, think about how the black lines are used to frame the shapes, having the squares floating is not as strong. Maybe you could make it bigger so the allsorts black lines lines weren't as thick. For the red/black maybe you could crop it in , again maybe make it bigger. The jellybaby in garden is not as successful as the the other two for the transform series, but is still ok. Sky and fishing are great."


Based on tutor feedback and my own opinion of my previous shoot, the least successful photos were the abstract licorice all sorts, the alternating black and red licorice and the party mix jelly baby scene. After pondering this for a while, I thought of new ideas for some of these objects such as tetris blocks for the licorice all sorts and a baby mobile for the party mix.

Project 3: THINGS - shoot 5 contact sheets











Friday, October 1, 2010

Project 3: THINGS - shoot 5

Shoot number five consists of finalising the abstract side of the objects focusing mainly on technical issues such as lighting/shadow, composition/cropping and white balance. I am much more satisfied with this set compared with the previous in shoot 4. Everything appears tighter and more organised. It also deals with the second images of each object and I think these still need to be finalised and I'm leaning more towards the landscape series because they will read better as a whole.

A few of my favourites for the time being...




Inspirations - additional to the previous posts.

http://www.slinkachu.com/
-In particular I liked the play on scale and narrative the imagery conveyed.


Tilt-shift photography



Piet Mondrian - precedent for the abstract licorice all sorts.





Thursday, September 30, 2010

Monday, September 27, 2010

Project 3: THINGS - shoot 4

Object 1:
Looking back at Levi Brown's photograph of the chewing gum as well as Neil Pardington's style, I tried to take this style and replicate it with party mix lollies documenting each different piece from the bag. I arrange them according to colour so that it is easy to read as well as gives the viewer a fair idea of the range of lollies in the bag. I think this is a successful shot as it is very clean, clear and works well in an archival representation. The second transformation of this object has yet to be determined...

Object 2:
The idea of the cityscape came from Sian Bonnell's Scenic Cookery. The photograph of the transformation of the licorice into buildings was taken from a low angle with lights shining downward. I sliced up the licorice pieces to create buildings of different height and thus forming a cityscape and the green in the background is representative of hills/mountains.

Object 3:
An abstraction and a cityscape were produced from the third object of licorice all sorts. These lollies are equally the same shape with varying colours allowing the repetition of the object to derive its own artwork. Manipulation of these is very easy because they act somewhat like toy building blocks.

Project 3: THINGS - confectionery


Jaffas and marbles


Hearts and toy hearts


Lindor and plastic sweet

The idea behind this third shoot is to camouflage and/or blend the edible and non-edible objects. I like how the highly manufactured confectionery mimic meaningless objects in an act to appeal to children. I have tried to capture these objects, not only to convey that they are very similar to each other but to try and make them interesting to look at and appeal to the viewer.

I realise the composition and white balance are off and this is because I didn't have the freedom to move around and select particular lighting as this was done at home.

There is a question as to whether photographing 3 different types of lollies is valid for the 3 different objects and arguably I think because they are the same type of object it makes the project read better as a whole and while they are the same type, they still exhibit varying shapes and qualities.

For my next shoot I have decided to photograph 3 different types of lollies, and they are; traditional party mix, licorice and licorice all sorts. I intend to abstract, transform and document these lollies.