Study Period 2 Conclusion

Finally this first half of the year has come to an end :) My last assessments for these subjects were on Thursday 16th of June and I am on my winter holidays before my final semester of uni! 

In my negotiated study I started with the plan to investigate portrait photography and creative ways to take photos of people. I experimented with different elements where I set it up to look unplanned as well as set up a studio for some very deliberate poses. With experimentation I found new ways of taking photos of people and played with some experimental ways of taking self portraits. Through my experimentation I moved from my original plan to explore the possibilities of portrait photography to an experimental way of expressing myself. I have played with ideas of memory and the condition of the mind with focus and long exposure experiments. These final images show how I like to think of myself as a calm confident woman but inside I am anxious and confused about everything in life.

In Photography Specialisation B my experiments have been focused on the strangeness of dreams and impossibilities as I  have been increasingly interested in surrealism. From the beginning of this semester where I started with the illusion of the impossible I have moved on to montages challenging the limits of strangeness while still maintaining an element of normality. Like dreams, which are strange but somehow still appear normal at the time, I try to keep an idea of reality through landscape, horizon and story elements.

 

 March 2011, 'Wet Wonder'

 

 March 2011, 'Am I Falling the Right Way?'

 

April 2011, '2 Tangible-D'

April 2011, 'My Happy Place'

April 2011, 'Battle at Dragon Rock'

April 2011, 'My Magic Scarf'

May 2011, 'What Brought Us Here?'

May 2011, 'Beautiful Suffocation'

  April 2011, 'Night Land'

 June 2011, 'Melding of Dreams'

Now with this semester down I only have one to go which is exciting and scary at the same time. If you want to know what I plan for next year I'll answer you now, "I have no idea."

Enjoy my art :)

New Directions

My photography, through experimentation, has take a turn in a whole new direction I never really thought I'd be able to do. Montage. Lately in order to create my dream goal I have been montaging several images together. Such as 'My Magic Scarf' a montage of 6 images, 'Beautiful Suffocation' a montage of 12 images and 'What Brought Us Here?' a montage of 11 images.

April 2011, 'My Magic Scarf'

May 2011, 'Beautiful Suffocation'

May 2011, 'What Brought Us Here?'

It is an interesting development in my practice and I'm not really sure where I'm going with it. At the moment I think I'm still playing with how strange I can make it look without it looking stupid. I've also just been wondering where my genre lies; is it fantasy or surrealist? Where is the line between those two? It is a topic that I need to write an essay on for another university subject so perhaps in a few weeks I'll understand.

Enjoy my art :)

Diorama!

A fairly recent growth in popularity within the photography art sector is the art of dioramas. To create an image by building the scenario specifically to be viewed only from the cameras perspective. In my studio lighting class we have been challenged to create a diorama to be photographed after looking at such artists as Aurelia Carbone. Here is what I have come up with :)

April 2011, 'Night Land'

So this is the completely raw image with no editing. The set built especially for this camera angle. I'm pretty happy with my first attempt at this. I hope you all like it too :)

Oh Frustrations!

Only just over a week ago I was under the illusion that I was doing well in my photography for this semester, then I had a class review and my eyes were opened. It's always difficult to tell how I'm going with my photography when I have no one really to discuss it with from an artist point of view. Anyway... Because of the realization of falling behind with my novice whatever type photographs I've decided to get really busy these holidays. I've also decided to focus more! Not just 'experiment with whatever' manipulations but looking more at the dream-like feel of a photograph and a bit of a look into surrealism photography. 
So this is what I have come up with this week.

April 2011, 'My Happy Place'

April 2011, 'Battle at Dragon Rock'

This first term is nearly over...

The first half of this semester is coming to end in the coming weeks! I thought I should probably update on where I am at right now in Photography Specialisation.

Brief outline of the project

For my investigation I have chosen to play with photoshop in manipulating images. I want to experiment with manipulated images that may appear realistic but could not possibly be real; such as floating, doppelgangers, etc. I am inspired to bring to life the occurrences that seem so natural in dreams and imagination but cannot be done naturally in real live. More specifically I want to experiment with images which look so real that some people may not notice the impossibility within the image and to the other end of the scale where I want to experiment with very surreal and obviously unrealistic images. I hope that through the experimentation of these opposites in manipulated images I may find a preference for either the hidden impossibility or completely surreal, otherwise that I may discover a balance between the two that I would like to continue exploring.

March 2011, 'Wet Wonder'

March 2011, 'Am I Falling the Right Way?'

April 2011, 'World of Blah'

April 2011, '2 Tangible-D'

April 2011, 'Something Else'

I hope you enjoy them because I just love making them :D

Beginning of the End!

Hello one and all.
I have now finished my first week of SP2 (the first 6 month semester of uni for the year) and I am anxiously excited about this being my final year at art school :D I really don't want to leave.
Firstly I would like to mention that I finally got my result back for my summer class Intro to Drawing!! I got a Distinction  :)
Secondly I would love to advertise vista print who I bought my business cards from and am very a pleased with. They are great quality, came at a bargain price and arrived weeks before I was expecting it.

(scanned image)

www.vistaprint.com.au

Now on to what I am going to be working on this semester. I am doing three classes; Film and the Moving Image is my theory class in which we will be looking at arthouse films and film in art, Photography Specialization B, and my Photography Negotiated Study.
The hard part of this semester will be distinguishing the difference between my two photography classes! Well after my first week of uni I think I know where the difference will lie. In my negotiated study I am investigating creative portraits and just portraits in general whereas in my photography specialization I am going to be working more with the manipulated image which may include the use of portraits as I have done a lot of lately.

Keep watch for my work throughout the semester :)

'Shadowlands' - Adelaide Fringe Festival

Yesterday I participated in Shadowlands run by the UniSA Art, Architecture and Design school for the Adelaide Fringe Festival 2011. 

Around 27 students participated in learning the history of Hindley Street and then designing stencil images inspired by the history. The group only had 4 hours from arriving at the lecture on Hindley Street's history to completing the street art.

To transfer the images onto the Hindley Street footpath outside the Kaurna building of UniSA City West campus we used white chalk.

Hindley Street used to be the main street of Adelaide. It was the place to go for a night out, but not in the same sense as today. Though Hindley Street now has a reputation of being full of drunks, clubs and gang fights it used to be a place with fine dining restaurants, cinemas, shops and even an ice skating rink! Back in the days when we were all proud of Hindley Street the King was paraded down that very street and it was also the street all the soldiers marched down after the second world war. Though even then there was a pub on every street corner.
Slowly but surely the shops moved east when Rundle Mall and Rundle Street were created. The cinema's shut down and the ice skating rink was closed. Nothing much was left but pubs and clubs which brought Hindley Street into it's downfall. 
This art project was an attempt at bringing back some of the old Hindley Street pride and I know that everyone I was working with was captured by the history of Hindley Street.

25/2/2011 Some of the chalk stenciled images to represent Hindley Street's history. The lower central imaged of three old architectural windows with alcoholic drinks was join project between myself and my partner to show a sample of the beautiful architecture that used be down Hindley Street as well as the old history of pubs on every corner.

25/2/2011 This is myself standing in front of the walk in K5 UniSA where the stencil's were pinned up for display. My stencil appearing just beside my head. 

25/2/2011 Shadowlands, the finished product.

More photos on my Additional Art page.