Final Images

Final Images

Artist Statement

My project is based around the four elements – Fire, Water, Earth and air. Each element has its own speciality, water contains a magnetic property, nurturing and sustaining. Fire holds an electrical and creative property. The co-existence between fire and water is the detaching formation of the air element. Finally the earth element is what binds all of these fundamental forms together in order to allow the configuration of materials with different properties. 

Earth Shoot

Earth Shoot

This is the final image I chose to print as my fourth element. Although there were a few images I really liked this one fitted with the set, compositionally and tonally, it was my strongest image. 

The one thing I would improve would be the way the material has gone. To me the material looked quite cheap and was difficult to style on the model as she was so tall so next time I will buy more material as a contingency plan in case this problem happens again. The one thing I do like about the material would be the way the light has strongly hit it and created sheer shimmers down the fabric. There is definitely a feel of mystery to the subject, they way her right hand is hiding slightly. This I am referencing to 'the day dream' painting, the mystery in the woman who holds the heart of two men; The Husband and The Artist. Her secret compell over these two men is impeccable and the work in my opinion represents that. Therefore I wanted to bring this character through the representation of the earth element, mother nature.  

Here are some other images from the shoot I really liked yet unfortunately they did not link with other three images due to the model being sat down.

When experimenting with the fabric, I wanted to see how I could wrap the string around her body to create a form/shape. It could have done with being pulled tighter. I havn't edited this image below much and I kept the outsides of the backdrop in the frame just to show this was purely experimental.

There is something very delicate about the image below. It is one of my favourites and it's a shame I couldn't have used it. There is something very painting-like about this image and if I put more  time into the post production I could have definitely pushed the aesthetics of this. I would have added more noise and other filters such as gaussian blur to increase the textures of the image and to almost create a canvas texture. 

After going to the print space it made me think about how I would have also printed an image like this one. I would have printed it onto German Etching paper which is inkjet and is more of an art paper.  

Here is a black and white edit which I thought was really stunning.

Earth Research

EARTH RESEARCH

I found this image on pin interest which captured my attention in the way it has been overlayed with imagery in front of the subject. It's made me think about the ways I can use material, by not only placing it on the model but the effects I could get with it if I was to place it in front of the lens. this is something I will experiment with in the studio. Blending is something I have noticed after looking through lots of different examples which are linked to earth. The blending represents the connection to the earth and portrays how much we, as humans rely on this element. Here are some examples below.

Kirsty Mitchell

Shot on location, Kirsty Mitchell has used the surrounding colours and textures to create the most stunningly unique dress that blends into its surroundings in the most beautifully mysterious way. Her work is based around a lot of fantasy ideas, re cereating the stories her mum would tell her as a child. 

The Green Lady

The Day Dream

"The sitter for this painting was Jane Morris, the wife of William Morris, who often posed for Rossetti. At the time this was painted Rossetti was involved in an illicit love affair with Jane. He shows her sitting in the branches of a sycamore tree and holding a sprig of honeysuckle. This sweet-smelling climbing plant symbolised the bonds of love for the Victorians, and Rossetti may have included it here as a subtle reference to the relationship between artist and model. Rossetti was also a poet, and the title relates to his poem of the same name which ends: 

She dreams; till now on her forgotten book
Drops the forgotten blossom from her hand."

It's really interesting how the blending of colours and surrounding has been used here in a way of disguise, rather than a connection to the earth. It made me think about whether it resembles a women's position of power at this period of time. I started researching the 1880's and this was exactly the beginning of "The New Women: the first time, young women left their home for work, not in the traditional pursuit of domestic service, but as a professional."

It's interesting how the woman in this image is actually very much in control of the situation, how she holds the hearts of two men yet she is unseen through the use of blended colours. It's interesting to look into why this technique has been used and what the artist is trying to get across. In relation to my own work, I would like my subject to compel the viewer eye. Her gaze is mysterious yet a subtlety of threat and unpredictability.   

I have found a further example of art in relation to the four elements, this has been very helpful in thinking about compositions. For my earth shoot I would like to experiment with some sitting positions to represent the connection to subject and earth. Earth is such a strong and empowering element that the structure of my model has to be compact rather than a standing position which could easily topple over. 

Eva Hesse - Instillation Idea

Eva Hesse

(http://web.colby.edu/kksulliv/ar-138/favorite-works-and-artists/eva-hesse-2/)

After speaking to Jed he told me to look at Eva Hesse, an American sculptor and painter. Her first exhibition took place in the Kunsthalle, Dusseldorf, Germany. The work consisted of 14 papier-mache reliefs which was wrapped in cord-wrapped wires embedded, dangling or projecting from the pieces. 

"In the years before her early death Hesse's sculpture grew in scale and daring from easel-sized reliefs to Expanded Expansion(1969; New York, Guggenheim), whose latex-covered cheesecloth ‘curtains', draped between 16 plexiglass poles (h. 3.1 m), are extendable laterally, and Right After (1969; Milwaukee, WI, A. Mus.), whose light-filled fibreglass strands are suspended irregularly in space, usually up to c. 5 m wide. Her mature sculpture abounds in contradictions: chaos and order, organic and geometric, absurd and tragic. Hesse was one of the first and most influential artists to question the austere, immobile exactitude of serial Minimalism and imbue it with a capacity to move, change and vary from the norm like a living being." - ELLEN H. JOHNSON

I really liked the way her material is placed onto the floor in this image above. Jed suggested to think about how I could incorporate the material I used in my images with the finished images and how I could maybe bring more depth to the overall outcome by attaching the material somehow to the final images. If I wanted to do this I would need to contact a fashion design student to help me layout the material. This is an option for the future when I am able to spend more money on the print size but the idea is there.

The Workshop

The Workshop 

Here are a few images from the work shop we did with the two photographers who came down from London. They are previous students from Nottingham Trent University and kindly helped us with lighting for the fashion look book images. 

This was not only useful for the look book shoots, but for my own knowledge of the studio and how to proffesionally set it up and how to test the lighting. I learnt that the beauty dish is for a more sharp, air brushed finished whereas the light box is for a more daylight, ethereal effect. I also learnt about distances, that make the difference as to whether there is shadow on the back drop or not. We had to measure everything out and write it all down in order to draw a diagram for the way we would need to set out the look book set in order to get the lighting we wanted. It was also interesting that we brought in a clip light from the back, this lit the side of the model. We used a cone filter to have a more direct light. Over all it was a very good experience and I learnt so much from one day. In relation to my own images, I will use this new source of knowledge for when I expand this project further, possibly next term.