Themes for personal study:
- Portraying meaning using photographic techniques
- Influential Landscape photographers
- Evolution of Landscape photography
- History of Landscape photography
Chosen theme:
Influential landscape photographers. For my personal study I will write about a variety of landscape photographers, particularly from the past that have influenced my decision on the theme. Three of the artists will be: Ansel Adams, Carelton Watkins and Bill Brandt.
Throughout this project I did a range of darkroom experiments and imitated the same techniques using photoshop i.e: dodging and burning & vignetting, as well as doing handmade experiments that were inspired by artists such as: Amy Friend, William Hatch Crosby, Leslie David and Stephen Shanabrook. The purpose of doing a range of experiments (including: double exposures, combination prints, solarisation and chemigrams) was to discover different ways to enhance my photos within the theme I chose; landscape photography. Originally I intended on creating a visual connection between people and nature (an idea inspired by Florian Imgrund) by printing double exposures of people and landscapes on real leaves. Unfortunately, I was unable to develop this outcome due to not having enough high contrasting photos. As a result of this I decided to create a different outcome, portraying the same idea/theme. My final outcome is of landscape vignettes using a portrait cut out to create the vignette. This relates to my theme of connecting people with nature as you can see the landscapes through the portrait cut outs of my mum. I think that this theme is clearly noticeable as there are only two main aspects to each print; the body shape and nature landscape.
I simply created each print firstly by taking photos of my mum and enlarging them to an A4 size to then print. I then did prints of the landscapes I decided to use, to find the settings I needed to use for my outcome as I used A4 sized paper for my outcome rather than the small paper I did my initial experiments on (therefore I could not use the same settings as previously). Once I found the settings, I traced the outline of the portrait photos onto black paper and cut the shape out. Lastly, for each print; double exposure or single exposure I placed the black paper with a cut out onto the photo paper and exposed the photo/s through the cut out. This technique allows us to see the landscapes through the portrait shape. I believe that the most difficult part of this process was finding the settings for the prints as they varied from my initial experiments. However, my outcome was a success as the theme I wanted to convey is apparent and clear, as well as the actual landscape photos.
If I had more time with this project I would take more photos, in a variety of places with interesting aspects of nature to allow my outcome to look more fascinating. This would also give my a wider range of photos to choose from with different contrast levels. This would allow me to experiment with printing photos onto leaves to potentially use the technique for my outcome, if it turned out to be successful. I would also gain more research into my chosen theme to help me think of a variety of outcome ideas. Throughout the project I was able to gain more photography based knowledge in terms of enhancing photos as I used a wide range of experiment al techniques.
One skill that I particularly think I improved on was dodging and burning (with my first dodging and burning experiment in my sketchbook). This is due to the fact that I was able to use the technique with a purpose by making it clear on the photo where the light was coming though around the trees, I was also able to make it look like a path was created by the sun on the grass. Whereas when I first used this technique, I dodged and burned places on the photo with no intention of making it look a particular way.
