My work
Photo plan
For the theme fantastic and strange, I looked at the work of Mari Mahr as I found her work unique and eye-catching, I intended to take photos of a variety of things, so that I could print the photographs out and place objects on them, before taking more photos. The photo shoot took place outside and inside, allowing me to capture a range of subject matter. Whilst taking my first photos I experimented with different angles to get a variety of images, however, when I took photos of objects on the printed images I took photographs from above, so that the subject matter appeared to be in the same setting. The photo shoot outside used natural light, whereas the photo shoot inside was captured using artificial light. I felt my first set of photos were effective, which allowed me to capture different objects placed on the photos, creating fantastic and strange pieces of work. I intend to edit these photos using Photoshop, to develop them and make the printed photographs and the objects placed on them work well together.
Annotation of edits
Within these photographs I was attempting to capture a variety of subject matter that could effectively act as a background once printed, allowing other objects to be placed on top. My photographs are made up of a range of different landscapes from different times, some of which I have taken on my phone and others on a Nikon D3000 on manual setting, generally during the day.
The work of Mari influenced me in completing this work due to the artist's technique of placing objects on printed photographs giving the impression that the object is enlarged. I found this effective as the objects chosen often look out of place against the background exaggerating the fantastic and strange theme. This then encouraged me to use a similar technique to produce a variety of outcomes.
I feel that the composition is effective due to the fact that I intentionally took a range of photographs that would work well with different objects placed upon them. When taking my final photographs I arranged the objects so that they would look most effective, and took the photographs from above to ensure there wasn't any plain background that wasn't part of the printed photograph. This also meant that the object blended into the printed photograph more rather than having a harsh edge due to an odd angle.
The contrast of tone within my work enhances the detail and variation in subject matter, from the printed photograph to the objects placed on top. The majority of my photographs are in black and white as I found the objects blended into the background better, rather than having harsh lines around the edges. Although on some I left them in colour as I found that it added to the theme of fantastic and strange, making my photographs more interesting. For the bottom left photograph I edited the background and objects separately to make the colours similar by adjusting the brightness, vibrancy and contrast.
In order to refine and develop this work I would experiment with editing my work in a different way to produce a range of different outcomes, including different layers and altering the brightness and contrast to bring out the detail more.