Paris Trip - Grid,Number, Best Photo, Response Piece, Whats next?

Photograph Theme - Crosses

Photograph Number - 38

Crosses was the theme appointed to me during the trip. I needed to take photographs of things that matched the idea. I felt that this was an interesting theme as I could think of many ways to approach this idea.

Photo Grid

From the theme, I took my nine most powerful photographs for the theme and put them into a grid.

This was the first version.

My thoughts on this version was that the positioning of the separate photographs could have been better. This is why I reorganised the crosses to better suit the theme.

With this new order I created a line of crosses across the middle row, this crosses all connect to a certain point at the tips of each line. My next step was to again play with the levels of the image.

In this third version, I changed the exposure of the grid using photoshop. I felt that this worked well as the colours gained more unity between them. What I like most about this grid is how the image are positioned to look as if each row is climbing up, the stairs in the bottom left corner really add to this idea.

Number 38

My number was a somewhat tricky number as it didn't often come up. I did manage to find one example of my number which really caught my eye.

This photograph I found somewhat interesting as although it's just a print out on a board, the cracks around it form a web of crosses. This meant not only did it match the theme, but the number as well.

Best photograph

During the Paris trip I took many photographs, It was hard trying to decide on a single personal best, however I felt that this one I had chosen, was my best.

This picture was a wide angle shot of the Iconic, Eiffel Tower. I felt this was good as I positioned everything well within the image, and also found leading lines, which head towards the eiffel tower. It also incorporates my theme of crosses as the wall in the foreground have crosses made from there placement. What I like most about this photograph is the way the sky is nearly all white, this makes it almost seem like a blank canvas which has had all the colour placed onto it, almost as if it were a painting.

Response Piece

For my final piece, I decided to move away from the Crosses theme and work around something a bit more meaningful. After visiting the Catacombs I was Inspired to make something that uses the photographs that I had taken.

This is the photograph I used to base the new Image.

The current state of the skull did look creepy, however I wanted it to be more powerful, I wanted it to show the fear that this place caused with people and the history behind it all.The first step I took was to alter the levels and colour balance.

I lowered the levels and made the image much darker, adding to the fear factor that this piece created.When I altered the colour balance I added more red, and slanted towards similar colours. I feel that this is the best colour as it is the most intimidating colour. Making it a more vibrant red would have made it too happy, a dark blood red was most appropriate in my opinion.

For this next version, I added three dots, one in each eye hole, and a third in a crack in the skull. I choose to do this because I felt it added a deeper meaning presenting the idea of the "Minds Eye". Another idea I felt it added was the idea that the skull was inhuman, making it seem that its something different all together. It also gives it a horror effect as its like the dead are coming back for being desecrated in the past. I feel that with all these different meanings possible, this piece is really powerful and gives the idea of how the dead were treated back then.

From here I decided to experiment with different tools and options to see what other versions I could produce.

This was a version I produced while I was altering the Threshold. It looks interesting as it greater adds the idea of surrealism as it no longer has a solid form and its made from block colours(Other than red eyes). It was an interesting version and gave me another idea for an experiment.

In this version I replaced all the white with a dark red, and removed the glowing eyes effect. This version seems much more graphical in appearance and does rather well at matching the ideas of surrealism. I however don't think it's quite as powerful as the previous versions, however I still like the appearance of it as it has somewhat of an intimidating appeal.

This version I made again by changing the main colours of the image. I don't really like this version as I feel that the skull shape is really far gone. It's not very powerful, however it does have an interesting abstract feel to it as there is less of the skull shape. Although the colours work well together, I don't feel that its getting the message across.

Going back to the older version, I started altering the Vibrance and Saturation settings. By maxing out both bars, I found that the red shone out even more, this created an interesting effect as it's almost as if the bones are in a fire, as there are shades of red, orange and yellow similar to that of a fires across the skull. What I like about this is how that idea of fire links to a proper burial which the people who where placed into the catacombs never got.

Final Version

My final version is made using the last made experiment, and once more adjusting the vibrance and saturation, I removed the glowing eyes as I felt that it ruined the seriousness of the piece and that it didn't make it as powerful as it could be. The shades of red, yellow and orange are much more fire like than before and really make it capture the idea that I wanted. I feel that with the idea of adding fire, it really suits the ideas of sublime, however also somewhat covers some of the ideas of mundane as they are bones, which all humans have, making them a common part of life. I feel that this piece leans too far towards the idea of sublime, and doesn't really have a balance of the two. When I see this piece, I almost feel sad as all the bones in the catacombs were real people, who were just just dumped down there without a proper burial, so adding the fire effect really made it seem like doing justice to those left down there. Overall I liked this piece, although I still felt like there was more to do and that it seemed incomplete, I will use these thoughts with future work.

Whats Next

With the work I've done so far, I have been leaning towards the sublime part of the topic, and I don't feel I have done enough with balancing the two. For my next piece I may focus a bit more on making Mundane seem interesting as that sounds like it could be interesting to me.

My goal for this would be taking the inspiration and ideals I took from Paris, and use them to create a new piece from scratch.

My idea for achieving this goal, was a stop-frame animation. The plan I came up with was to record my walk to school, which would be a mundane part of life, and adding various effect ands features to the animation to make it seem more interesting. It would be giving a visual form to an imagination. This would need to be done with a combination of flash, Premier and likely Photoshop.