Yes, half term has arrived fairly quickly and our penultimate classroom session is now over. Only half-term and a few days separates me from the final day which is both the end of February and the end of the course - and Hand In day!
It's been a blast, I've learnt a lot and enjoyed it immensely. But after 20 weeks I'm ready to put the academic photography away for a while and start on something I've been neglecting - music. Once this course is over, I'm hoping that Keith and I can continue with our UnderTow projects and get a few of them finalised. In the meantime, I have to sort out the final workbook, final essay and final portfolio of 6 themed images. If you remember (or read) my last Blog, you'll be aware that I had changed direction and no longer wanted to submit 6 themed images in the 'straight' and orthodox way outlined in the course notes. My idea had morphed, from 'Man & Nature in Silhouette' through 'Nature in Silhouette' with 6 independent photos all linked by subject matter (nature), treatment (monochrome) and style (my own) with each photo being different (day, shoot, conditions, etc.) into a single wide panorama image that would be processed in one specific way. Even there I did 'play' about with the image. Making it different across the image by dodge and burn, Gradient Tool, Healing Brush, Layer Masks and a range of editing that ruined the simplicity of the original image. Creating changes across the image somehow reduced it, removed any impact it may have had, and lost any fondness I had for it. Thus, I kept it fairly straightforward. I used Levels and Curves and removed the colour to create a stark landscape. I removed extraneous bushes and grasses, leaf and other detritus, to give the horizon a 'clean' look and did not turn the sky bright white as I had intended to do (it looked awful). Also, I did not make the image colour, not even a light tint, anywhere. I had thought about having a light tint (via a Layer Mask) to the earth but keeping the trees black and stark and the sky bland and white. But again, when I tried it, it just looked wrong. I am all for experimentation - it is a great learning tool after all. But I also recognise where you should stop using all these tools that you have at your disposal just because you can. The photo ends up looking over-worked and like a person who has had too many cosmetic procedures. Thus, I used a few select tools, reached a point where I was content with the monochrome result and then spoke to the printer - DS Colour Labs - to get their input into how best to send them in. I had to do this as my final craft piece is not in 6 sections, nor are they all 12" x 16" (A3) size. Only Two of the Five are printed at A3, the other Three are each different widths. Why? Well, after processing it to my satisfaction, the main image has been cropped into Five distinct and separate images. Each of the Five has a connection to the one before and the one after it. Thus they are all 'linked' or connected to each other. I did look at having all but one of the Five in colour as I thought that this might be an interesting look. On screen it looked fairly good, and it still keeps my interest and I may well look at placing the right one to be in colour within the set once the course is over. But I'll have to choose the correct one - yet might that be the central one, one of the bookends or another? I'm not sure, at least not yet. And for now, keeping them all in a stark monochrome fits in with my title of 'Nature in Silhouette', and I want that to be reviewed on its own merits, without any tricks or gimmicks at all. When they are put on a wall, there will be space around each of the Five. Yet in placing them in order side by side it will create a Sixth and final image. Each a slice of a space of a landscape and each with the same look and feel to it. The Five become the Sixth only when each are in place. If, for some reason, they were placed upon the wall out of sequence, this would create another 'Sixth' image - but a very different one of discord and disconnection. I found this process highly entertaining and interesting. My creative work is always about recording a 'slice of time'. Saving something that is fleeting to be reviewed and re-lived time after time, should the desire be there. In my poetry, I record the date and the time of the finished poem so that, on That date at That time, my experience was That. My photography follows the same method; to record and save the ever present now, which has always gone before you notice it or are even aware of it. So, my work is almost done, the images returned from DS Colour Labs and the white mounts I purchased from Hobby Craft (4 for £10!) ready and waiting to have the 'repositionable' adhesive I also purchased used with malice aforethought upon them. Not being certain of my prowess in cutting and trimming my images onto board, I have bought two copies of each image, thus if one goes wrong I'll have a spare. What happens if the backup also goes wrong I do not want to contemplate.... Wish me luck! Stay safe all, keep snapping! Alan
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Alan MitchellI'm always trying to capture that fleeting 'moment' in time -whether by taking a photo or writing a poem. My attempts to capture that illusive feeling, sight, sensation or sound in some way is, to me, magical. Archives
March 2023
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