I began by creating abstracts with 6 crops from photos taken in my series of photographs. I began by experimenting with overlaying and warping my images together to see what came out as a result. I wanted to create a collage of surreal images to go with the normal photograph to make a sense of uncertainty and confusion for the viewer. I thought this would be a good idea because it would make the viewer look twice at all the images to figure out what they are and what part of the photograph do they come from.
I got this idea from looking at Rorschach tests, and wanted the viewer to analyse and create their own interpretation of what the abstract was and could be. This could then relate to their own situations and emotions.
I decided on making the grid have 6 images to show a variation of techniques and experiments, following on from my David Hockney research. However, by having 6 images, it makes it slightly confusing and overwhelming. Also some experiments are stronger than others so the weaker ones potentially take away from the successful images. (All photos taken by me)
Lily Abstracts
These abstracts were created from three of the different ‘house’ shoots. For the initial experiment I selected different sizes of square crops to see what kind of effect this would give to the images. I believe it was somewhat successful as it draws the viewer in closely to see what the smaller boxes are. However, after experimenting further I decided that all prints should be the same size, so that they all get viewed equally.
The process I began with was cropping into the images and picking sections which I found most interesting. I then added a black and white gradient to overlay each crop to bring out the shadows and highlights. This was successful however I didn’t think I was getting the most out of this idea.
I went onto continuing to crop into the images, but using the same crop size. I then experimented with duplicating the crop in Photoshop and overlaying it on the original image. I then changed the blend setting to either: multiply, overlay, darken colour, screen or hard light. This however sometimes didn’t work with the images so I would either not use them in the grid or I would use another blend setting. I think the outcome of these abstract edits worked really well because they obscured the original photo and allowed the viewer to create their own interpretation.