INTRODUCTION TO FRAGMENTS
Fragment: A small part broken off or separated from something.
To Fragment: Causing something to break into pieces I went on the Tallis Pinterest page titled "Fragments" and looked for any pictures I found interesting or that caught my eye. A lot of the pictures are extremely fine fragments, wish seem more difficult, but might be fun to try as I need to challenge myself and try to get out of my comfort zone more in my work. |
David Hockney
The photographer I chose to use for my inspiration was David Hockney. He is an artist, printer, stage designer and photographer, born in 1937. In the 1980's, Hockney started making photo collages which he referred to as 'joiners'. He used Polaroid and 35mm pictures to start off with, but later experimented more with angles and movement, which I find most inspiring for my work. I have multiple ideas for a final piece, mostly based around the pictures of peoples faces and the angles, but incorporating the simplicity of the other pictures.
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I think this is one of the best of Hockney's images because it isn't a kind of "realist" images. By this I mean that some of the sections of the images are upside down instead of fitting like a puzzle piece, it challenges the typical way these collages are usually made. I also like the fact that, given the fact that the parts are triangular and not in the normal square shape. I also like the colour contrast between the dark, greyish background colour and the lighter colour of the person skin.
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Akihiko Miyoshi
Akihiko Miyoshi is a Japanese phototgrapher. His pictures seem like just colours, but once you take your time and look at them, you can see that Miyoshi uses depth of field, mirrors and tape to turn his 2-dimensional pictures 3-dimensional-looking images. Miyoshi uses a large-format camera to document his compositions. Miyoshi is always in his pictures, in a black hoodie, lurking in the background quite subtly, which I like.
Miyoshi uses focus very specifically in his images, making sure the subject of the picture is either completely in focus or completely out of focus, sometimes focusing on himself in the background. The lines in the image come from his camera tripod, which are quite lit to show contrast from his darkly lit body. I think colour is important in this image because the spots are the main subject of the picture, where as the photographer is wearing a dark hoodie and black trousers to draw attention away from himself while still being in the picture. I cant tell which kind of light the photographer is using (natural or artificial) because he seems to be in a studio because of his background, but still has a was of colour that isnt focused to one place.
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Duane michals
Duane Michals's nine photographs are all of the same scene. The loop starts with an ordinary bathroom. A man then steps into the frame showing us that the bathroom is miniature as he does not fit properly. The next photograph is just zooming out of the picture, exposing the rest of the mans body, then the newspaper he is looking at, and it continues to zoom out until it shows the first picture again. This series of images is related to fragments because its is different parts of the same scene, split into 9 different parts.
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Lucas simoes
Initial fragments response
Our task in this lesson was to write our chosen themes and make a mind map of every word that comes to mind to do with that theme, thinking about taking pictures of them and how the different thinks can link together e.g. Ice and Drops of Water. We then had to circle the words we thought were the most interesting, keeping in mind we would have to later take pictures of these things. I later used this mind map as inspiration for the homework we were given later in the lesson and took pictures of broken glass, crushed ice and bits of paper. Now I'm going to take some pictures based on this
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Our work for this week was to take pictures based on our chosen theme. I found this task challenging because fragments are hard to look for in real life, compared to the other two themes. I was lucky to find things like broken bottles by taking a different route home and looking in places I don't see every day. I think the pictures that came out the best where the ones of the green glass and the ice. The pictures that could have been better would be the cracks in the dirt and the paper bits.
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visual RESPONSE
I wanted to have something with reflections, but I wasn't allowed to break a mirror, so I took a light bulb and smashed it on the ground outside. I specifically chose some ground that was quite mossy and dirty to firstly, have an interesting background, but to also contrast the brightness of the white light bulb. I tried to explore different focuses and close-ups to see how big I could make one of the little shards look. I then looked for different ares to try different close-ups and crops. I wanted to try this because I went back to my mind map for inspiration and thought the words 'missing' and 'pieces'.
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further experimentation
For my final piece, I've decided to do something heavily inspired by David Hockney. I am going to take 2 different pictures (inspired by fragments) print them off A3 and cut them into squares, sticking them together, alternating pictures as I stick them down. Much like Hockney's swimming pool picture. I started by going out and taking pictures of peoples faces with different angles or crops, and pictures of clouds and trees. I wanted quite drab things so they wouldn't overwhelm the whole project, as there would be too much to look at. I had trouble finding people to take pictures of, as most of the people in our class were working on their own pieces and I didn't want to disturb their working by asking them to let me take pictures of them, so I had to find people that were walking around the school or weren't in lessons.
My original idea was to cut them up into squares and muddle them up among each other to create a chessboard effect, but once I tried to do that with one of the model's pictures I saw that it wasn't the layout I pictured and I decided that instead of squares, I was going to cut them in horizontal and vertical lines, alternating with each picture. I didn't manage to finish every picture in the lesson, so I think for next time I need to work on time management and seeing when its time to stop taking the pictures and start putting the piece together. I think that overall, considering my ideas changed from the original plan, I was successful in what I set out to do. |
I started todays lesson with the goal of taking pictures of anything that looked interesting to me (like the legs of the girls walking and the tree). I had the aim of later using PhotoShop (something I have never used before) to take small fragments of these images and putting them inside some of the segments on a picture of a brick wall that I took. During this process, I took a video of the things I was doing and the way in which I took everything. I then made a slideshow of these videos and put in snapshots of all the pictures I took. I count this as one final outcome to what I originally set out to do.
I went out again with the aim of making another video, this time focusing on people's legs, but still filming parts of other body parts. The next time I take a video I plan to focus on just the feet specifically.
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I changed my idea of having the pictures on a brick wall, as the bricks on the wall were too small, and you couldn't see what each part was, so I took a picture of a larger wall and used photoshop to edit on the pictures I took. I found this process to be a challenge, as it was my first time trying photoshop, and I think the outcome will be better the next time I try it, as I don't really like the way this came out. I think now I will try Photoshop more to expand my abilities and think about starting a final piece.
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Original photos
Edited photos (1)
Edited photos (2)
This series of experiments was inspired by Akihiko Miyoshi's series of images, where he takes pictures and then uses a range of colours to cover the images in strips or dots. I developed the pictures using photoshop, only colouring the circles, which I cut into the images using a circle cutter. i found that something I focused on when making thee images was colour. I tried to find colours that contrasted or would not usually work together
New experiments
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I chose to do a series of images at home inspired by Lucas Simoes. I went out and looked for a series of pictures with the intention of burning some them and laying them over one another. I really liked the way Simoes did his pictures (getting people at different angles, burning one and overlapping them) I found that the biggest struggle with this was trying not to burn the pictures too much and making sure the burns are in the right place.
These were the final images from this experimentation. i refined the images from 9 to 4 when creating the final piece. This was because they had a similar colour/ composition and would have the same effect when I was done with them. I then printed them off A4, and photocopied those prints to A3 on cartridge paper. I then burnt through the A3 copies and put the originals behind the hole. I had the same problems I did when I was burning the original pictures, inhaling the smoke and the fire burning too far up the page. This happened on my first try, which meant that I had to reprint the A3 images. After I had finished burning the images, I brought them back and stuck the with the original images, creating a sort of tunnel effect with the same image in different sizes. I enjoyed the burning part of it because I liked the texture of the burnt edges.
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