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Final Reflections : Learning about myself – Creative Process and Outcome

  • I have learnt to navigate my own creative process. Using an investagtive approach to allow my self to flow and think through ideas. This has gone alongside my own journey navigating my focal epilepsy and own wellbeing as I learn to live with the seizures, and gain understanding of how my brain also navigates. Like the underground communication within nature they also go unseen and are often misunderstood or unknown. Whilst also relearning and adapting my creating process to see how it has evolved since level 5. In some ways my confidence has grown from Level 5, I have successfully completed 3 industry placements that have taught me new skills and allowed me to materialise my abilities that aren’t directly used within my work, but at the same time as a person my values have matured since then and my work has become a contrast between high contrast flash and expressive styling, with a growing appreciation for my surrealism my photography has shifted from a darker to more outdoor whimsical aesethetic.

Throughout my work and within my creative process I’ve continued to take an investigative approach, letting my ideas evolve gradually and exploring different paths and techniques. However, this has meant that within my creative process it has taken me a long time to reach a point where I am happy and have clear direction within my outcome. Meaning that It is becomes harder to manage my time in way a way that allows me execute my outcome in the way I imagine. Moving forward post graduating I’ll be able to adapt and evolve my creative process to be more efficient allowing me to endeavour into more in depth exploration of my concepts and outcomes.

I began my FMP by continuing my focus on nature and its powers by looking at symbols within nature, which magnetise and often act as natural landmarks for humans. Exploring how this effects how as humans we navigate nature and how spending time outdoors can also help us navigate life more clearly. Which brought me onto looking at trees and the underground mycorrhizal network, reading into Finding the Mother Tree by Suzanne Simard and How to read a tree by Tristan Gooley which helped understand the power of trees, how they can be written about emotively and illustrated in a print form.

A key turning point within my project however was finding the relationship between my photographic style and paintings.Spurred on by visiting the Peggy Guggenhiem Musuem in Venice. In which I was drawn to this following paitning untitled by Dali below and its similarities in colour palette and pose with a test shoot I had done.

 

 

From here I contiuned to explore the effect of a painterly process and how this goes hand in hand with communicating landscapes visual. This gave me a a clearer direction which opened my mind to looking back to my Research essay into Alice in Wonderland and Fashion Photography and how the book reflects the 18th Century attitude of a Bucolic idealised English Countrside.

From here I was able to maintain a focus on the theme of my photorgaphy sticking to landscape outdoor shot imagery, in an ethereal style and looking to pastoral literature and art for both visual and written inspiration for the text is my book outcome.

 

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Graphic Design Inspiration

We Make Pictures In Order to Live Magazine :

I was drawn to jumbled style graphic design within this magazine as it looks almost like organised chaos and a mind map of images that works well as they are of high quailty.

Mental insight to photographers thought process through the staggered layout that leads the readers eye around the page almost like following a path. Fun way of forming a photographic narrative within graphic design and without text.

 

 

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1 Week to go

With 1 week to go until the final deadline I have been focusing on how I can work most efficiently managing my time to avoid a last minute panic, or at least make the panic organised! Right now I am focused on completing the outcome its self. I am hoping to do this for Monday. This will give me time to get it printed in time for hand in as I feel having a physical copy to look at will convey the book The Stix and its meaning how I want it to, with the idea of it being an artefact and the value in the preciousness of having something to hold if I have time to do so. Before printing again with a hard back cover for exhibition.

I have also been looking through a lot of photography, surrealism, fashion and landscape books (documented in sketchbookn and bibliography) this has given me knowledged and a greater insight into layouts, graphic design choices and the way text and photography can be used to compliment each other. The one I find most inspiring being Tim Walker Storyteller, although I have loved his photography and sense of storytelling/depicition of the British Countryside for a long time, I really like the skethcbook style scanned layout he uses to display his work within the book, with even the references and image descriptions being documented in a academic style way, as well as having the heavy text at the front of the book to give the reader context before delving into the rest of the book visually.

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Exploring Printing Options / Overcoming Challenges

Today I visited the repographics department to look into the process of getting my book (The Stix) printed. I had planned and been a working on a indesign document, in a landscape format. I had planned on making the images landscape as I felt due to my work greatly being set in rural or natural landscapes, this would show case it best and be the most escapist format for the reader. The layout I havee created is landscape A4 pages, making long A4 landscape spreads when the book is opened, which I thought would be a unique format that would encourage the readers to take time looking into the images and turning the pages. However I was told have landscape A4 side by side as a spread isn’t something that can be done easily/within university. However there is an option to create an indesign document consisting of A4 landscape spreads that when printed could be trimmed down to create a smaller A5 landscape booklet. This would mean risking the image I wanted to create within my work through scale and restrict my graphic design choices to suite a smaller format, this being said I am also seeing it as oppurtunity to challenge myself into making this smaller version of my book. Although I love the idea of scale and getting lost in photography, the idea of my work being an artefact is something that is also important to me and I feel a smaller format has the possiblity to create a more intimate and precious documentation of my work. Infitting with my influence of storytelling and fantasy. I am also aware that I will be displaying my work on a large scale at the Final Show giving me an oppurtunity in both a very large and smaller intimate format, allowing me to see how it looks and fits in different contexts.

-Take the risk and print on a smaller scale, Consider medium mg weight natural paper. Artifical Glossy not fitting with nature themen and could create glare under exhibition spotlights.

 

 

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Primary Research : Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft

Visiting the Ditchling Museum of Art + Crafts current exhibtion Signs of the Seaside curated by Justin Burns. was a great source of inspiration for the exploration of typography and how it can be used to convey certain meanings, as well as how it works paired with certain colours and the change in relationship and messages this can make, that I can use within my own work – Both in my photobook Stix and Portfolio work and Logo. The “R” letter below was once the “R” that sat above and helped spell out Brighton Pier, Instantly recognisable by its funfair style Serif font, that gives it a retro classic style in the most playful way. The R given a new lease of life by artist artist Andy Doig is so recognisable that it is now its own artefact and piece of history itself due to instant nostalgia and recognisablility of the font.

 

 

Nostalgia and Connotations of the seaside – Seaside Typography is enhanced by the pastel sea and sand yellows and blues, and seaside fish and chips stereotype to bring it to life.

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Planning Shoot 3 of The Stix – IN YOUR ROOTS

For the 3rd shoot of The Stix I want to explore the power of a trees roots, looking at their power to communicate to one and other beneath the surface and how they are able to transfer nutrience and knowledge to other trees through them. This will be my point of inspiration for the styling of the shoot.

I also intend on using angle to emphasis this narrative and message of human emotion by shooting from a low angle looking up to exaggerate the size of the tree and power that the tree poccesses/ resultantly making it both strong in nature but also vulnberable due to how exposed trees are due to their height.

For me the metaphor of trees communicating through roots is like a metaphor for the human brain

Playing with the idea of roots and plant communication being under the surface and the

 

To gain a greater under standing of tree communication and the science behind it I have been reading How to Read a Tree by Tristan Gooley. The book has been educational but also demonstrates how narrative can be used to add extra value to this through creative writing, Gooley formats the book as if you are going on a journey with him rather than him, talking directly to the reader within his text, which creates a sense of intimacy. The book also features a selection of beautifully simple monomchrome drawings like the ones pictured below, the images also add context to the text, giving the reader a clearer understanding of what is being explained whilst also being aesthetically pleasing.

For the Styling of the shoot I am focusing on Ethereal tones,

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Photo/Coffee Table book research

Dream Baby Dream: (Los Angeles and California Photo Book, @Jimmymarble Photography Coffee Table Book)

By Jimmy Marble
Dream Baby Dream by Jimmy Marble is a collection of playful element of creative and positive text. Although this book aesethetic is more dreamy and brightly coloured than I intend mine to be the element of playfluness created in the written notes by the photographer to compliment each image is an effective touch – for me as a reader I feel this creates a more intimate feel and inisight into the photographers work and creative mindset.
This being said, within my own work I plan on adding pieces of creative writing alongside my image, that are short but thought provoking and continue the train of thought my photography takes the viewer on to maintain the feeling and action of an escapist narrative and feel for the reader. As I want my book to carry a natural flow through the pages, where the reader stays consumed and does not feel like they have to stop and pause to read overwhelming chunks of text.

Fruitless| Woven| Fallen

By Tanya Marcuse
  
Compared to the previous book Fallen Fruitless Woven by Tanya Marcuse, shares an aesthetic I find more visually appealing than the last book. The use of black and white, natural floral pastel colour palette compliments the forms of the natural objects. The colour brings out the pink and greens of the petals and dark colours of the branchs, that creates an omninous tone.
Graphically the combinations of full double spread bleed images and spreads with majority white space, means the readers eye is lead by the graphic design/placement of the images more engagingly, as it encouragers the reader to follow the images around the pages.
This book has been documented on the youtube chanel linked above creating a stop frame animation of flicking through the pages and playfully moving the printed book about, I like this as it creates a more tactile digital version and could bring a digital version of my book to life through video, for veiwers who do not access a digital copy.

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Penultimate Tutorial

The most

What tone do I want to convey within the imagery? – dark/light/saturated

What do I want my reader to take from the work?  –

I need to consider further observations between my most recent shoot with Lexie and messaging. Such as ensuring the model looks imersed in the environment which I will be able to acheive by cropping in images and also selecting those where the model isn’t looking into the camera to help them look like “pretty.”