FMP final piece video

Stills Edit

after taking some of the stills from the video, i started to play and incorporate some text on to the stills, which looks really great. I used the word forever which i took from the lyric as its simple and easy to compose with  the stills, using the whole lyric was to may words and quite hard to compose without over complicating the shots.

Video progress week 8 and 9 into the FMP

So the past weeks i have been editing the video which i can tell you hasn't been easy as i thought it would be, and is much more time consuming than i had thought, but I'm now in the final editing and I'm really pleased with outcomes so far. It has a great air atmosphere about and has a nice mix between nice clean shots against edgy and quite gritty raw shots, i also made the video in to a black and white video, as black and white shots are easier to compose when it comes to double exposure it doesn't over complicate things.

here are some stills Ive taken from the video and even as stills i think they look really powerful as images alone.

Video Progress

So Ive shot video and now I'm in the editing process, i originaly started to edit it in I movies as its simple and user friendly, and as Ive never made a video i thought it would be good idea to use a user friendly program. But obviously things aren't that simple, because I'm unable to create a double exposure effect with this program and i have to use the much less user friendly program adobe premier, so its a steep learning curve.

the shots before editing look really great and hopefully I'm going to create a good effective video and the time lapse i shot looks really good and has a good tempo to it as it goes well with the track.

Double Exposure Video

So after deliberation i have decided that I'm going to create a double exposure video, and I'm going to use the natural environment as my subject, the reason being the same as i said before in an earlier post. I want use simple shots with lots of open space similar to Julian House, so that when i start to layer the shots i wont run the risk of over complicating the shots.

I also really want to try and create a time lapse shot in the video the reason being i think its an obvious way to relate to the lyric and show the movement of time

I needed to think of a backing track for the video because i know that this will have a strong effect and a lot of control of the video, so i think the perfect track would be the track i got the lyric from and based the whole project on its this really amazing and atmospheric track forever Ive known by the Maccabees, it has a lot of open space so I'm not really limited to the shots for the video

Video Idea

making these double exposure photographs reminded me of a music video by James Vincent Mcmarrow called this old dark machine which is a double exposure video using the natural environment layered over a silhouette of himself singing, almost in the style of Esmund Kesting but obviously moving, the video was directed by Myles O'Reilly of Arbutus Yarns.

I really like this technique used in video form the effect is really simple but effective,  i think my next move is to try and create a short video myself, its abit ambitious as i have never really created a video before. so I'm going to research into it further. I also saw another video that i really like its not a double exposure video, but it has a similar quality to the James Vincent Mcmarrow video its a video created by graphic designer Julian House, its this really quite edgy and gritty video but uses quite simple shots that are cleverly composed, its called phenomena and occurrences 

Double Exposure Own attempts

when i previously looked into double exposure photographers i really liked the fact that they created a lot of movement out of static photographs, and created great atmosphere to the photographs. I think this technique would favour to the lyric "Forever I've known nothing stays forever" sung by the Maccabees.

Nothing stays forever, nothings really still its constantly moving and this technique i think is a good way to really portray movement.

I'm really pleased with the outcomes, i like the effect of using the natural environment layered on to myself and the colours are great, i chose the natural environment because the natural environment is a great example that everything's always moving and growing.Trying this effect wasn't as easy and straight forward as i expected, its quite hard to get all the angles right and to get the composition right, but i do think the images have a great atmosphere about them but again i do think these are  the kind of images that are easily over done and over complicated so I'm going to leave them as they are and decide what my next step is.

double exposure

After creating the growing up in a picture images they looked really strong, and i think the images are quite powerful as they stood and i ran the risk of over complicating the images. So i wanted to leave them as they are and i needed to decide what my next step was still using the same concept.

I think even though i used a projector for the previous images, they remind me and have a very similar effect to what double exposure photographs have

double exposure photographs is a darkroom technique when you basically layer two slides or film and expose them together creating this layered effect, but there is also a way to do it using Photo shop and replicating the same effect digitally which is what i intend to do.

Edmund Kesting
Edmund Kesting is a classic example of film double exposure and one of the first photographers to really experiment with this technique, where he created these really powerful black and white photographs of various people. He would use there silhouettes  and then layer there portrait on top, and he wouldn't  just stick to double exposures he would sometimes even do triple exposures creating these beautiful photographs that captured a lot of movement and energy

another photographer who uses the same technique is Matt Wisniewski who is a much more recent photographer who uses the same technique but does it digitally, and he uses this technique in fashion photography  instead of using silhouettes he plays with the natural environment which is layered on to the models so even though its them same technique it gives a completely different effect

 i really like like how using this technique creates a lot of movement using static images so i think the next step is to try and create my own double exposure shots.

growing up in a picture projection edit

Although the the images Ive taken worked really well on there own i wanted to see what they looked like when i started to place some of them together. 

there really powerful images, i wanted to play on fact that the different ways you place the heads have different meanings, for example  the one with 3 heads to me means the head to the left is looking to the past ,the middles looking at the present and the right is looking to the future,  which i think fits really well with the brief and the lyric "forever I've known nothings forever""the Maccabees". the images look really great they almost have a painterly quality to them, and almost a sculptural element to them. I'm also really pleased with layout and composition of the images and i honestly think these could be great as final pieces, but I'm going to carry on exploring and experimenting with different ideas.

Growing up in a picture projections

After hitting a few problems I finally had a successful shoot with projecting the photographs of my self on to my self, i managed to to get the studio completely dark except for the image itself. And its come out with some amazing results that I'm pleased with.

they come out a lot better than expected, the colours are amazing and the contrast against the black really makes them powerful pictures, and they barley needed any editing just a bit of exposure tweaks.As images alone they work really well, the image were iv manged to line the photographs up exactly on my face looks really surreal, its essentially me but at four different ages in one photograph. It's weird to see what changes and doesn't change in your face as you grow especially the eyes, my eyes don't seem to have really changed that much at all. Also, even though its four images of my self, people have often said that it doesn't resemble me at all which is really strange. I also played around with projecting the image on other sections of my face, which i think are some of the more powerful photographs from the shoot.

growing up in a picture experiments

using the photographs of myself  I  wanted to experiment with a different technique of trying to overlay the photographs that I did in photoshop. I wanted to use a technique Ive used before using the photocopier, so instedad of just scanning them all in and overlaying the photographs in photoshop I wanted to try a more manuel proccess much more like a screen printing process, but instead of using screens and ink I used a photocopier.

they look really good its a completley differnt effect to what I did with the photoshoped images, the fact that there not completley allined gives it a completley different look, it remindes a lot like the screen prints andywarhol did for his self ptraits

i really like the effect hes used here if the prints were all completely lined up it wouldn't look as half as good but i do think it would be interesting if i could line the pictures up exactly.

Growing up in a picture (part 1)

this week iv decided to try and experiment ways in how to project images  onto myself going with the idea of projecting photographs of my self on to myself to show how I've changed through the years growing up, so i thought firstly an easy way to try and line the photograph up exactly of my face is using passport photographs. As in passport photographs you have to look straight at  the camera with no expression on your face, so these would be very similar to each other and in theory be easy to line up so, i scanned in the photographs.

about age 12

about age 14

about age 17
all ready by putting these photographs together just like this in order it was really interesting to see how iv changed throughout the years, and to see what characteristics stay the same and what change. I then had a little play in photoshop to try and overlay the photographs exactly to really give the sense of change and development

It looks really strange to see myself literally growing up in one picture, and this alone as a picture looks great. So the idea is to try and project these photographs on to my current face and see the the full change in one picture. The process I want to use is very similar to the process used by Andy Warhol  when making the video for the velvet underground, were he projects them at one of there previous shows on to them playing at gig.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1vZ-7P0BKw&feature=fvwrel

 but instead of doing a video i want to do photographs but still using a very similar method and concept as Warhol

obviously technology has advanced since Warhol did this and i was able to use a computer and a digital projector making it easier to achieve, i then realised I hit a few problems the first being that I was unable to get rid of all the desktop icons so they have been projected on to me and the wall as well. Another was that there was a lot of unnecessary light being created from the desktop and the photographs and this is not the effect that I wanted, I just wanted the photograph and nothing else projected onto my face.

another problem is that with the passport photographs having a white background it created again a lot of unnecessary light, and even though the photograph looks really interesting its not what I'm looking for.

so I realised I needed to eliminate all the excess light to get a good effect so I made a note of the setup so it would a lot easier and quicker to setup again.

so i needed to eliminate all the white on the passport  photographs so it would just literally show the picture of my face, so I lassoed my face and put the background as black.

 the photographs are now ready for the studio next week so hopefully the studio will be a lot darker, so that I'm able to get the full effect  that I'm looking for.

Final major project (week 1)

So its the big one the final major project and the brief is to write your own brief and I have 12 weeks to research, develop and come up with a final idea, which is a great opportunity to really develop a nice strong final outcome.

week 1
this week is research week i have to come up with two general ideas for the beginnings of a brief i then have to present the ideas to the tutor group which will help me narrow it down to one idea, I then then have to write the proposal for the chosen idea.

 Idea 1
my first idea is kind of a continue of my previous project "forever I've known nothings forever" i still think this text has a lot more to offer and as its so open it would be ideal for my fmp, so i started to really think about what the text meant. So I started to think, nothings really forever everything's always changing, so i then started to think about the word change and how that word is so open for ideas and again an excellent starting point for a brief so i started to already think of ideas.

 one being i want to get some old photographs of myself and then project them onto myself to show how I've changed throughout the years.

another being projecting pictures of the human anatomy on to myself or maybe other people and show how the human body is always changing.


another being getting hold of some evolution pictures and show how the human race has changed over hundreds and thousands of years.


I just think this as an idea is really open, and has countless amounts of ideas and outcomes to explore the idea behind the projection ideas was inspired by two artists

Shimon Attie
http://www.shimonattie.net/test/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=16 

Shimon Attie used old photographs of old families and old buildings lost in history, and then finds the location of were the photgraphs were taken. He then projects the photographs over there locations were the old photographs were taken and takes these photographs.
 
 
its really interesting to see the contrast between the photograph and the surroundings and how things have change over the years. They look visually stunning the projections are so crisp and clear against these old ruins of buildings.


another artist who uses projections throughout there work is Christian Boltanski 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Boltanski 
Boltanski uses projections similar to Attie but in a very different way Boltanski uses old photographs off Jewish families and Jewish children and overlays, projects and lights up the photograph to forcefully remember those who were killed by the Nazis in the war.


the photographs are very powerful to look at, by using lights and shadows the photograph really stand out and contrasts against there surroundings.
 
 
this one is one of his instillation pieces were hes used little light projection to create these interesting shadows and characters on to the wall. So although he uses a similar technique to Attie he creates  very different outcomes.