Mundane and Sublime

First Mind Map

The first thing I was told to make for the 'Mundane + Sublime' project was making a mind map of words associated with both mundane and sublime. For this task we where given the idea of a Phrenology head.

This was what I produced:

First Piece - Playing with Light

For my first piece, I was working with cut outs if the words 'SubLime' and 'Mundane', along with definitions. The words were printed out onto tracing paper. This transparency gave me the idea to stick it onto a lamp, to see how the light shone through. This was the first photograph.

The light was very yellow and I found that the idea was interesting, I decided to keep playing around with the Image

Development 1

The first thing I did was take take the Image into Photoshop and desaturate the image.

This looked alright, but I felt that it still needed tweaking, the lighting could have been better, so I decided to edit the levels.

I darkened the levels of the image but I believed that I made it too dark, it did look more mysterious, however I wasn't sure if it was the best idea.

Development 2

The next change I made to this was to copy and layer the photograph.

This looked interesting as it really added to the idea of sublime, however it also meant the text couldn't be read easily.

Development 3

I decided to add some colour to the image, to see how it would look. I experimented with a few different colours to see which looked best.

Final Development

I liked the blue version of the piece best, however I felt that the levels could be changed to better suit the colour. This is why after playing around with levels, I found what I thought to be the best looking of the versions.

After making the levels lighter, the image started looking like it had almost a neon glow. I thought that this worked rather well as it adds to the idea of light and also makes it look more unusual and better suiting the idea of Sublime.

Mundane Picture Grid

This was a smaller piece made to practise photography. I took photographs of mundane objects, using the macro function of the camera. These worked well close up. The next part of the task was to place the images on a 30x30cm grid. The idea behind this was to make the mundane seem more interesting.

Original

Version 2

I decided to to add a filter effect to the piece to see what it would look like. By using a filter called 'Note book' the photographs became much more interesting.

I found this interesting as the red looked like they are flowing into each other and almost merged in appearance. What I like most about this piece is that you can still make out the basic objects from some of the squares. For example you can still read and make out the shape of my bag (Middle left box). Another part I really like is the glasses shape made from around the shape, with the frame being left out of the red.

Version 3

After this I decided to make another version based off the base grid. The first thing I did was desaturate the image.

Version 4

Although this looked nice, I wanted to continue making more versions of this and starting playing with other effects. For the next version I altered the levels and used the 'Photocopy' filter. I like this version because the filter has made it look like all the colour has been removed, and all that remains is the outline. What I like most about this piece is the reflection in the phone screen. The window is clearly outlined within the phone screen and it seems to have reflected really well.

Version 5

For the next version, I used a filter called Graphics Pen, and altered the used colours. This piece is darker than the previous versions. I did this because I thought it would be interesting. The red and black colours work well together and gives it almost a horror feel. Although this piece is made from mundane objects, the colours and stylings of it really give it that sublime feel.

Version 6

For my next version, I went back to the 'photocopy' filter, however this time rather than using the dark red and black, I swapped the colours out for a lighter blue and white. This made it look almost like a blueprint, which I found very interesting as Blue Prints would also be considered mundane as they are the plan for everyday buildings.

Colour Splash

This next piece, was going back to basics for me as it's an effective editing skill, yet often forgotten.

For 'Colour Splash' we took several photograph, with an aim for large amounts of colour.

This was the photograph I chose for this piece.

What Liked about this photo was the flower being the focus, I thought that if I exaggerated the flower being the focus it would make a good colour splash.

After desaturating all but the flower it seems that maybe the flower stands out a bit too much and that it maybe its too different to the rest of the photograph.

To add in the themes of leading lines I search the photograph for examples of them, from this I found a few examples.

The two examples I found where the window frames leading towards the flower, and the cement between the bricks also leading towards the flower. I found using the colour splash style was rather refreshing as it was a simple method of creating effect and I really liked how the flower came out in the end.