FMP Week 4

Tues-

Today I had a jam-packed day of gallery visits. I first went to the Barbican to see the current installation 'experience' they had at the moment, I wanted to see how other artists were engaging their audiences. When I entered the room it was completely dark and I instantly lost my sense of direction, but as my eyes adjusted I could see faint lights in the distance. As I walked towards the lights I could make out the silhouettes of other people in the light, there were also faint sounds coming from the lights, the swinging of the lights was mesmerising, I could go on. Basically, it was pretty great experience that successfully captivated me and transported me to another world- I could definitely take a leaf out of this book.

Next I went to the Ronchini to go see some photography, I have to say this experience was far less exciting and immersive as the Barbican. The shop front was really the only redeeming feature, it was completely filled with on of the photographer's images which was nice and invited you in. When I got inside things weren't as great, everything was very squashed together in a very small space and there was an office space that was practically merged with the gallery space. There also wasn't enough interesting detail in the images to actually warrant seeing them in full size, to be honest I got exactly the same experience just viewing the same images on the website! The one funny thing was that this gallery was situated just off Oxford St and if I'm honest the clothing stores were a much better experience than the gallery!

Wed-

Today I did a shoot with Ailsa- this one was quite experimental. We tried out different poses that were inspired by sculptures I had seen at the V&A, it was quite hard to get it right when using an actual human with all the inflexibility, kinks and bulges of a human body. In the end we opted for a simpler pose which wouldn't squash or contort any part of the body, in the end it turned out to be quite effective. One challenge I had to overcome was the trouble with getting the angle of view right when taking a picture straight down, also the challenge of fitting most of Ailsa in the frame without going too wide angle. I managed to stand right on the top of a ladder positioned at her knee level and stretched my camera out to her chest level, pointed straight down to avoid enlarging her lower body. I used a 35mm (50mm eqiv.) lens to get adequate compression for this type of shot. We took shots of the flowers separately for each part of her body to multiply the few flowers I had so they could cover enough of her body.

Thurs-

Edited 'Bleed' image, main shot would be 3/4 length- but I liked the framing of this shot with central focus on flowers. Had good idea with running paint when I had time to sit down with the images. I often find myself coming up with new ideas after I've finished the shoot.

Shot paint running down my arm and shopped it in.

Friday-
Today we had interim assessments but instead of being assessed by tutors we did peer assessments. I was put with Alice and Greta, both of whom had very different projects. When I was looking at Alice's work I noticed her sketchbook was very in depth and she had done a lot of research into psychology and other theoretical things. I could definitely take a leaf out of her book in that area, I don't think I work in quite the same way as her but I can definitely be inspired by her process. It was quite helpful having the crit with Alice as she had strong research but weaker experimentation while I had strong experimentation but weaker research- we swapped tips. Greta had an interesting project. She was creating a website, which is all fine and dandy, but she was in the Lens Based pathway so we weren't too sure how this fit. She was also focusing more on the coding side rather than the design side, we gave her some advice that she might need to focus a bit more on the design as that's what will actually be marked- fingers crossed she did some good design stuff after that!