For our first project called Found Objects I chose to create a four-part series of photo diptychs all connected by a single element of design, line. In all four diptychs I chose to photograph recognizable items. I also chose to photograph these items because they are day-to-day objects that we take for granted, and often don’t recognize as having potential to be a piece of art. This concept, along with a few more elements other than line, helped make these four pairs stand together as a body of work.
In addition to line, the element of repetition throughout the four pairs is something that I tried to incorporate. You can see repetition in the orientation of the photographs. Repetition also occurs where the line is carried over into the next frame; they all connect in the upper right/left region of the photographs. I also made the lighting consistent throughout the series by only using natural light in order to bring out the true colors of the objects photographed.
In addition to creating a four-part series of photographs that stand well together, I made an additional two diptychs that do not necessarily fit in with the rest. The cloud diptych does not fit in with the series because it the photos are horizontal and doesn’t fit with the theme of day-to-day objects. And the landscape diptych does not fit in because, again, it is horizontal and not a day-to-day-object and it is black and white.
(Final 4-piece series)
(Additional 2 diptychs)
Project #2
For the first part of the project I collected images that I could see and letterform in. But, I did not want to image where the letterform was so obvious in the picture. I want my audience to search for the letterform. In order to help with this I replicated the letterform in a space beside the photograph. I placed the replicated letterform in the exact same place in the space as if the photograph were to be copied over. I did this because some of my letterform would be a little hard to decipher if I did not do this.
In order to replicate the letterform I used a variety of tools, and some in combination with others. I used the text tool for some of them, and then went on to manipulate the letter by changing the font, and the free transform and skew tools. But, if I found that the text tool was not capturing the essence of the found letterform, I tried to replicate them by hand. I did this by using the magnetic and polygonal lasso tools by copying the letterform right out of the photograph.
For the second part of the project, instead of finding a whole letterform within a photo, I captured photos that only contained half of a letterform. With this, I then created the other half on a new canvas using various Photoshop tools. For this I used a variety of tools including the rectangle tool and the rectangular marquee tool to achieve a more geometric hard edge. And for the others, I free handed them using the lasso tool and filling it in using the paint bucket tool.
This second part of the project proved itself to be more difficult to me than the first because I found myself stepping away from my own photographic esthetic in order to photograph very specific objects. But I tried to find a way to make them look like they all belong by playing with the orientation and experimenting with a vertical layout. And now looking at them as a whole series, I believe they do all look like they fit together.
Project #3:
Our third project was a sound project. For this project we had to create a story using only sounds. We used a recording device and capture the sounds and then arranged and edited them using the Audacity software. For my sound art
project I wanted to focus on creating a portrait of growing up. I want to do this
because I feel that now in my life, college age, you are encouraged to, or even
forced into, “growing up” more than ever before. But, at the same time you are
still trying to hold on to your youth while life circumstances try to pull you
farther away from childhood. Although one must independent and mature as an
adult, it is still important to still hold onto your childhood so there is
something grounding you while real world troubles tries to suck you in.
I
wanted my sound piece to focus on nostalgia and growing up. To start, I captures sounds that reminded me of childhood. But as the piece goes on, it
increasingly becomes interrupted by sounds that make the listener feel as if
they’re being pulled away from the nostalgia, or their childhood. I wanted these
“interrupting sounds” to be representative of parents, society, or some other
dominant aspect in our lives that push us into adulthood.
Here is my sound piece:
Project #4:
This is a video project I did for my art class. The assignment was to create a video that tells a story, fiction or non-fiction. I decided to focus on the concept of nostalgia (similar to my earlier sound project), instead of just a story. The imagery in the video is representative of memories and objects that stood strong in my childhood.
This video is experimental and focuses on time, meaning that it contains time lapses and isn't necessarily for entertainment. The viewer must pay attention to the subtle differences that occur throughout the video.
The significance of the name, [re]collections, is that the video focuses of memories, or recollections of the past. And the photographs featured are merely just a collection of the recollections.
"[re]collections"
Music Credit: Brian Eno - From The Same Hill
