Daniel Gordon is an American artist from Brooklyn, New York. He is best known for producing large color photographs that can be described as collage set-ups. His work, as described by The New York Times, "Involves creating figurative tableau's from cut paper and cut-out images that Mr. Gordon then photographs." He has exhibited his work in solo exhibitions as well as in exhibitions at the museums and galleries. His work links very well to my theme of layers, as that is all his work really is, layers and layers of paper and photos that come together to form one singular piece of work. |
WWW: I love the colours and the intensity it brings. I think I successfully responded to Gordon's work but I made it very much my own, with my own aspects such as; digitally making the collage, adding in blocks of colour, not printing the final photographs, layering photos ect. I quite like the composition as well, there is a clear divide between the layers and the objects feel well spaced out and placed.
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EBI: This would have been so much better If i had made a variety of set ups, so I want to refine this process by creating more compositions and producing more of these type collages. I also think the image quality on these may be slightly less than I hoped, so next time I will try use better lighting so the images will appear less blurry.
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WWW: I definitely thought it was worth the re-trying and trying out different filters and a slightly different process as well. The work i produced is somewhat decent, and I think the process documentation was even better this time.
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EBI: I want to retry this process for a 3rd and final time, possibly on a larger scale, with even more layers because these are really small scale projects with only 4 layers so I think even more layers would give me a better result. I definitely prefer some of the images I created in the first attempt, which says to me that this attempt may have been missing something, so I definitely want to try again.
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WWW: I feel like this was an interesting way to take the previous process and try and do something slightly different with it. I find the produced images relatively pleasing in terms of the layout, spacing, colours and abstract aspect of it.
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EBI: I feel like the combined physical print outs of the objects worked better than the digital, as it made it feel more layered so I think this experiment may have been a step in the wrong direction, however trying and failing is all part of the refinement process.
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Shirana Shahbazi is an Iranian photographer who lives in Switzerland. Her work mainly consists of installations and large prints of conceptual photography - which means photography that illustrates an idea. She is a very successful photographer and her work has been widely exhibited all over the world. She has also had her own solo exhibitions displaying her incredible work. Not only has her work been in exhibitions, they are displayed in a museum (The Museum of Modern Art, New York). She is well known for her experimentation and manipulation of normal photographs. |
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Video Notes: - Wants to have a complex visual language through her work - likes depth in photography (hence the collaging) - Uses black and white images as starting points - Views photography as simplistic, and wants to dominate by creating her own version of photography - Takes exhibition spaces and makes it her own - Thinking about how to depict reality - Opens up opportunities for multiple interpretations and ideas through collaging |
WWW: I love the vibrancy and the distinctive layering of each of these pieces, which were the two main aspects i wanted to incorporate into my work. I also really love the personal aspect of it, as it makes it really feel like my work despite the adding of various images that I do not own/have not created. The varied composition of each piece is also quite nice, all the images definitely have their own feel to them which makes each of them feel unique but at the same time they still feel like a collective because of the colours and contents.
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EBI: Maybe I will redo this process, but use all of my own images instead to make it more my photography and less of a composed piece of other peoples work. I also don't like the colouring. of some of these images, they just don't work as well together as some of the others. I was also thinking about drawing on and cutting into some of these and then rephotographing.
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WWW: With the edited singular displays I feel like i made the images look very questionable to put it bluntly. I have asked various people whether the image looks real or edited and I have had varied responses from yes it does to no the entire image looks AI generated. It's hard to tell whether or not it is affective with such varied responses but majority said it looked real so I will go with that being a success. I love the simplicity of it as well, as it really allows for the printed piece to be the centre focus. With the edited group displays I am quite pleased with the colours and amount produced, it's all very weird and wacky but I kind of like it. I also think the editing process is very well documented which is always a plus.
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EBI: I think I could create more professional looking layouts as these ones seem more fun and creative rather than professional and exhibition like, like Shirana Shahbazi's displays work. I also think natural lighting may be a good thing to try incorporate as the artificial lights create hues that in turn make it more "fun" looking display if that makes any sense.
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WWW: I feel like these images look more like a real exhibition, unlike my other attempt which looked more like a display in my house (which it was) which is a plus because that is exactly what I was going for. I also quite like the colour edited versions, despite them not looking realistic
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EBI: I would like to try this process again, with a more ambitious/unique exhibition set up, as this one is rather mundane. I also would like to use an exhibition with no people, as this person kind of distracts I feel like.
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WWW: The light definitely interacts with the images in a weird and interesting way. It was a fun process to carry out, I love flashing lights so to incorporate it into my very personal work, makes the work feel even more near and dear to my heart.
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EBI: I think I could have maybe used a tripod, as it would make the framing more consistent in a way, and i would also like to maybe play with different types of lights as well, like torches, natural light, lamps, ring lights ect.
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WWW: I definitely think it was an interesting choice of development, which is always good as trying things out is a main component of photography. I also think the paint adds a select few of the images, it also creates an additional layer which aligns with my theme. The pen creates 'accents' to the images, which I think adds well to all of the images. This also feels more like physical work that i have created rather than digital (which I have done a lot of)
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EBI: In quite a few of the images you can't tell that there is paint, or you can but it's not very effective in adding to the image in a positive way, so that was a bit of a fail but trying is important. I wish I had taken a bit more care as well, and spent a bit longer deciding the placements of the pen and paint and chose colours carefully. All in all I don't like this work nearly as much as the original images.
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WWW: The layout is definitely reminiscent of Shirana Shahbazi's book which is what I was going for so that is a plus. The images look high quality and work quite well when side by side. The alternating between upside down and right side up is quite interesting as well, way more creative than everything being the right way up.
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EBI: I wish the pages were easier to turn, as they get kind of out of place when trying to look through the book but that is because it is just paper and doesn't have a spine like her book does. Other than that, I quite like how this piece turned out.
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Harry Callahan (Oct 22, 1912 – Mar 15, 1999) was an American photographer. Callahan was quite successful, he has done solo exhibitions, his work has been featured in museums, he even received multiple medals because of his photography. Callahan was a bit of a weird photographer in my opinion, he left almost no written records behind. He mainly worked in black and white, photographing the world around him; people, buildings, nature ect. Form what I have gathered, his photographic method was to go out almost every morning, walk through the city he lived in and take numerous pictures. He then spent almost every afternoon making proof prints of that day's best negatives. |
WWW: Again this feels very much like my work, and it feels very personal as that is one of my favourite cats in my family, the living room that its taken in has a lot of memories and the photographs and trinkets in the back have deep connections and meanings. In terms of the photographs I liked that I tried something different for each one, in terms of the composition/colours. I also like how I included the much more questionable and weird/ugly images that I would usually discard of, but I think I have come to terms with the idea that you have to show all the process, good and bad.
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EBI: I don't think it gives off the same vibes as the images that I was inspired by, I don't know if it due to the fact that I did this digitally and he created the layers physically, but I am going to assume that is why.
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Gjon Mili was a self-taught Albanian photographer from November 28, 1904 to February 14, 1984, who mad a name for himself in America. Gjon Milli is best known for his work published in Life Magazine, in which he photographed many artists including the very famous Pablo Picasso. His photographs of Pablo Picasso playing with light were the main images that he was know for. Since the 1930s, Mili used a "rapid-firing sequence technique in his photography, which allowed him to catch multiple images in a single frame" according to his Contessa Gallery biography. His photographs showcase the movement of dancers, athletes, and musical and theatrical performances. |
WWW: I think these images were a great success and a solid and clear response to Gjon Milis work. I love the images that incoorporate the objects (the cloth and rope) as I feel it gives the images a real flare/some pizzaz. I quite like the composition as well if I am honest, it varies from picture to picture but everything is well spaced.
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EBI: I wish I these were darker, but any darker the details of the image would be lost. I also wish i tried more objects being incorporated as they made for really great images.
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Matt Lipps is an American photographer and artist whom I have previously researched because of his sculpture work. He creates a lot of 3D collage pieces which he photographs in various effective and interesting ways, as well as that, he mixes people with objects which is similar to what I want to do for my final piece, so I thought he would be the perfect person to research and gather inspiration from. |