Research Trip to London

FINAL RESPONSE AND EVALUATION

These images develop upon all of my previous ideas in that, I have succesfully portrayed the relationship between the contemporary and traditional, or more specifically; tourists and architecture. Looking back at the artists who inspired my final piece, you can see how I have responded to their work and developed upon it further, as I have included the theme of  people in the foreground and architecure in the background, however I have managed to do so with the technique of sandwiching in order to make my work more unique and creative. Moreover, the second image is particularly similar to the work of Robert Frank where the point and shoot camera acts as a window, however it is a modernised development of it, which I really like. Although the focus may be taken off the architecture in the second image, the idea that the tourist is so taken with the architecture and clearly views it as something important enough to capture in an image, ensures that it is still a main focal point. I chose to develop on the first image by creating the second image because I wanted to illustrate how the tourists engage with the architecture and one another, as they want to experience the environment and photography is how they record their interaction. The first image merely shows a tourist taking a photograph, however the second image displays what their picture looks like, to depict this message to the audience in more depth.

FURTHER DEVELOPMENT

This is another photograph by Harry Callahan, whereby he has used the technique of sandwiching, I then realised this technique could be ideal for depicting my message with the upmost clarity. To create this image I

dragged two images into photoshop and lay the image of the tourist on top of the other, then altered the opactiy to allow the architecture to show through. Then using these layers, I altered the contrast to make the building stand out more, I did not face any issues when creating this image, and believe the final image looks very effective. It responds to both Robert Frank and Harry Callahan whereby there are two points of interest within one image and they both share the focus.Moreover it also brings in my own concept which is to portray the relationship between contemporary tourists and their interest in traditional architecture, therefore I believe I have been succesful within this task.

I then thought about whether I could explore into my sandwiching idea in even more detail, and came up with an idea similar to the likes of Ken Josephson, however this idea looks into great detail of the tourism side and less into the architecure, so I decided to try and edit further and put a building in the background of the image. I did this again by use layers and the eraser tool, however when looking at the image it takes the focus away from the image shown upon the camera and therefore chose not to use this idea for my final prints. 

SECOND RESPONSE

In my second response, I developed upon my theme of tourism by using actual tourists, which enables me to not only portray my message with more clarity, but also illustrate a further idea which is the interest the contemporary subject, tourists, have in the traditional architecture. This link between the two is very clever as the tourists are unknowingly displaying the importance of the building to the viewer, and I believe I have portrayed all these elements well in my work. Below are the original images before being edited, from my first response I discovered that I wanted to ensure teh buildings had priority of the focus over the contemporary subject, therefore I made the tourists/photographers darker, using the burn tool. This is was very easy to use and resulted in the exact effect I was hoping for.



ARTIST RESEARCH: HARRY CALLAHAN

Harry Callahan's photography is similar to the work of Robert Frank, however it is more suited to my work as he focuses more particularly upon the architecture, and it is in a very similar way as I wish to.Again there are two points of interest, for example in the first image the eye tends to go immediately to the people standing in the foreground, even though the building work is generally the more dominant subject. When looking at the second image I looked at the architecture first, however I couldn't help but then look at the people, and more importantly what type of people they were, for it is this attention to detail that can explain the entire image. You can see they are all smartly dressed adults which alerts the viewer to the whereabouts of this architecture, I really like this element and therefore in my own work I will use people as a means to describe both the whereabouts and importance of the traditional architecture.

FIRST RESPONSE

Considering the research trip was based upon the comparison between traditional and contemporary, I decided to look at how tourists (the contemporary) are infatuated with the traditional architecture of London. Therefore, in my photography you can see how there are elements of tourism in the foreground, and further back are the traditional buildings, for instance St Pauls Cathedral. As a means to respond to Robert Frank I included his theme of the flag, but also having two points of interest within one picture. In this response I explored upon different focuses, for example in the first image the distant traditional architecture is not as crisp and in focus as the flags, which are ultimately the contemporary. Where as in the second photograph it is the building that is in focus. I believe it is more effective to have the building standing out more, and shall go on to continue with that idea in my next response.

CONTACT SHEET

ARTIST RESEARCH: ROBERT FRANK

Robert Frank's photography immediately appealed to me as something I would like to take, and above you can see my immitation of his work (however mine is more based on architecture). There is no exact focus of the picture, because although the eye may instantly head toward the person who is almost "in the way", the object/building in the background is of the same importance and is still incredibly eyecatching. I really like thie idea of having two objects of interest in one picture, one being in the foreground and one further behing, and it is this element I would like to continue in my own work.

INTRODUCTION TO PHOTOSHOP



Here is the edited and un edited image I worked on using Adobe Photoshop CS5, where I used layers, brightness/contrast and the rubber tool. The layers were quite hard to get the hang of, but once I knew how to they were very easy, so I had to duplicate the original layer, and then changed the brightness of it in order to make the red bus and red telephone box stand out as much as possible. After I created another layer and made it black and white, before rubbing out the areas in which the bus and telephone box were, then making teh underneath layer (in colour) show through. It was very simple and the final image looks very effective, the image is a very good way to display London with the iconic images of red buses and red telephone boxes, therefore this edit portrayed it to a very effective standard as the colour stood out even more against the black and white background.