Continues exploration of photographic styles, meaning and communication from Assignment 2.2, further developing my creative process workflow as it related to photographic media.
Monochrome and photographic experiments with Lightroom, AnalogFX and Photoshop, with using creative prompts.
Also draws on styles from printmaking like screenprint, cyanotype and solar plate.
And asks for feedback from different audiences.
See particularly:
Some issues to be considered
- Photographer and subject: the photographer as voyeur ‘shooting’ images of
issues and themes that are not necessarily the same as the subjects of the photo. - Is the image showing how things are, or how the photographer want things to be? or how the audience wants to see them? Selective editing and erasure (eg cars and rubbish bins)
- Different focus and viewpoint – is the photographer directing the image or leaving interpretation open?
- Present, past and future – places change over time – even over a few seconds – short term, long term, historical perspective and layers – the past is always present but maybe the message is for the future.
- Exploration and deepening understanding of tensions and contradiction of reality over time
Creative Prompts: Project 1.3 Creatively exploring my practice
1 define it
2 make it bold
3 let’s look at the real thing
4 introduce time motion and sound
5 what is the key moment?
6 create a variation
7 connect play, fantasies and daydreams
8 combine seemingly arbitrary content
9 erase the distinctions between the original and the copy
10 consider again your motivation
11 make it obvious
12 make it ambiguous
13 remind yourself
14 bounce around at speed
15 ‘we’ve got a problem, Houston’
Creativity 1: Fire in the Sky
Fire in the Sky 1 original CRW file. But this is a very dull version of what I saw. The colour of the sky was the main feature, but was very much more vivid. The quiet end of day buildings at the bottom had reflected colour, not the dull dark objects they are here. 
1.3 Fire in the Sky Let’s look at the real thing. Here I looked again at the farm and brought the colours back in. 
1.4 Fire in the Sky Motion and Sound: Here I used the liquify filter in Photoshop twice, blended in Vivid Light to introduce a feeling of emotional turmoil and apocalyptic upheaval of the mountains and wind. I think this concept has potential that I could explore further for more powerful images. Using Difference Blend Mode was also interesting. 
1.10 Fire in the Sky Consider Again Your Motivation Here I rethought the concept a bit. This is a more melancholy and thoughtful image. I adjusted the control points in SFRX from 1.1 to make the buildings look more etherial and vulnerable between the sunset and the encroaching grass and weed flowers. I would like to make these more distressed. 
1 define it 2 make it bold 3 let’s look at the real thing 4 introduce time motion and sound 5 what is the key moment? 6 create a variation 7 connect play, fantasies and daydreams 8 combine seemingly arbitrary content 9 erase the distinctions between the original and the copy 10 consider again your motivation 11 make it obvious 12 make it ambiguous 13 remind yourself 14 bounce around at speed 15 ‘we’ve got a problem, Houston’ 
I wanted to get a feeling of fire and abstracted dynamism. I flattened and duplicated 1.5 and used Exclusion Blending to get a bigger range of colours. 
1 define it 2 make it bold 3 let’s look at the real thing 4 introduce time motion and sound 5 what is the key moment? 6 create a variation 7 connect play, fantasies and daydreams 8 combine seemingly arbitrary content 9 erase the distinctions between the original and the copy 10 consider again your motivation 11 make it obvious 12 make it ambiguous 13 remind yourself 14 bounce around at speed 15 ‘we’ve got a problem, Houston’ 
1.9 Fire in the Sky Erase Distinctions between the original and the copy. This looks nostalgic and otherworldly. SFX. 
1.13 Fire in the Sky: remind yourself. This version was pdoeced with selective desaturated colour in SFX with vignetting. This now loooks like a faded memory. With grain and white vignette. 
Sepia filter in SFX 
1.12 Fire in the Sky 12: Make it ambiguous Fire in the Sky make it ambiguous. Using Analgo Pro on 3 the image takes on a nostaligc feel old film feel where the time of day is unclear. 
1.8 Fire in the Sky Combine Seemingly Arbitrary Content. In Analog FX Vintage Film Effects I added a random orange colour streak and film strip frame. This was arbitrary in the sense that it was a selection of the most contrasting elements from a random selection. But I find the result very evocative – many older photos from Kyrgyzstan have these dull colours, particularly when printed on cheap paper. 
I wanted a dreamy, other-worldly image. I used Wet Plate 9 filter in Analog Pro. As this was a ‘adydream’ albeit a bit of a nightmare, I retained the desaturated colour. I chose film streaks that looked like figures going across the screen. 
The key moment of the scene is the fiery sunset. I intensified this through duplicating 1.1 in Photoshop and using Vivid Light blend mode. 
In SFX on a high contrast version of the image, I used control points to colourise and increase contrast to intenfify the colours in the sky and bring in the vivid light on the buildings and yellow flowers in the foreground. This has more of the intensity of feeling of the original scene as I actually saw it. 
11 make it obvious 15 ‘we’ve got a problem, Houston’
Creativity 2: After the Event
‘After the Event’ – more photos from Baizakh Village in Naryn Province May 2016 exploring creative effects in DxO analogueFX and/or SilverFX. These picture of bottles in what was a beautiful landscape – particularly mountains that are outside the frame, follow early monochrome traditions of ‘late photography’ of bombs and war by Richard Fenton.
Bottles 1 original colour 
Bottles 2 Landscape in Colour Analog FX colour wetplate with saturated colour on control points. I wanted to contrast the saturated bottles against a faded, tired landscape. 
After the Event 1 Through using this sepia effect, I wanted to simulate monochrome ‘late photography’ of photographers like Richard Fenton’s photographs of bombs in the landscape. SFX AntiquePlate 1. The action seems to have been in the empty middle. But the eye is drawn to the shrarpness and contrast on the lefthand bottle, then the right hand bottle and all the debris on the ground. The eye goes between these and the soft focus misty landscape in the distance. The slight dark vignette makes it into a ‘picture’ and keeps the eye in the frame. 
After the Event 2. SFX Antique Plate 1. This version of the sepia effect, is more ‘antique’ through its tonal banding, soft edge focus and faded white vignette. I retained some of the black and white on the bottles and this keeps the eyes coming back to them, skipping the middle ground and finding less interest in the soft focus landscape background. 
After the Event 3. Black and white simulation of ‘late photography’ of photographers like Richard Fenton’s photographs of bombs in the landscape. AnalogFX Black and White 3. The focusing is less sharp and structured across the whole image so the eye wanders around the frame looking for some meaning. The action seems to have been in the empty middle. But the effects are the bottles. The eye goes between these and the soft focus landscape in the distance. The simple thin lightbox frame makes it into a ‘picture’. 
After the Event 4. SFX Film Noir 1. I wanted to simulate monochrome ‘late photography’ of photographers like Richard Fenton’s photographs of bombs in the landscape. This Film Noir filter increases contrast, add some grain and a black vignette and a bigger frame. The action seems to be even more in the empty middle. But the light on the bottles highlighted by contrast with the vignette keeps the the eye going back. The didtant landscape seems like a far unattainable misty light on the horizon. The thicker and heavier frame keeps the eye firmly inside the more obvious picture. 
After the Event 5 SFX Film Noir 2. I wanted to simulate monochrome ‘late photography’ of photographers like Richard Fenton’s photographs of bombs in the landscape. Film Noir 2 filter blows out the highlights and flattends the blacks. It is now the contrasting black tree line with blown out sky and disappeared landscape framed in black that attract the eye first. Then the blown out featureless area in the middle – even more like remains of a bomb blast. Then the eye notices the bottles with their sharper light and detail. Going down and getting trapped by the frame to go back and forth between the empyt middle and the bottles. There is not enough detail in the rest of the image to detract from this relationship. 
After the Event 6.AFX Film Noir 3 has the detail in the dark areas, and darker overall, less grain and no frame. Here the eye enters the image from the bottom left, attracted by the contrast in the left bottle then the detail in the right bottle. Then up to the glistning highlights in the middle at almost the same time as looking at the foft detail in the landscape. The absence of frame means the eye continues to be attracted by the landscape and blank sky. Giving a more optistic upward movement away from the darkness at the bottom. 
After the Event 7 Pinhole effect with slective colorisation. Here I selectively colour the landscape. This makes the contrast and movement between the bottles and the landscape more obvious. The earth aroung the bottles and the middle portion look like sticky tar, increasing their ‘human industrial imprint’. The eye skips over the low contrast uninteresting middle in rather schizophrenic conflict for attention between landscape and bottles. Giving a somewhat confused feeling – maybe the aim of the original image. 
After the Event 8. AnalogFX multilens filter with thin black frame. This fractured effect I find quite interesting in vertically suffling the frames. This makes the eye look quite hard, seeking similarities, differences and thereby some meaning within and between each frame. 
After the Event 9. SFX Cool Tone Ilfordpan400 film with narrow frame. I wanted to simulate monochrome ‘late photography’ of photographers like Richard Fenton’s photographs of bombs in the landscape. This toning increases the industrial tarry impression – like a peri-urban watsland that could be anywhere.
Creativity 3: Washbasin with Rag
Original cropped. straightened and coloured in Lightroom. 
Wash Basin with Rag 2 Silver FX Film Noir 1. Focusing on light – and raising questions about what might be round the corner on the right. 
Wash Basin with Rag 3 Silver FX Film Noir 2. More dramatic focusing on light – and raising questions about what might be round the corner on the right. 
Wash Basin with Rag Ligbhtroom crop 
Wash Basin with Rag 4. Closer crop and saturation in LIghtroom, then toned sepia in SilverFX, with control point colorisation to get the brilliant turqoise and texturing. 
Wash Basin with Rag 5. Closer crop and saturation in LIghtroom, then AnalogFX green old film effect, with control point colorisation to get the brilliant turqoise and texturing. This has a much more grungy feel. 
Wash Basin with Rag 6. AnalogPro multiple exposure with mnountains, framed as a ‘picture’. 
Wash Basin with Rag 7. AnalogPro multiple exposure with mnountains, framed as a ‘picture’. Blended in photoshop with SFX Film Noir. To juxtapose the beauty and simplicity of life in Baizakh. And make the scene more colourful and optimistic. Which is what I saw.
Feedback so far
Feedback from colleagues and their friends in Bishkek, OCA student forums and Cambridge Camera Club.
So far this is quite encouraging on the more creative art, as well as black and white styles, particularly from Kyrgyzstan and Cambridge Camera Club.