Experimental Photography

Richard Burn

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Evaluate: ideas eg analysis, results; How well do you feel you have realised your ideas and intentions and what results have you got? Ensure you talk critically (compare, contrast, assess) about your work. You should reference your influences and assess how your work compares.This is the first photomerge I created using the photographs of the members of my family. I used three photographs altogether (myself, my father & my brother). It was my idea & intention to produce a portrait photomerges using members of my family. I only used three members in this photograph & I would like to add more members in future photomerges. Like mentioned on the previous PowerPoint, I was inspired by David Hockney & his photomerges. I used Photoshop, whilst he would use many different photographs he took himself & lined them up manually.

Qualities:Consider the aesthetic qualities of your work. How does it look? What do you like about it? What are the strongest and weakest elements from an aesthetic point of view?Aesthetically, I like the way this piece of work looks compared to the photomerges I produced with just one model. I think it looks better due to the fact there is more than one person featured in the work. I like the way the photos work together & I have been told it does look just like one person. One of the weakest points I believe is the use of my hair on the photographs as I think the sizing is slightly too small for the head. I will keep this in mind when producing photomerges in the future.

Consider the technical qualities of your work? How well done is it? What elements are strongest and which could need further work and development? Be sure to use technical terms in your work such as exposure, shutter speed, aperture and talk specifically about any post-production techniques you have used. As mentioned in the previous PowerPoint, I used the clone stamp tool instead of the eraser tool & I prefer the look of the clone stamp tool. I believe its increased the quality of the work overall as the tool is a lot my refined and specific about its job, compared to the eraser. Work could be done blend the lines better e.g. the hairline, but I can make sure this problem doesn't happen again in future projects. The exposure, shutter speed & aperture were kept theme same for each photograph, which allowed the photographs to be worked on together very easily.

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How could you improve your work? Could you develop your work further with additional work? What would you try to achieve with this? Could you undertake further experiments? If so, what would they be?This work was a development from the work I did on the model. But to improve this work, like mentioned on the previous slide, I would like to get the sizing right for the different parts of the body e.g. my hair on my dads head. I will just carry on producing these photomerges and learning what works and what doesn't work.

When talking about your work, consider formal elements such as lines, shapes and patterns as well as the colour and contrast and also tone of your image. Think about the composition of your work and where this could be developed. The human face has countless different lines shapes & patterns within them. Although there may be similarities, if you look closer you can see the real changes from person to person. I wanted my work to highlight the similarities and differences within a family. I believe my work has done this well so far, as this is the first photomerge I have done using the photographs of my family. The colours within the photomerge are typical colours of the human face. As I kept the aperture, shutter speed & exposure the same on every image they are easy to work with.

Finally you should consider if the images you have produced fulfil the brief you were set. Do they match the theme? Are they experimental? Explain your answers using specific examples.They do fill the brief. Featured in the photograph are members of my family & I have used the style of photomerge to produce them. Yes they are experimental as I am still experimenting with the style of photomerge.

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Evaluate: ideas e.g. analysis, results; How well do you feel you have realised your ideas and intentions and what results have you got? Ensure you talk critically (compare, contrast, assess) about your work. You should reference your influences and assess how your work compares.This is the 2nd photomerge I have created using photographs of people in my family. In this one you will find my father, brother, myself & my granddad. This one features four people, whereas the first one I made only featured one. Compared to the first one I produced, I feel like this one went the same way as the first one. Some of the sizing was not right for each person featured in the photomerges body part. This will be something I will have to make sure I work on to get right in the next photomerge.

Qualities:Consider the aesthetic qualities of your work. How does it look? What do you like about it? What are the strongest and weakest elements from an aesthetic point of view?This is quite a weak photograph aesthetically compared to some of the other photomerges I created in the past. I believe cutting a face in half didn't work well aesthetically, compared to just changing different facial elements (like what I did with the first photomerge with my hair on my fathers head). I will stick to specific facial elements from now on. Something I do like about this is that it is obvious to see who is who, which is much more in the typical style of photomerge (like David Hockney), although this wasn't the look I was going for, it was nice to see what the work could look like.

Consider the technical qualities of your work? How well done is it? What elements are strongest and which could need further work and development? Be sure to use technical terms in your work such as exposure, shutter speed, aperture and talk specifically about any post-production techniques you have used. I used the eraser tool on this photograph to see what would happen if I used it on pictures of my family. I should not of used this tool as the technical quality of this work is lower than the first photomerge I created using the photographs of my family. In the future I must stick to using the clone stamp tool. Like mentioned on previous slides, I used the same exposure, shutter speed and aperture on each photograph so the would be easy to edit.

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How could you improve your work? Could you develop your work further with additional work? What would you try to achieve with this? Could you undertake further experiments? If so, what would they be?Like stated on the previous slide, there are a few things I could do that would improve the look of my work overall. The main improvement I could make is sticking to using the clone stamp tool & not the eraser tool. Further development for my next photomerge will be introducing another member of my family into the mix. Experimenting with how different parts of the face work with one another is an important aspect of this piece of work for me.

When talking about your work, consider formal elements such as lines, shapes and patterns as well as the colour and contrast and also tone of your image. Think about the composition of your work and where this could be developed. Again, like mentioned on previous slides, the natural lines shapes and patterns on the human face are very interesting to me & I want to see how they change and contrast against one another depending on the person. The overall composition of the work works well with my plans for the work.

Finally you should consider if the images you have produced fulfil the brief you were set. Do they match the theme? Are they experimental? Explain your answers using specific examples. The image fulfils what the brief states & they match my theme of photomerge. I believe this work is still experimental because I am experimenting with different photographs & I also wanted to see if the eraser tool would work with the photographs of the members of my family, but the tool did not work. I will not stick with using the clone stamp tool.

Portrait Photomerge with family

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Evaluate: ideas e.g. analysis, results; How well do you feel you have realised your ideas and intentions and what results have you got? Ensure you talk critically (compare, contrast, assess) about your work. You should reference your influences and assess how your work compares.I feel like I really produced a very good result when it comes to this photomerge as it really does show my ideas and intentions overall. It features five members of my family (myself, father, granddad, brother & grandma) & I believe this photomerge looks a lot more professional compared to my first two photomerges using members of my family. This one works very well together and is of a higher quality because I took more time on it, found out what worked and what didn't work (eraser or clone stamp) & experimented whilst working on it (where to put each person, what worked best). Like mentioned on other slides I was inspired by David Hockney and his photomontages.

Qualities:Consider the aesthetic qualities of your work. How does it look? What do you like about it? What are the strongest and weakest elements from an aesthetic point of view?This is a very strong photomerge, aesthetically speaking. There are no clear mistakes featured in the work, that I can see anyway. I like how this has built on from what I found out what worked and what didn't work & you can see how the quality has increased compared to my previous photomerges. There are no obvious weaknesses, although the quality of the work could be increased simply by taking the photographs in a more professional setting like a studio, but this would be difficult to do with an entire family.

Consider the technical qualities of your work? How well done is it? What elements are strongest and which could need further work and development? Be sure to use technical terms in your work such as exposure, shutter speed, aperture and talk specifically about any post-production techniques you have used. The clone stamp tool was used to produce this photomerge. This I find gives a higher quality looking photomerge compared to using the eraser tool. I will stick to using this tool now as I have not found one that works as well as this. Like mentioned in previous slides I kept the aperture, shutter speed and exposure at the same level so that the photos will be easier to merge together, which has proven right to do.

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How could you improve your work? Could you develop your work further with additional work? What would you try to achieve with this? Could you undertake further experiments? If so, what would they be?This is the kind of level of work I want to be producing in my next photomerges. I am very happy with the result of this one. I just need to carry on producing photomerges at this level of quality. One thing I may start experimenting with is changing the levels of brightness, exposure & the colour of the wall behind them to add to the professional feel of the work. I will also begin experiments with the full body shots I took of the members of my family.

When talking about your work, consider formal elements such as lines, shapes and patterns as well as the colour and contrast and also tone of your image. Think about the composition of your work and where this could be developed. Again, like mentioned on previous slides, the natural lines shapes and patterns on the human face are very interesting to me & I want to see how they change and contrast against one another depending on the person. The overall composition of the work works well with my plans for the work.

Finally you should consider if the images you have produced fulfil the brief you were set. Do they match the theme? Are they experimental? Explain your answers using specific examples.This image fits the brief and matches the theme & if have experimented. For example, I experimented by using five members of my family together on the photomerge.