Taking a walk...

In order to find a starting point I decided to take my own journey around limerick and see whaqt kind of images I could produce from that. Here are some examples of the kind of photos I began taking.

I thought it might be a cool idea to take an image like the last one and using Photoshop to extract the background and replace it with a completely out of the ordinary rural background and have a series of images kind of like this...

That seemed a tad more difficult than this project need be..

When I took a look through all my pictures I decided it wasn't entirely the direction I wanted to go in. So I read through the brief (again and again and again) and tried again.

Assignment Numero 1

The first assignment of the semester that we have received is based loosely around the Robert Smithson inspired walk that we took with Sean last week and also the slide show shown to us by Martin last Thursday on the 'Found and Constructed Images'.

The aim is to produce 8 finished images that engage in some way with the above. The photographs could be of anything I chose and I could also chose to either produced them in black and white in the darkroom or digitally using the colour printers in Clare street. After attending the demonstrations provided to us of each possibility I decided to produce my images digitally using the colour printer.

I chose to print the images digitally as I have had no prior experience of using this printer and I was hoping to involve a good deal of colour in my final images. I have had experience of working in the darkrooms due to an assignment I completed before the summer holidays.

Then all I had to do was find an idea I was happy to stick with and take some photographs!

Found and Constructed Images Slideshow

In class we viewed a slideshow put together by Martin on the ideas of found and constructed photography. We were shown examples of some really interesting photographers whose works played on these topics and there were names of some very interesting artists to research. One that stuck out to me on the topic of found images was Richard Wentworth and his series of 'Making Do and Getting By' where he photographed everyday objects that were being used for different purposes just for the sake of making do and getting by. Here are some examples of those:

 

 

We studied a lot of different artists and their works more of which I will get around to posting up here... but for now I think food is in order!

Robert Smithson

Reading Robert Smithson's very detailed essay entitled 'Monuments of Passaic' seemed challenging at first. Having never read a Smithson essay before it took me awhile to adjust to his kind of writing, phrasing and ideas. When I re-read the essay it proved to be witty, insightful and I enjoyed his way of seeing things, such as how he could turn immobile machinery into prehistoric dinosaurs trapped in the mud, and his theory on having a child run circles in a sandbox filled with white sand on one side and black on the other.

It's an interesting read and if you feel inclined here is the link to a PDF version.
http://gd1studio2011.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/smithson-monuments-of-passaic.pdf

Having discussed the essay in class it was decided we would take a Robert Smithson inspired walk around an area of Limerick (Charlotte's Quay) and following that have a project loosely based around the trip.

Below are some of Robert Smithson's own photographs taken while on his journey:
If you wish to see them all here is the link: http://www.robertsmithson.com/photoworks/monument-passaic_300.htm

Nottingham Contempoary - Aquatopia

Over the summer months we were set an assignment to visit a Contemporary Art Exhibition that included some elements of photography or lens based media. On arriving back in college in September we were to have assembled a 10 minute long PowerPoint presentation to deliver to our tutors and year group. The aim of the presentation was to outline my experience of the exhibition I chose to visit and provide a critical evaluation of it.  (also to be supported with good quality visual documentation.)

Lucky enough I was in the U.K at the time I received the brief and so I chose to visit Nottingham Contemporary Gallery as I had previously seen advertisements of an interesting looking exhibition taking place there. The exhibition entitled 'Aquatopia'.

Here are some of the slides from my presentation along with some scanned in images from the exhibition booklet.

 

PowerPoint Print Screen Images:

 

'The Desperate Man'

I chose to focus my project on the painting ‘The Desperate Man’ by Courbet. I wanted to look at the kind of situations people might feel ‘desperate’ about in today’s society and I thought the theme adultery would suit this image. The suit and tie imply that he is a working man but the lipstick on the shirt and his stricken expression symbolises him having done something forbidden and dangerous. 

The original image I worked from by Courbet, 'The Desperate Man' 

 

My own final studio shot image 

 

I was really happy with how the final image turned out and I think I successfully got across the idea I wanted to portray! Hope you like it.

Patrick Jolley

I visited the Patrick Jolley exhibition in the City Gallery awhile ago and I thought it was really unbelievable! I wasn't really aware of his work up to the point that I seen it but I was totally blown away by it all, and there was so much to see! I took some notes and snaps of my favorite pieces.

I particularly loved the Ice House series photographed in Sweden, there is something so mysterious about them they are very hauntingly captivating! I love his use of the natural lighting in the images below. Also the short film of the burning house kind of fitted the same criteria for me in the way that there seemed to be something equally as eerie and haunting about the setting as the images before. All in all I loved the whole exhibition and they layout of they work was fantastic!