Evaluations 1 & 2:
03.02.24 - 06.03.24
During this midpoint, I picked out all 4/6 of my artists, which I best think showcased my wide range of skills, and I still stayed in the lane and lines of the exam question layers. Nacho Ormaechea's first-glance work seemed straightforward and instantly brought to mind what layers look like. When I began editing these images, I made it block out the whole subject when I combined the second image on the layer palette on top, rather than having that image blend seamlessly across to create it where the subject's legs are still visible. However, it looks like it was the original image taken with the new layer on top to make it combined.
David Copithorne's work relied on me taking images of images or large landscapes with a foreground, which would allow the vortex spirals to be more visually interesting and captivating, like Copithorne's images. As I move on with his work, I aim to create new styles and interpretations of how he creates the vortex spirals to make them more technical and interesting to the viewer. With Branislav Kropilak, I decided to take a completely different route than his traditional airport light work on tarmacs and look at his geometric work with corporate and hotel buildings instead, as looking directly and on the surface level doesn't translate as the traditional Layers outlook; however, using Geometric Layers would be a more visually interesting look at, as it breaks down what layers are composed of. Moving forward with Kropilak's work, I need buildings and establishments with a modern, eccentric look that encapsulates Branislav Kropilak's work. Obtaining permission to enter these establishments has been one of my biggest complications during this project, as gaining permission from each establishment made it more difficult to capture these pictures, so constantly being in touch with places should allow me to set aside 2 weeks to only take pictures inspired by Kropilak's style.
Moving to Alberto Seveso, even though I have taken pictures of his work before in my previous portfolios, I wanted to elevate my approach this time by looking at double exposure and how he uses inks and model faces to create a completely new image. It creates an atmosphere where it reflects as though the ink has filled the outline of the model and disperses out of the frame of the final edit. I aim to do something like this, but this has been my weakest artist so far, as I haven't managed to hit the nail on the head of how to create these specific images and make them look real and almost have a similar composition and outcome to Seveso's. So I am currently working on ways to refine the images I have taken inspired by Seveso and be able to highlight their true form.
With my 5th and 6th artists, I am looking at choosing one artist who looks at film work to add some diversity to the range of artists I have chosen, and for the last artist, I am not particularly sure which direction I want to take that in.
Evaluation 3 & 4 :
27.03.24 - 05.04.24
As my portfolio progresses, I have witnessed many improvements in both the artist I have chosen and the work I am producing now, which is starting to take the shape of what a Layers project can look like.
There have been quite a lot of complications in my portfolio with which artist I can take forward and the work I can now produce, I have decided to drop Alberto Seveso as taking the pictures and executing how I wanted to replicate his work wasn't the problem, however editing the pictures was the problem so it being so close to the beginning of the exam I decided it would be a better option for me to drop that artist and find another way which would help me respond to Layers as an exam question. As I progressed with Branislav Kropilak's work I also ran into complications as most establishments which I emailed weren't happy with their establishment being photographed as it didn't meet their guidelines, so with establishments who said yes I managed to create good outcomes, however, they weren't enough to create a whole portfolio so I had to pivot and find public places in Manchester which would allow me to do photograph inside of buildings without disrupting too much peace.
Artists like Nacho Ormaechea have been able to make progress and start to fully understand how to make their work stand out and be more intentional with the editing process and the responses I produce for this particular artist after discussions with my teacher I realised the first initial edits I had both the background and the second image inside of the person on its normal adjustments but looking closely at Ormaechea responses I realised that I had to turn down the saturation, brightness and contrast etc to make the background duller and almost polluted for the second image inside the person stand out. I think what I managed to capture straight away was the art of isolating a subject from big crowds which is something Nacho Ormaechea does very well. With Copithorne's work, I have managed to stay on track with the spiral vortex I've been making and experimenting with new styles and different ways to change the vortex to be more faithful to Copithorne's work.
During this time I have also found 2 additional artists to replace Alberto Seveso but also make the complete selection of my 6th Artist, i have chosen John Clang and Manny Robertson as