TRANSFORMATION
Visual Mind Map
This years final project is Transformation. And by that means any kind of Transformation, from transformation through time, space and object till face transformation. For this cause we are going to perform many tasks inpired by different artists and make are own interpretations to each one of them. During this process we are going to learn many interesting processes such as the cyanotype and the nivea cream portraits and through that we will take ideas to make our own final project that will be the AS Exams. Below there is a popplet chartI made using popplet.com with different artists with images from their work I liked, that I found in Pinterest.
Portrait Transformation-Bobby Neel Adams
Age Map
Bobby Neel Adams was born in Black Mountain, North Carolina and presently lives New York. He has exhibited all over the world and his photographs are in galleries in all the corners of earth.
The Age Map series is a personal series that Adams started in the early 90's using not only his own pictures but also other professional black and white images he collected. After he collected the images he would tear them apart and then by juxtaposing and merging the portraits he would create the final piece. In his work he used pictures of the same person after 30, 40 or even 50 years after, and with that he wanted to highlight the deterioration and the distortion of facial characteristics with the passage of time.
The point at which the two images are physically torn together works as the boundary line between the one age and the other. Also the photos suggest that throughout the years, even if many decades have passed the main characteristics of a person (eyes, mouth, chick, nose etc ) do not change a lot , but what changes are our experiences and thoughts and the way we see the world around us, our inner world is the one who actually sustained the changes of time. Someone could say that his images have a romantic expression because of the dramatic and stylished poses of the persons Adams chose for his series.
The Age Map series is a personal series that Adams started in the early 90's using not only his own pictures but also other professional black and white images he collected. After he collected the images he would tear them apart and then by juxtaposing and merging the portraits he would create the final piece. In his work he used pictures of the same person after 30, 40 or even 50 years after, and with that he wanted to highlight the deterioration and the distortion of facial characteristics with the passage of time.
The point at which the two images are physically torn together works as the boundary line between the one age and the other. Also the photos suggest that throughout the years, even if many decades have passed the main characteristics of a person (eyes, mouth, chick, nose etc ) do not change a lot , but what changes are our experiences and thoughts and the way we see the world around us, our inner world is the one who actually sustained the changes of time. Someone could say that his images have a romantic expression because of the dramatic and stylished poses of the persons Adams chose for his series.
Keywords: Age, Old, Young, Generations, Dramatic Figures,
Transformation, Black and White, Formal Form: This image shows two different images of a person at two different ages been torn and merged together. As we can see the boy wears the same jacket as the older man and they both have the same grimace, they both smile. As we can see the main characteristics of the person's face have remained the same. Process: To accomplish this Adams took pictures of the same pictures taken in two different time periods of the person life and physically ripped them apart. Then he glued the prints without any digital or physical manipulation. The angle the picture was taken is exactly the same in both pictures (old -new) and facial expression also the same. Adams chose black and white images with white background and a generally high contrast to give more tone and to highlight the details of the faces. No manipulation has been used to enhance the image. Context: This image shows a person portrait named Kevin in two different ages, 3 years old and 33 years old. For this series, Adams did not use pictures he had taken with his camera, instead, he would choose photos from magazines and other resources. The person shown in this picture is not a famous person or a celebrity but a normal person being photographed by another photographer. Adams does not choose his figures based on their social status or dressing but from their dramatic facial expressions and poses. This image is one of the many images of the Age Map collection by Bobby Neel Adams. |
Keywords: Adolescent, Child, Black and White, Generations, Age, Transformation, Evolution, Portrait, Face
Form: This image shows Bobby Neel Adams as a child and as an adult. The image let us see only Adams face and not the rest of the body because the artists do not care about the rest of the body but only for the facial changes that happen to a person throughout the decay process during his life. Process: To have that result Bobby Neel Adams took two pictures of himself at similar pose at two different ages. Then he ripped them physically in a way though that they would fit in closely and merged them together. As we can see the figures (The child and the older man) have exactly the same pose and facial expression. The picture is taken from the same angle-perspective and that is why the perfectly match after the merge. The artist used black and white prints with extremely dark background and without much contrast. The technique he uses so many years throughout his many collections and art pieces is "Physical Surgery" as he called, a word of his creation. Context: In the left side of the picture there is Bobby's face when he was 36 years old and on the other side he is 6 years old. None of the pictures have been processed or transformed to fit the merge. This picture is one of the few in that collection where the picture is not from a magazine but it is a picture of himself. Both pictures were taken in a professional studio with a film camera and the image belongs to the series Age Maps by Bobby Neel Adams. |
Keywords: Pose, Dramatic Figure, Old, Young, Beauty, Generations, Black and White, Transformation Form: This image shows two different images of a lady at two different ages. In both pictures, both ladies have the area around the neck naked and both seam to lean on a wall. It seems like they have the same facial expression taking a dramatic grimace. The main characteristics have remained the same and the person's face has not changed a lot and that is because the difference in age is not that big as in other pictures of this collection, where at the one image the same person is a child and in the other one is an adult, and the main changes in humans body and face happen at your age. Process: To accomplish this Adams took pictures of the same pictures taken in two different time periods of the person life and physically ripped them apart. Then he glued the prints without any digital or physical manipulation. The angle the picture was taken is exactly the same in both pictures (old -new) and facial expression also the same. Adams chose black and white images with white background and a generally high contrast to give more tone and to highlight the details of the faces. No manipulation has been used to enhance the image. Context: The image shows a lady named Sarah being photographed, at the left at the age of 57 and on the right side at the age of 31, not by Adams but by another photographer. Both ladies lean on a wall and both pictures are taken from exactly the same angle. As we can see the images have been merged perfectly. |
My Response :
On the left side there is picture of an old lady I found on the Internet simply by pressing Old People Portraits. Then on the middle there is the picture I took with my digital camera of a girl trying to take the exact same pose and facial expression so the merge will be more realistic and easy. On the left hand side there is the image that comes as a result of the merge of the two other images.
Family Tree
Who am I ? Where do I come from ? By asking these questions, we try to understand our connection to this world and ground our identities in the long history of our families and forebears.
FamilyTree is a series of portraits that combine two separate photographs of immediate family members into one picture. To accomplish this, individual portraits are made of two family members in similar poses. The negatives are printed at equal size and torn and glued together to make one image of two family members. My technique for assembling this montage is 100% analog – film to paper. No digital manipulation is used to alter or enhance the original images. The two images blend together or don’t.
The FamilyTree portrait visually maps the genetic characteristics we inherit from our parents and demonstrates how some aspects of our futures were codified at the moment of conception. This composite photograph could be viewed as an eerie life-map as the montage of two different family members is sometimes mistaken for a montage of the same person at ages.
– Bobby Neel Adams
FamilyTree is a series of portraits that combine two separate photographs of immediate family members into one picture. To accomplish this, individual portraits are made of two family members in similar poses. The negatives are printed at equal size and torn and glued together to make one image of two family members. My technique for assembling this montage is 100% analog – film to paper. No digital manipulation is used to alter or enhance the original images. The two images blend together or don’t.
The FamilyTree portrait visually maps the genetic characteristics we inherit from our parents and demonstrates how some aspects of our futures were codified at the moment of conception. This composite photograph could be viewed as an eerie life-map as the montage of two different family members is sometimes mistaken for a montage of the same person at ages.
– Bobby Neel Adams
My Response:
For my response, I decided to take images of my parents and some classmates. I used a DSLR Camera and took fully portraits. I then put my images into photoshop and cut half of the face of the image and merged them together, girl with girl and boy with boy. The difficult part of this was that the face would not match perfectly with each other so I had to go to the transform option in the menu bar and warp and skew the images. After I flattened my images I altered contrast, brightness, and exposure giving a softer texture to it. I think my interpretation went really well and the images fit really well and are neatly blended. I think I managed to show clearly the transformation of a person through time. What I could improve is quality of images probably and the cutting between the images, maybe a more natural line and even better make more images.
Object Transformation
Irving Penn - "Cigarettes"
A few words about the Artist:
Irving Penn was one of the greatest photographers of the 20th century. His fashion pictures appeared in Vogue , but he also became known, for his portraits of writers, artists, celebrities, children, and tradesmen, as well as his studies of tribesmen, nudes and still-lifes, which found beauty in decaying fruit or cigarette ends. He once claimed that "photographing a cake can be art". Penn was born on June 16, 1917, in Plainfield and at the age of 17, he attended the Philadelphia Museum School of Art for four years in row, where he was taught advertising design by Alexey Brodovitch. While training for a career as an art director, Penn worked the last two summers for Harper's Bazaar magazine as an office boy and apprentice artist, sketching shoes. At this period of his life, he had not even conceived the idea of becoming a photographer.
Once he graduated, he got his first job in the Junior League magazine as an art director and later he worked in Saks Fifth Avenue department store. At the age of 25, he quit his job and used his small savings to go to Mexico, where he painted a full year before he convinced himself he would never be more than a mediocre painter.
After one year in Mexico, he returned to New York, where he was hired by Alexander Liberman, art director of Vogue magazine, specifically to suggest photographic covers for Vogue. Although most of the staff photographer on Vogue did not share his photographic ideas, Penn was asked by Liberman to take the pictures himself. For the cover of Vogue that made Penn famous to the rest of the world, Penn borrowed a camera and created an artistic synthesis. It was published as the Vogue cover for the issue of October 1, 1943.
In the 1950s, Penn founded his own studio in New York and there he continued his artistic and commercial work for the rest of his life. Some notable series he created are:
-Flowers : produced for Vogue's Christmas edition over seven years.
-Dahomey : taken in 1967 when visiting the kingdom for Vogue.
-Still Life : modernist compositions formed of objects Penn collected.
-Cigarettes : shot in the early 1970s, portraiting decayed cigarettes and expressing the minimalistic ideas of Penn. Exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, New York in his first exhibition in 1975.
Penn died in 2009 and his work is still widely exhibited around the world, and pieces of his art are held in major collection in many places such as the Art Institute of Chicago, J. Paul Getty Museum, National Portrait Gallery(Los Angeles), National Gallery of Art(London), Washington and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, amongst others.
Irving Penn was one of the greatest photographers of the 20th century. His fashion pictures appeared in Vogue , but he also became known, for his portraits of writers, artists, celebrities, children, and tradesmen, as well as his studies of tribesmen, nudes and still-lifes, which found beauty in decaying fruit or cigarette ends. He once claimed that "photographing a cake can be art". Penn was born on June 16, 1917, in Plainfield and at the age of 17, he attended the Philadelphia Museum School of Art for four years in row, where he was taught advertising design by Alexey Brodovitch. While training for a career as an art director, Penn worked the last two summers for Harper's Bazaar magazine as an office boy and apprentice artist, sketching shoes. At this period of his life, he had not even conceived the idea of becoming a photographer.
Once he graduated, he got his first job in the Junior League magazine as an art director and later he worked in Saks Fifth Avenue department store. At the age of 25, he quit his job and used his small savings to go to Mexico, where he painted a full year before he convinced himself he would never be more than a mediocre painter.
After one year in Mexico, he returned to New York, where he was hired by Alexander Liberman, art director of Vogue magazine, specifically to suggest photographic covers for Vogue. Although most of the staff photographer on Vogue did not share his photographic ideas, Penn was asked by Liberman to take the pictures himself. For the cover of Vogue that made Penn famous to the rest of the world, Penn borrowed a camera and created an artistic synthesis. It was published as the Vogue cover for the issue of October 1, 1943.
In the 1950s, Penn founded his own studio in New York and there he continued his artistic and commercial work for the rest of his life. Some notable series he created are:
-Flowers : produced for Vogue's Christmas edition over seven years.
-Dahomey : taken in 1967 when visiting the kingdom for Vogue.
-Still Life : modernist compositions formed of objects Penn collected.
-Cigarettes : shot in the early 1970s, portraiting decayed cigarettes and expressing the minimalistic ideas of Penn. Exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, New York in his first exhibition in 1975.
Penn died in 2009 and his work is still widely exhibited around the world, and pieces of his art are held in major collection in many places such as the Art Institute of Chicago, J. Paul Getty Museum, National Portrait Gallery(Los Angeles), National Gallery of Art(London), Washington and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, amongst others.
Title: Cigarette No. 37
Keywords: Cigarettes, Minimalism, Tone, Commercial, Silhouettes, Contrast, Decay, Imperfection, Black and White Form: The image shows two decayed cigarettes of brands Camel and Chesterfield, which Penn collected from the streets. He then brought them to his studio.The prints were made in the platinum-palladium process that provides a rich tonal range, showing clearly the dirt, wrinkles, mud and dust that disfigured them Process: For this series, Penn used a process named Platinum/Palladium Process and he was one of the first to transform his images into something simplistic but also artistic. For this process, Penn first coated the paper by hand with light sensitive platinum salts and left them to dry over a period of 1 day. Then he placed several objects like cigarettes or gloves he would find in the streets. in direct contact with the sensitized paper, wich was dried and exposed either to the sun or artificial ultraviolet light. Then he would place the prints in the developer and the clearing bath before the final wash. After the picture was dried he would repeat the process several times if needed to have the desired outcome. The final step of this process is called Deacidification of paper and it results in a single layer print being embedded in the paper. In order to repeat the same process several times without the paper being destroyed and warped, Penn affixed the prints into an aluminum support and thoughs the name Palladium is being deduced. By using different negatives of varying contrasts, Penn was able to achieve great depths of tone and contrast in his final prints. Context: In 1972, at a time of relative meltdown for America, in the glossy magazine market which had been Penn’s mainstay, he sent an assistant into the street to collect some butts for him. With those small insignificant object waste Penn proceeded to make one of the great photographic series. The curator of the Museum Of Modern Art, John Szarkowski, saw the pictures and had some of them on show in his museum within three weeks. |
Title: Cigarette No. 52
Keywords: Cigarettes, Minimalism, Tone, Commercial, Silhouettes, Contrast, Decay, Imperfection, Black and White Form: This image as part of the Cigarette series show three cigarette butts that have been long dacayed and damaged. The cigarettes have been enlarged by the artist to focus only on them avoiding the background. Process: For this series, Penn used a process named Platinum/Palladium Process and he was one of the first to transform his images into something simplistic but also artistic. For this process, Penn first coated the paper by hand with light sensitive platinum salts and left them to dry over a period of 1 day. Then he placed several objects like cigarettes or gloves he would find in the streets. in direct contact with the sensitized paper, wich was dried and exposed either to the sun or artificial ultraviolet light. Then he would place the prints in the developer and the clearing bath before the final wash. After the picture was dried he would repeat the process several times if needed to have the desired outcome. The final step of this process is called Deacidification of paper and it results in a single layer print being embedded in the paper. In order to repeat the same process several times without the paper being destroyed and warped, Penn affixed the prints into an aluminum support and thoughs the name Palladium is being deduced. By using different negatives of varying contrasts, Penn was able to achieve great depths of tone and contrast in his final prints. Context: In 1972, at a time of relative meltdown for America, in the glossy magazine market which had been Penn’s mainstay, he sent an assistant into the street to collect some butts for him. With those small insignificant object waste Penn proceeded to make one of the great photographic series. The curator of the Museum Of Modern Art, John Szarkowski, saw the pictures and had some of them on show in his museum within three weeks. |
Title: Cigarette No. 86
Keywords: Cigarettes, Minimalism, Tone, Commercial, Silhouettes, Contrast, Decay, Imperfection, Black and White Form: The image shows four cigarettes being brought to the studio from the streets. All of them are of the same size and dimensions. They must have been long decayed because of the clear dirt, wrinkles, mud and dust that disfigured them. Process: For this series, Penn used a process named Platinum/Palladium Process and he was one of the first to transform his images into something simplistic but also artistic. For this process, Penn first coated the paper by hand with light sensitive platinum salts and left them to dry over a period of 1 day. Then he placed several objects like cigarettes or gloves he would find in the streets. in direct contact with the sensitized paper, wich was dried and exposed either to the sun or artificial ultraviolet light. Then he would place the prints in the developer and the clearing bath before the final wash. After the picture was dried he would repeat the process several times if needed to have the desired outcome. The final step of this process is called Deacidification of paper and it results in a single layer print being embedded in the paper. In order to repeat the same process several times without the paper being destroyed and warped, Penn affixed the prints into an aluminum support and thoughs the name Palladium is being deduced. By using different negatives of varying contrasts, Penn was able to achieve great depths of tone and contrast in his final prints. Context: In 1972, at a time of relative meltdown for America, in the glossy magazine market which had been Penn’s mainstay, he sent an assistant into the street to collect some butts for him. With those small insignificant object waste Penn proceeded to make one of the great photographic series. The curator of the Museum Of Modern Art, John Szarkowski, saw the pictures and had some of them on show in his museum within three weeks. |
My Response:
For my response to Irving Penn's Cigarette, I went around Muswell Hill to collect small decayed objects like cigarettes, bottles, packets, plastic bags, papers, and other leftovers. Some of them I photographed them outside with under natural day in the open air and some of them I brought the back to the Photography Lab. There, after everyone had collected their preferable objects, we gathered them on the big table and separated them(Items per person). Then we had to go around the table and write on a blank paper for each students items, some words that describe the items. After that, we took them and photographed them. I tried to focus specifically on the objects and zooming on them to create something similar to Penn's images. After I processed them in Photoshop, changing the contrast and the brightness and in some of them increased the vibrancy and the hue to have a more clear and crisp image. At the end, I turned some of my pictures into black and white to give something more tonal and similar to the artist work.
JR City Transformation
A few words about the Artist:
JR is a photographer and artists who transforms public places by flyposting black and white images throughout the city. JR is born in 22 February 1983, the place of birth is unknown as his name too. Though, he uses the name JR that is the pseudonym of an artist whose indentity is unconfirmed.
He states that the street is "the largest art gallery in the world". He started out on the streets of Paris. JR's work "often challenges widely held preconceptions and the reductive images propagated by advertising and the media."
Between 2004 and 2006, JR created Portraits of a Generation, portraits of young people from the housing projects around Paris that he exhibited in huge format. This illegal project became official when the City of Paris put JR’s photos up on buildings.At the beginning of his projects, JR wanted to bring art into the street: "In the street, we reach people who never go to museums."
JR is a photographer and artists who transforms public places by flyposting black and white images throughout the city. JR is born in 22 February 1983, the place of birth is unknown as his name too. Though, he uses the name JR that is the pseudonym of an artist whose indentity is unconfirmed.
He states that the street is "the largest art gallery in the world". He started out on the streets of Paris. JR's work "often challenges widely held preconceptions and the reductive images propagated by advertising and the media."
Between 2004 and 2006, JR created Portraits of a Generation, portraits of young people from the housing projects around Paris that he exhibited in huge format. This illegal project became official when the City of Paris put JR’s photos up on buildings.At the beginning of his projects, JR wanted to bring art into the street: "In the street, we reach people who never go to museums."
KEYWORDS: Black and White, Portraits, Generations, Flyposting, Illegal, Ghetto, Social Issues
FORM: The three images above show the art piece of JR. They are enlarged images that are being flyposted on walls in public places all around Paris.
PROCESS: To create this work JR first took images with his film camera of young people, posing and making funny faces and expressions, in Ghettos around the city of Paris. The images he takes are intentionally not professional, taken from random angles with the persons wearing their normal clothes in their surroundings. Then he printed them in large paper A3 or bigger and flyposted them using glue. This process is very simple and it is used by thousands of people who flypost around the world. It is an easy and cheap way for advertisement and promoting although in this occasion the artist did not use it for that matter. The flyposters need about 24 hours to dry completely after you apply the glue and can be easily worn off by using compressed water.
CONTEXT: Armed with a 28 mm lens, JR shot full frame portraits of young people from this neighbourhood and the nearby district of The Forestière (Clichy-sous-Bois, 93). This no-frills, the straightforward technique allowed them to get very close to this generation. Interviewing them, without restrictions, on the recent events of November 2005. The first portraits were illegally pasted on the east walls of Paris, a district that was once run-down but has now become a residency for the bourgeois bohemian, who are shielded from the flames.
With a certain « in your face » rudeness, they provoke passers-by and question the social and media representation of a generation that people only want to see outside the doors of Paris or on the news. The Book 28mm - portrait of a generation, is a collection of the 28 most meaningful portraits from the whole series.
Also included are some on the spot shots of moments shared with the young people of The Forestière, as well as several actions shots from the streets in 2005.
FORM: The three images above show the art piece of JR. They are enlarged images that are being flyposted on walls in public places all around Paris.
PROCESS: To create this work JR first took images with his film camera of young people, posing and making funny faces and expressions, in Ghettos around the city of Paris. The images he takes are intentionally not professional, taken from random angles with the persons wearing their normal clothes in their surroundings. Then he printed them in large paper A3 or bigger and flyposted them using glue. This process is very simple and it is used by thousands of people who flypost around the world. It is an easy and cheap way for advertisement and promoting although in this occasion the artist did not use it for that matter. The flyposters need about 24 hours to dry completely after you apply the glue and can be easily worn off by using compressed water.
CONTEXT: Armed with a 28 mm lens, JR shot full frame portraits of young people from this neighbourhood and the nearby district of The Forestière (Clichy-sous-Bois, 93). This no-frills, the straightforward technique allowed them to get very close to this generation. Interviewing them, without restrictions, on the recent events of November 2005. The first portraits were illegally pasted on the east walls of Paris, a district that was once run-down but has now become a residency for the bourgeois bohemian, who are shielded from the flames.
With a certain « in your face » rudeness, they provoke passers-by and question the social and media representation of a generation that people only want to see outside the doors of Paris or on the news. The Book 28mm - portrait of a generation, is a collection of the 28 most meaningful portraits from the whole series.
Also included are some on the spot shots of moments shared with the young people of The Forestière, as well as several actions shots from the streets in 2005.
Assessment
Our assessment was to take a portrait of ourselves then cut it in Photohop in four parts in high resolutions and then print them in A3 papers in North Wing. Then we came back to Tetherdown and flyposted them on the walls of the stair hall with glue. Below are some pictures of the classes work:
Extension of Transformation
Nivea Cream Portraits:
For this task, the materials we used were Nivea cream, and photographic. First, I spread the Nivea cream on one side of my face in the first picture and on the area around the mouth and then I put the photographic paper on the part of my face covered with the Nivea and exposed it for around 20 seconds maximum. After that I put the images in the developer for about 2 minutes then I rubbed the cream in a can with fresh water and soap and finally to the stop chemical for 5 minutes. After I finished the process I left the on a hanger to dry for one day. Then I scanned the images in the photography lab and processed them in photoshop altering the brightness and the contrast to give them a bit tone and decrease the greyish colour of a scanned image. As you can see the image is pretty clear and the texture of my face has been focused due to the Nivea cream.
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Cyanotype:
Cyanotype is the process of producing a cyan - blue print. Cyanotypes are really simple and cheap to produce. The cyanotypes were discovered by English scientist and astronomer Sir John Herschel in 1842. In the classroom we were giver blue papers and then we took our images and expose them on sun, after we placed a piece of glass on them, for 15 minutes. I really like my image because of the tone that is enough to give my image a smooth touch. Also the scratched paper with dots and dust give the look of an old script. I exposed my cyanotype for about 13 minutes on a middle sunny day. Then we brought them back to the lab and scanned them. After I put it in Photoshop and changed the exposure, brightness and contrast.
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Transformation-Evolution of the Camera
For this task, we had to take images of the same person with a pinhole camera, a film camera, a DSLR digital camera and our phone camera. The purpose of this task was to show how the means of taking pictures, the different techniques, and quality of images have changed throughout the years. Photography literally was born in China where the first pinhole camera was born in the 5th century BC. With the pinhole camera the images were blurry sometimes too dark or too light (depends on the time of exposure), the outcome most of the times was not the desirable one, so the photographer had to repeat the process several times. Also, the process of taking a pinhole image was time-consuming especially in the early years of photography where a photograph might have to be exposed for more than half an hour, depending on the day, although as the years were passing specialists managed to find light sensitive papers of shorter exposure. The second big step in the development of photography happened with the invention of the film camera. The images with the film camera were much more softer and clear and the time of exposure was reduced dramatically. Also all that was combined in a portable device that could be used by anyone and many time, as now there were disposable film strips. The next great invention that changed the concept of photography and made photography something that anyone could relate to and handle, was DSLR camera. With the DSLR cameras, the images are really sharp, with the original colours and not black and white as the previous ones. The images are sharp, live and with really good quality. Also the user can manipulate the camera and his images manually with only a few buttons. The last invention we used is our phone camera. The images are of really good quality, still not better than DSLR camera but the advantage of this is that the size of the device is being reduced and the user can share his images with other people, see them in a large screen without the need of any computer, easily transfer them and modify them.
FILM CAMERA
DSLR CAMERA : CANON 1200 D
LG G4 CAMERA
The first image is taken with a pinhole camera. The images is blurry and really clear.
The second image is taken with a film camera. I could say that the quality of the image is really good and clear and the facial characteristic are highly toned.
The third image is taken with a DSLR camera. The image's quality is really good and the image is sharp and crystall clear.
The last image is taken with my phone's camera. It is pretty clear, although not better than the DSLR one and the deeper chracteristics cannot be easliy shown.
It is pretty clear that with the different camera the images look different. Even if they are from the same angle and with the same lighting, the resolution and the technology of each camera give another nterpretation of the image. For example in the first image, taken with a a pinhole camera, the face is darker and the lack of colours make is more aggressive. On the other hand in the last image taken with the phone the image is really bright and the lenses enhance the face and tone a bit more the facial ecpressions.
The second image is taken with a film camera. I could say that the quality of the image is really good and clear and the facial characteristic are highly toned.
The third image is taken with a DSLR camera. The image's quality is really good and the image is sharp and crystall clear.
The last image is taken with my phone's camera. It is pretty clear, although not better than the DSLR one and the deeper chracteristics cannot be easliy shown.
It is pretty clear that with the different camera the images look different. Even if they are from the same angle and with the same lighting, the resolution and the technology of each camera give another nterpretation of the image. For example in the first image, taken with a a pinhole camera, the face is darker and the lack of colours make is more aggressive. On the other hand in the last image taken with the phone the image is really bright and the lenses enhance the face and tone a bit more the facial ecpressions.
A Woman's War - Lee Miller
During Easter I visited the exhibition A Woman's War by Lee Miller in Imperial War Musweum in Lambeth Road. I decided to take some pictures of the exhibition and say a few words about one of the most inspirational photographer Lee Miller.
A Few Words About The Artist:
Elizabeth Lee Miller or Lady Penrose was an American Photographer born on 23 April 1907 in Poughkeepsie, New York, and died in 1977 at Farley Farm House in East Sussex at the age of 70. She lived happy child years until the age of seven when was raped by a family friend while staying with him in Brooklyn. After a few years after her rape, her own father was using his teenage daughter as his model for taking nude stereoscopic images. The trigger for the beginning of her career in modelling, was the incident in Manhattan when she nearly stepped in front of a car but was prevented by Conde Nast the publisher of Vogue. Her first public modelling appearance was in 1927, in an illustration of George Lepape on the Cover of Vogue. Throughout her life, she has involved with many famous artists such as Pablo Picasso, Paul Eluard, Jean Cocteau, Man Ray and more. For four years she was working as a surrealist photographer opening her own studio in New York, with not much success, though. In 1934, Lee married an Egyptian Businessman and they lived together for four years. During that period, she took a break from her artistic ways and in 1937 she got bored of the life in Cairo and returned to Paris. Then she met Roland Penrose her future husband. In 1942 during the World War II her journey as a war correspondent began, a journey that would lead her from St Malo, and the Concentration Camp in Dachau to Adolf's Hiler Bathtub in Munich, a journey that shaped Lee's personality and artistic expressions. Miller died from cancer at Farley Farm House in East Sussex, in 1977 at the age of 70.
Elizabeth Lee Miller or Lady Penrose was an American Photographer born on 23 April 1907 in Poughkeepsie, New York, and died in 1977 at Farley Farm House in East Sussex at the age of 70. She lived happy child years until the age of seven when was raped by a family friend while staying with him in Brooklyn. After a few years after her rape, her own father was using his teenage daughter as his model for taking nude stereoscopic images. The trigger for the beginning of her career in modelling, was the incident in Manhattan when she nearly stepped in front of a car but was prevented by Conde Nast the publisher of Vogue. Her first public modelling appearance was in 1927, in an illustration of George Lepape on the Cover of Vogue. Throughout her life, she has involved with many famous artists such as Pablo Picasso, Paul Eluard, Jean Cocteau, Man Ray and more. For four years she was working as a surrealist photographer opening her own studio in New York, with not much success, though. In 1934, Lee married an Egyptian Businessman and they lived together for four years. During that period, she took a break from her artistic ways and in 1937 she got bored of the life in Cairo and returned to Paris. Then she met Roland Penrose her future husband. In 1942 during the World War II her journey as a war correspondent began, a journey that would lead her from St Malo, and the Concentration Camp in Dachau to Adolf's Hiler Bathtub in Munich, a journey that shaped Lee's personality and artistic expressions. Miller died from cancer at Farley Farm House in East Sussex, in 1977 at the age of 70.
I decided to visit especially this exhibition for photography because I found the subject really interesting and relative to my project. The exhibition was about women. Especially showed how war transformed womens lives, because war does not have consequences only on men but also on women. The exhibition started with images of Lee Miller and of young ladies Miller had taken of, before the war in their every day life. Then it followed with the war where many women decied to take part in it and join the army and the airforce. And at the end it showed how war had transformed their life in any aspect, from their physical condition to their behaviour and innerself.
Women In Fire Masks
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Adolfe's Hitler Bathtub
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The Pilot
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Performing for the Camera: Tate Modern
On the 29 of February 2016 our classroom visited the Tate Modern Gallery on the Embankment and especially the exhibition Performing for the Camera.The exhibition was about the relationship between the artist and the performer. It showed the sacrifices that artists have to make in order to create something wonderful and artistic.
Three Strands-Transformation Project
1st Strand: Transformation of Face - Low Poly Portraits
Artistic Influence - Mordi Levi
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Mordi Levi is an Israeli is a graphic designer and illustrator based in Israel. In this series, Levi inspired by Games of Thrones and Big Bang Theory creates low poly portraits of the main characters like Drago, Tyrion, Margaery, Arya from Game of Thrones and Penny, Sheldon, Howard and more. I really like his images they are full of detail colourful and alive. The process of doing this is by covering the whole face with triangles, bigger in the wider areas and smaller and more in areas like the eyes or the nose. I linked this to my project because I found it really interesting, and also really relevant as it shows how a simple portrait can be transformed into a polymorphic geometric piece of art. As he says all the low poly illustrations were made by hand, line by line after line, poly after poly, because he believes that the human brain has the best scripts possible and no computer can recreate the same. I might look the same, "but it will never have a Soul".
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My Response:
For my response I decided to do something similar to what Levi made. The process I used is not as simple as it might seem. First you have to cover the whole face with triangles and polygons, Levi and expert illustrators use only triangle because it has a better outcome, and then choose from the Options to colour the shape with the average colour of the area enclosed (or selects). The difficult thing though is that you have to repeat the whole process for every part of the face and use smaller shapes in areas such as the eyes and the nose. I decided to make low poly only the face and no the rest because i wanted to show how my portraitures were transformed into that. What I could improve is maybe use only triangles and make my polygons smaller, so that there is more accuracy, and the person portrayed is easily recognised.
2nd Strand: Face Transformation - Plastic Surgery
Artistic Influence - Bruno Metra & Laurence Jeanson
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Bruno Metra and Laurence are French photographer based in Paris who created this series of portraits named "ID". As someone can see the people in the images look like they had plastic surgery. The idea behind this series is that nowadays with the continuous bombarding of images of beautiful and well-shaped models and celebrities, the media manage to impose the foolish ideology of how things are supposed to be by defining beauty and wellness.
The images were made by cropped images of celebrities out of magazines which then have been glued on normal people's faces. The images have high contrast and the parts that have been glued have bright colours. The concept of this project was to juxtapose 'normal' faces with body parts taken from supermodels and celebrities. As Metra says " We started this work after observing the behaviour of people close to us and how they reacted to images. I really liked the work of the artists and I found it really relevant to the project "Transformation", as it shows how normal people can transform into something that is most desirable for the society and the masses. As the artists |
say " The laws of appearance drive us, in fact, to shape our own image to the point of transformation. Beauty is no longer natural but rather socially conditioned. The act of representation seems to have taken over what is real. The edit is what counts most. And so models erase themselves in order to gain another self. The figure of the other is no longer that of otherness… it no longer references our real image nor our humanity."
My Response:
For my response I used the images I had taken in the First Strand and cropped the nose, the eyes and other parts of the face and mixed in different faces. I think the outcome was hilarious and manage to show my perspective of beauty in these images. What I did is something similar to Metra's and Jeanson's work only difference that the glued pieces where photos I have taken. What I could improve is maybe by making a more physical separation where the glued pieces are and the background portrait. Also by making stitches around the eyes and the mouth to make it look like a plastic surgery, would look really good.
3rd Strand: Transformation of Object - Tin Foil Portraits
Artistic Influence - Dominic Wilcox
Dominic Wilcox is a talented British designer. He studied fine Arts in the university of Edinburgh. Throughout his life, Wilcox had made numerous interesting, smart and successful projects . In this mini project, Wilcox made a 3D replica of his own face with regular tin foil. The sculpture was made by forming tin foil on an old plaster molded mask of his own face when he was 21 years old. Although the idea behind it is very simplistic I really liked the outcome and the idea that the persons face are coming out of a metallic wall. I pretty much found the idea of transforming a plain portrait into a tin foiled portrait with the rest of the foil roll striking. As Wilcox I but my pieces on a black background because I really like the contrast of the silver of the foil with the black. Also, the manipulation of my photos, after in Photoshop, by changing the contrast and the hue saturation
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My Response:
My favourite one was the with the sunglasses. I could say that it was the most successful because the shape of the object is pretty clear, and they look like they are attached to a stone. My least successful, in my opinion, was the one with my dad's face. The face is not pretty clear and the characteristic of the face are not easily recognised. And that is because in the normal objects I can press every little surface to show it, but in the face, in areas like ears and nose, it is not pretty easy. I think that with the use of a spoon to press better and make the surfaces smoother the outcome would be better. And in the face one, maybe by making a molded manequeane of my dad first and then use it to make my tin foil portrait would be better.
My favourite one was the with the sunglasses. I could say that it was the most successful because the shape of the object is pretty clear, and they look like they are attached to a stone. My least successful, in my opinion, was the one with my dad's face. The face is not pretty clear and the characteristic of the face are not easily recognised. And that is because in the normal objects I can press every little surface to show it, but in the face, in areas like ears and nose, it is not pretty easy. I think that with the use of a spoon to press better and make the surfaces smoother the outcome would be better. And in the face one, maybe by making a molded manequeane of my dad first and then use it to make my tin foil portrait would be better.
Fourth Strand: Transformation of Space through Time
Altneuland
Amit Sha'al is an Israeli photographer born in 1974. His studio is in Israel, and he is working permanently as a staff photographer on Calcalist. Throughout his life he has worked on many long or short documentary projects, by connecting with the personal and more intimate version of what he sees. Many of his photos have been featured in magazines and newspaper and the individual has received a few awards. He had solo exhibitions in Israel and Ireland.
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The name of this series comes from the german word "Altneuland", and means Old-New Land, and links to the adventure book of Theodor Hertzl, from 1902. The story refers to two men, one from Austria and one from Germany, who made a journey to a Pacific Island. On their way, they stopped in Palestine, After two decades in the island they sailed back to Europe, but before they went back, they visited again Palestine. There, with a huge surprise, they discovered a drastically transformed land, that has become a free, open, multicultural society, so they named it Altneuland, that shows how a place have been transformed through time. In the series, the black and white photos are taken from 1926 to 1979 and the new ones were taken in the exact spots where the old one had been taken in 2010 by Sha'al. I really liked the series and I connected it pretty well with my project that is transformation through time. I found the idea really smart and the outcome really successful.
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My Response:
For my response, I decided to do something very similar to Sha'al. Instead though of taking pictures all around London I decided to stay in my close area Muswell Hill and extend my whole project with images from Muswell Hill and Crouch End that is close to Muswell Hill. First, I went to the Muswell Library and the Archives of my School (Fortismere) and found old images of Muswell Hill and my school. Also, I searched on the internet for some more as the resources are limited. Although it might seem easy, the whole process of finding good quality images and suitable enough for my project was pretty tough. After that, I printed my images in black and white and cut them around with scissors carefully so I will not leave and white paper around. After I cropped all my images I went out in the streets with my camera and started taking pictures by placing the old picture in front and the colourful background behind. The process took me around 3 days in total because of the weather and busy streets. For the images, I used low shutter speed and relatively low aperture. In my first images the background was really blurry but by slowing the shutter speed, eventually it got much better. Then I put my photos in Photoshop and altered the contrast, brightness, the exposure and more to give a better look to them. Below are the best images I made :
I think the strand was really successful, the outcome was as I imagined it and the images are smooth and clear. I separately chose the first one as my favourite because of the live colours of the back ground and because of the stillness of the images. Although what I could improve in my images, I think is the time of exposure, maybe lower the shutter speed so that the background would be less blurry. Although I used a tripod the images are still a bit shaky and maybe by removing the noise from the background the outcome would be a bit better.
Below there is an image of an old house of my family in Greece, where I used to live when I was younger. The first image is taken in 2010 and the second one in 2016. I wanted to connect it to my project because I found really interesting how a house can be transformed in six years and also link it to the general financial problem in Greece that shows how a crisis can transform peoples life and their surroundings in a negative way.
Development 1 - Experimentation with Shop Frontals
For my first development, I decided to take images of shops frontal around Muswell Hill and Crouch End. I really liked the idea of how so many shops in Muswell Hill Broadway have not changed since the Victorian Era. Although the old images of shop frontals were few I managed to find some and use them for my final piece. For this development, after I took the images, I put them in Photoshop and added colours in Gradient Map. I really like the idea of how a simple shop can transform into a colourful piece of art. I was not inspired by a specific artist for this task but I left myself create and experiment.
Develoment 2 - Experimentation With Passengers
After taking images of shops in Muswell Hill I decided that it would be nice to take pictures of busy streets in my area, and then blurring the background and highlight random passenger. By that I wanted to show how can busy streets can transform into a silent stillness. Even in big cities such as London where thousands of people live in a block and even more passing by each other in the streets every day our relationship with the other are anonymous, and at some point they do not even exist. A problem that concerns many experts for many years is the isolation, in big cities, of people from their society.
For my images, after I took them, I changed the brightness and the contrast in Photoshop. I then selected some people I chose randomly and then blurred the background choosing the filter Blur or Distort from the Options. I also turned the background black and white and increases the exposure to give it a more smooth taste, and to make it look a bit more depressing. I think the task went pretty well although with a bit less blur and better highlighting of the passengers the images would look better.
Development 3 - Mixed Synthesis - Visual Noise
For my third development, I decided to combine the other tow, by taking pictures of Muswell Hill in rush hours and making the background black and white and adding colour in certain objects such as cars and people.
Final Piece - MuswellHillville - Maquette
For the final piece, I decided to combine all the knowledge I have gained about the history of Muswell Hill. I found more old images of various shops and landmark around Muswell Hill such as the old Atheneum as Sainsbury or the Oden Cinema that this year changed into Everyman. I also cropped the images of passengers I had taken in my previous development and images of the pavement and the road I took above. I then cut all of them and glued them on foam board and made my final piece. I think it is the most successful piece of art till now as it combines everything I have learnt till now. At the end, I took images of my maquette zooming in or out and then we printed them in large scale in Photobox.