Work Record 3

Plans for Shoot

For this shoot, since I have decided to further in the topic writing, I plan to develop my interpretations on the topic so when it comes to me creating my final pieces, I have looked into a variety of ways I can create my work in this topic.
The shoot for this blog, I will look into a different artist from my last (Nancy Hellebrand), and recreate aspects of their work. I want to look into using books for my shoots since they own a heavy link when it comes to words and writing.

Research

Since I am looking into using text printed into books rather than direct writing, I found Idris Khan, who uses prints of words to create other images.
I have further analysed his work in my blog post 'Photographer Research - Idris Khan'.

Image bank

All these pieces are from my research photographer Idris Khan, I selected these photos because they best link with the topic writing from all of his work. Some photos here are repeatedly printed words to create a shape, similar to a splash appearance, the composition for these pieces is very formal and linear it seems. The words are difficult to make out in these pieces, creating a symbolism of how powerful and shaping words can actually be. Other pieces are messier in composition, blackboard photos of scribbled and smudged chalk, these create more stories of frustration from a person. Some are more formal and represent culture or religion such as his photos of books in a distorted and repeated presentation.
I will attempt to recreate Khan's technique of work by capturing introductions to various books and will edit them to create repetition in print.

Contact sheet

These are all the raw photos for my book introduction shoot.

Best Photos
These are my best raw photos for this shoot that I selected.

Photos that require improvement

Since the composition of every photo in this shoot is the same and no photo was out of focus, I have to judge these photos on the content, that being the actual introduction itself. These two photos I feel lacked the most interest when it came to introductions. Both of these introductions do not start with an enticing sentence to bring in the reader, they lack any excitement or urgency, nothing about them is bizarre or puzzling so it would be difficult for a reader to be intrigued to continue reading/looking.

AO3: Record ideas, observations and insights relevant to intentions, reflecting critically on work and progress.

My Ideas

My intentions for this shoot was to recreate Idris Khan's work, with my own interpretations. His work used words to create other things, like shapes or images, this shows the power of what words can do other than simply be their definitions. For my interpretation, I rather wanted to use his technique of repetitive print in photos of book introductions to dramatise the effect of the introductions. I believe I have met these intentions since I have been able to simply capture the introductions of books in the composition I wanted, and in the edits that I will present later on, I feel it has helped to make everything in the photo appear and feel more dramatic.

Reference to best photos
Due to the composition being the same in every photo, I will analyse the actual content, that being the introductions and their effect.

The first sentence to this book is instantly an eye catcher, due to how dramatic and abnormal it is. It owns mild aggression also, this can intimidate the reader but it also intrigues because they want this further explained. The further reading in, the writer continues to intrigue you with things like 'I'll tell you about it later', making the reader have to go further to understand.

The first sentence to this book is crude and typically odd to be a starter for a book. The further reading into this introduction, the more displeasing this writer seems, he presents himself as rude. Most would typically not approve of this, but this crudeness is intriguing because readers would want to understand why the writer is this way. Some also would find the shock of this introduction to be interesting and mildly pleasing to already have such a reaction.

This introduction is intriguing due to how bizarre it is. It is grammatically incorrect firstly, starting the book in the middle of a sentence. This makes it difficult to actually understand what is happening, making the reader want to read further so they can potentially understand the context or actual meaning.

AO2: Explore and select appropriate resources, media, materials, techniques and processes, reviewing and refining ideas as work develops.

Use of Camera

I used my Nikon D3400 DSLR camera for every photo taken; a tripod seemed unnecessary for these photos since I'd simply be getting close up to books text. The camera was set to manual mode, shutter speed at 1/50, aperture at F5.6, and exposure at ISO 200; I also used flash since it better exposed and revealed the page detail and it was a dark setting when I was taking the photos. No specific techniques felt necessary since the photo recreation is relatively simple. 

Shoot Process

For this shoot, I picked out books that I personally own and would simply open up to the introduction of the book, I would put a weight down on the opposed page to keep it still and out of the way. I then simply got close to the book with the camera, made sure that only the page and words were in frame and tried to remove as much negative space as possible, then took the photo.

Experimenting

Since I'm recreating Khan's repetition in print technique in these photos, I will be duplicating the photo and revealing each layer while placed over each other. I could simply lower the opacity on the layers above but felt that would be too simple, so I experimented with different blend filters. These are the best ones I decided to choose from.

Darken

 Difference

 Pin Light

 Screen

 Soft Light

Final Pieces

With the technique from Khan that I am using, I want it to dramatise the introductions of these books, so I edited them with Khan's technique/style here.

Firstly, I pressed CTRL+J to duplicate the original photo.

I then used the blending filter 'pin light', which I chose from my experimenting of different blends. This revealed both layers, making the top layer slightly faded and rough in appearance though, this made the photo feel more dramatic. I also moved the top layer slightly so it actually shows the repetition of print.

Then I pressed CTRL+J to duplicate the layer one more time since I felt with this photo more repetition would look better.

I once again slightly moved this repeated layer in a similar direction as the other and set the blending filter to 'pin light' so all layers are revealed.

Finally, I felt to make the photos even more dramatic I would remove all colour by pressing CTRL+SHIFT+U and then used an adjustment layer of 'levels' to deepen the contrast between the white paper and black lettering.

This is the complete photo.

AO1: Develop ideas through sustained and focused investigations informed by contextual and other sources, demonstrating analytical and critical understanding.

My research into Idris Khan has helped me to better understand further interpretations with the topic writing and the indirect power words actually own for photography. Khan allowed words to be more than their own defintions, he used them to show the symbolism of their power and used them to present cultural messages, also adding references for religion. His use of repetition is what inspired me the most since I feel the use of repetition can create a dramatic atmosphere since it presents distortion and urgency for the viewer to really look at what you're repeating in presentation.

AO4: Present a personal and meaningful response that realises intentions and, where appropriate, makes connections between visual and other elements. 

I believe I successfully met my intentions for this shoot, the photos experiment with the different forms of writing and words, and experiments with the technique of repetition to create a dramatic effect to my photos. These are my final pieces.

Progression

Overall, I feel this was a successful shoot furthering into the topic of writing, Khan's technique is successful in intentions for dramatic effect. I feel though the direct presentation of writing doesn't peak my interests, looking into further research I feel I can incorporate other things such as people into the topic. For my next shoot, I will be looking further into incorporating people into my work.