Dream Response

The dream that I was given was a blank piece of paper.

I was given the option to change for a dream someone had written but I wanted the challenge so I chose to stick with the blank piece of paper. I wasn't really sure on how to respond to it so considering the project was a dream, response I looked into what dreams of nothingness mean. I found that when someone dreams of nothingness it suggests that something is missing or lacking from their life, so it could be a sign of loneliness but I didn't want to have a photo that was obviously to do with nothingness I wanted to try and photograph loneliness while incorporating and element of nothingness so I wanted to try and get a subject to focus on with a background that would be plain and maybe slightly blank.
In halls I have a friend that is from the Falkland Islands and only her sister has come over with her so she gets really homesick and misses her family quite a lot so I thought that would be person to use in a nothingness photo as it would give the photo more mean rather than just using someone random. I asked in advance so not to have ethical issues of exploiting her loneliness and she was okay with me using her in the photo.

My first photo is one of her looking out to the see, the fact that she lives oversea went well with the fact she was looking out to sea as if she were looking out to her home in a sense. I feel the nothingness element in this photo is good due to the constant and ongoing sky, sea and beach that feels like it could go on forever and the is nothing more. While I was taking the photo I had to make sure that no birds flew into the frame and there were no boats in the sea to make sure nothingness was a constant theme. I didn't think this at the time but now looking at the photo the small heaps of sand in front of her could be another representation of the Falkland Islands.

I always love the idea if long corridors and darkness because its a scary idea that things go on forever and there is nothing more, also the fact that this photo is in Halls where she lives kind of shows the lack of her being at home and having the element of a 'home' is  the thing that she longs for and is that cause of her loneliness.

I really don't like this photo, I loved the first one and quite liked the second but it got difficult to find other areas that went on into nothingness like the sea or a corridor, the best that I could think of was a forest as it could go on forever but I was unsure how it really linked it with the Falklands. Also when I looked back through the  photos to find the best three than would go as a sequence I noticed that the colour colour was black and in this photo there were bright colours. I didn't intend for the black clothing to be a thing but the colour black goes well with loneliness and sorrow.

Bristol Photo Response- Isabelle Southwood

Bristol Photo Response- Isabelle Southwood

While I was at Spike Island I saw a painting that I didn't really like and didn't really understand what it was about. The thing that caught my eye about it was how it had been displayed...

Isabelle Southwood- Homer Wake Up You're Alive

It had been painted strait onto the wall and wasn't confined by traditional borders, I like this idea of things going beyond their traditional frame. I thought that this could be a good photo, rather than just have a photo in a frame or just have the photo stop at the edges of the print I wanted to carry on the photo by maybe drawing it. My first thought was to have a black and white photo of tree silhouettes after all of their leaves had fallen off and continue the drawing on a pavement in charcoal and chalk...

This is a quick concept drawing I did thinking about continuing the photo by
drawing the things that are no longer in the frame, which would be the branches.
I would want to draw it on concrete flooring or something similar so I could
 show the opposites of nature (the trees) and man made flooring and then combine them.

This was another idea I had, take a photo of an eye, but have it cropped so it was quite long rather than a regular rectangle and draw just the colours of the iris ( maybe draw the other colours around it, this will have to be something I decided while doing it to see if it would look better) but draw them in soft pastel, this is so I can make a clear contrast between the strong, bold, strict colours of the photo and the soft, blended wild colours of the soft pastel.

This is my visual response. When cropping the photo I had to crop it more than I thought to have the right amount of
eye in the photograph on show. The printer than I used to print off the photo of the eye always prints things out
slightly faded so I chose to use this printer instead of one that has strong colours because I wanted to make the soft
pastel almost match the colours of the ink which now that I have done I am really happy with. When drawing the
continuation of the eye I really didn't want to just draw the basic circle of the eye, I wanted to carry it on further, the
outcome of the drawing almost looks as if the ink had bled out like when you put water on ink and it runs which I really
like. I tired hard to keep the drawing matching the colours and pattern of the iris which I think I have achieved quite well.
In the concept idea above I question whether or not to have the other colours like the skin included in the drawing, after only doing the blue I think that it looks better how it is, having the skin colour as well would of taken too much attention
away from the eye.

Photo Response to 'Let's See What Happens...Tim Davies'

Photo Response to 'Let's See What Happens...Tim Davies'

In response to Tim Davies' exhibition for the theme of 'Let's See What Happens' which was Chase I wanted to focus on what he had looked at and really done for the video he had displayed and do a photo based on the same or a similar idea with the same or similar visual aspects. By using the information that had been on the leaflet from the Glyn Vivian which stated that the video was of 'a fleeting moment as a figure is seen running through street in an increasingly frenzied movement, culmination in hurried glances of new buildings' I wanted to make sure that I used a element of running and frenzied movement but rather than new building I wanted to differ and use a old building, mainly because when I listened to the music and sounds that were being played for his video I felt that having a older eerie building may have gone better.

This is my response...

To take this photo I used a Nikon Coolpix S6150, which is my small digital camera, I know that I wanted to use the effect and appearance of a camera being moved during a long exposure to create a rushed look to the photo as if it were being taken while someone were running. This was difficult to do on a digital camera when you couldn't change the exposure time. I then edited two photos to black and white and layered them over one another changing the opacity of the top image so the bottom one was still visible. I layered the two together to create a more distressing and distorted appearance trying to keep visually in theme with Tim's video. 

Let's See What Happens.....Tim Davies

Let's See What Happens.....Tim Davies

Davies has made two new works inspired by recent visits to Xiamen. Chase and Market 8 stem from his interest in how architectural spaces are negotiated and experiences in every life. Chase reveals a fleeting moment as a figure is seen running through streets in an increasingly frenzied movement, culminating in hurried glances of new vertical buildings. As a counterpoint, Market 8 is essentially a recording of people going about theirs daily business in one of Xiamen's street markets. Tim Davies represented Wales at the 54th Venice Biennale of Art in 2011.

This is from the Glynn Vivian Information leaflet.

Below are the photos that I took of the Market 8 video. The video was projected down from the ceiling onto a screen that was angled, so not flat to the floor and not stood up right. The video was about people going about their daily lives in a street market (as said above) but rather than a normal, straight forward recording it was played in reverse so the people appeared to be walking backwards and the camera moved as if going in reverse. 

This is a better photo to show how the board was angled and also how I viewed it.

Below are the photos of the Chase. When I walked into the room there were four really large screens playing all at once and very loud surrounding industrial, distorted, city type music/sounds that were playing. With the coldness of the room and the ceiling supports being in the centre of the room it made the experience better as the feel of the room, the music and The imagery on the screen all fitted together well and pulled me into the exhibition.

On the screens the fours videos were in fact the same video being played over and over but spaced apart, so when one started, a few seconds into playing the next screen would start playing from the beginning and so on. The video was of someone running and the camera would shake and there would be the trailed image of the building that you would get if you knocked a camera during a long exposure.

This is the link to Tim Davies Website http://www.timdaviesartist.com/index.htm

Let's See What Happens...Zeng Huanguang

Let's See What Happens...Zeng Huanguang 

Huanguang lives and works in Xiamen. A central theme of his practice is the rapid urbanisation of China and in earlier works he has collected antiques and ruins turning them into public interventions. He also works collaborative with poets, writers and China's displaced communities in socially engaged work. For this project he spent time at Occupy in London becoming increasingly fascinated by its community. In the exhibition he has recreated this site of peaceful protest as an art installation including tents graffiti, flyers, asking serious questions about the relationship between art, activism and their power to change society.

This is from the Glynn Vivian Information leaflet.

These are the photos that I took of the exhibition...

I really loved this, "We don't need money, we need change" while using change to pull attention to the words. I guess that symbolises the best way to get attention to something is to put money into it; advertising, buildings, movies. Which is what the exhibition is showing, that its problem that is how things work.

 These photos show the full length of the exhibition room that was full of tents and posters. I really liked
the fact that when you walked in and the first things that you saw were tents, graffiti, banners as posters as if you were back outside. I thought of everything being set back up in this room as it being kept as storage.
Everything that the protest stood for has not been forgotten it has just been stored away. To come out later at another point.

Reinforcing the fact that this was a peaceful protest?
 I'm unsure if at the actual protest had chalk drawings on the ground but I feel that if there was, doing something
 that could potentially be seen as a graffiti is not the best way to go about seeming peaceful. I don' know if chalk drawings would count as graffiti but if so, doing something illegal while trying
to appear peaceful I think is kinda silly and not really the best way to go about it. 

This is something that was on all of the tents. It is a notice to remove the tents that were being used during the protest. 

The original image below the graffiti is quiet a famous image that has been used a lot to encourage
people and it is seen as a very inspirational symbol for strength. The fact that it has been vandalised I didn't really
understand as that is kinda going against what the image is about, its covering up and going against what
it stands for when it could of been used to encourage people to be strong and encourage change.

Cardiff Review- Gareth Philips

The New Land 

by Gareth Philips 

All photographs belong to Gareth Philip, taken from

 http://garethphillipsphotography.com/category/y-tir-newydd-the-new-land/

"The New Land is an artistic translation of the furthest points of the Welsh Landscape-north,south,east,west,high and low. An imagined world collides with abstract reality summoning the demons, perils, beauty and mystery that many only experience when voyaging far past the comfortable confines of an urban world. The New Land is a personal voyage inspired by a departure from these comforts, aiming to connect and touch the soul of an indigenous landscape left untouched, even forgotten, in the wake of shift away from the land for the modern world."  

When I first entered the gallery I saw huge black and white photos taking over the walls in a black room. I was instantly drawn to them because the white sections of the photos were so bold and eye-catching. I spent quite a while staring and examining the photos trying to work out what exactly had been photographed, I then realised they were the patterns within stone and trees. I found it difficult to see what they were at first because the photo had been reflected on itself. The photo below is reflected from a line going the middle I really like this, its very interesting and unusual and makes the photos much more captivating because you spend so long trying to work out what is going on.

I can see a mask with large eyes.

The longer that I spent looking at the photos the more shapes and images I began to see within the reflected pattern.

 I can see the body of  bat with the head tilted upwards.

I think that the photos have been taken (or edited) to black and white to make the photo have less depth, so rather than trying to see what is going on in the photo and trying to see a scene you look at the lines of rock and tress more and that is when you end up seeing different images made up of the lines. I think that if the photo had been in colour it would not of worked so well because the lines would not be as bold and the colours would of distracted from the patterns. I also think that the contrast may have been increased to make the definition between black and white much stronger.

I can see a mask in the centre,  like a old tiki style mask.

Something that I found really interesting is that when I said to someone at the gallery what I saw in the image, they didn't see it until I pointed it out, but then they saw something that was completely different that I hadn't seen. Also the longer I looked the more that I saw. These photos kind of take on the property of being an optical illusion, they are photographs of something but different people see different things in them, I think this is a brilliant different way to photograph. These aren't just photos of something they have been changed into something more deep and interesting. Maybe what you see in the photo tells you something about yourself like an inkblot test?

Like in one of the other photos I can see a bat again, but this time with its wings spread. but separate form that I can also see a lambs skull in the centre.

I loved the gallery, I have fallen in love with the photographs and I loved the feel of the room being purely in black and white with such large photos taking over the walls and filling the space really well. From actually going to the gallery in person rather than seeing the photographs on-line it has given me a good idea of the effect and impact the location and actual room that you choose to display your work has on the viewing.