Talks - Erik Knudsen and Amelia Beavis Harrison

These are the two videos that Knudsen showed us in the talk.

Vanilla Chip
 

We had a talk by Erik Knudsen a few weeks ago and he showed us some videos he had done. The one in particular that he showed us was about an old man that made ice cream and his wife had passed away an he visited her grave every day. Erik had to follow him for a few days and fit in with his way of life. He said that he found it awkward at times as he didn't want to intrude, especially when he was visiting the grave. Erik was saying how he was made to feel very welcome by the old man but he was put in an unexpected uncomfortable situation when one day they visited the grave and the old man started to cry. 

Heart of gold

This film is a poetic documentary exploring the changing relationship people in the region have with gold. This video is about a few men from Ghana digging/working down underground and a young boy finds a bit of gold, the men strongly advice him to keep it extremely safe as it is worth a lot of money. Whilst researching and shooting this film Erik Knudsen wrote 3 reports about his trip in Ghana. Report 1 and 2 were written during his first research trip to Ghana, while report 3 covers the period of principal photography. 

Erik has made a number of short films: 

• The Silent Accomplice
• Vanilla Chip
• Heart of gold
• Veil
• Sea of madness
• The Yoruba tree
• A dog's farewell to his master
• Brannigan's March
• Bed of flowers
• Signs of life
• Reunion
• One day Tafo

Erik has also done a number of still photography that is becoming an increasing collection to his work. Cuba waiting, Intimate Actuality-Northern England, Intimate Actuality-China. 

Cuba waiting is is a selection of street reportage photography taken in Cuba during the last few years. This is part of a growing  collection of work from Cuba which will eventually become a book an exhibition. 

Intimate Actuality-Northern England are a selection from a larger photographic project about private stories in public places. They are recent photography taken by Erik. 

Intimate Actuality-China. On a recent trip to China Erik Knudsen was able to add to his on going work, Intimate Actuality. Here are a selection of his photographs.

Amelia Bevis Harrison

She is a creator and artist based in Nottingham in the UK. She has a website which documents some of her work produced since 2007. Amelia initiated and runs the Lincoln Art Programme, a live art commissioning body in Lincoln, along side her own work. Amelia makes art work that is informed by histories, mythologies, situations, occurrences,conversations and the production of art. Using research as a process of investigation for creating work Amelia interrogates subject matters to develop concepts, whilst using snippets of information gathered by common sources such as newspapers and the internet. Many parts of Amelia's work she produces involves audience participation, whilst other times working with other practitioners to bring the work to fruition. 

Photo credit by: Julian Hughes, work by CARGOCULT.

A working title (2011) 

A WORKING TITLE was a concept led platform showcasing new and existing work by artists from the UK and Europe. A number of the works shown over the weekend were new commissions responding directly to the associated themes. 

 Exploring the modernisation of situation, examining how situation has developed as a consequence of modernisation and visa versa, within particular relation to the urban environment and Lincoln as a city, the platform invited artists to respond directly to the presented context.

The Trivia of Eccentric England (Part 2) (2011)

 Exploring the eccentric side of British behaviour, its traditions, quirks, rituals, rules and everything in between. The second half of the season saw two commissions supported by a series of events including a screening of Matt Stoke The Gainsborough Packet and a symposium of eccentric subjects. The symposium bought together artists and eclectic thinkers from across the UK to explore subjects that may in isolation be deemed eccentric. 

Participating artists: Matthew Cowan, Victoria Melody, Project Pigeon, John Plowman, Anthony Schrag, Matt Stokes,
Zoe Walker and Neil Bromwich. 

The test of intelligence (2011)- Photography Helena Goldwater

For too long we have accepted intelligence as a hierarchical structure, allowed intelligence to inform our responses and demean those lesser informed. But is intelligence not just a social construct like that of religion, are we not just falling for the same power structures religion once imposed. The unquestioned identity of intelligence has been prevalent for too long.

The performance takes two familiar situations and pushes them together, the IQ test and the lecture / sermon. The audience take part in both, physically undertaking an intelligence test with a difference, whilst enduring a monolog that questions the reality of intelligence. The two scenarios begin on a par as the audience begin the test but gradually the speaker’s voice takes over that of the tester and the intelligence test becomes impossible to complete.

2010 Challenge (2010-2011) - Photography James E Smith

One project, 12 challenges, 12 months

Throughout the course of 2010 challenges were submitted to be undertaken and used as a starting point for the production of art work. It aimed to test artistic practice by undertaking tasks that were in some way alien, and challenges that didn't allow for easy options and had a high chance of struggle, fatigue and failure. Although the challenges were invited to be open, many of those submitted were personal to the challengers, and relevant to the individual.

Throughout the course of the project the emphasis began to shift. Instead of selecting the most challenging each month, the challenges began to be selected with the quality of art work in mind. The project was an exploration into the collaborative act of an artistic practice, and the exploration was an opportunity to discover, take part, learn, take risks, fail and excel. The project concluded in 2011.

Over all i don't find Amelia's work that interesting but i am still up for researching peoples work that i don't find that interesting to expand on my ideas and see the different types of work out there. Her work seems to always be on going which shows her ideas are always being changed and expanded. 

Still life task - food

 -   A still life is commonly objects which may be either natural (food,

flowers,plants,rocks or shells) or man - made (drinking glasses,books,vases,jewelry,coins,pipes and so on). With origins in the Middle Ages and Ancient Greek/Roman art, still life paintings give the artist more leeway in the arrangement of design elements within a composition than do paintings of other types of subjects such as landscapes and portraiture. 

MARTIN PARR

This was the example given to us on the blog and i have taken a photo similar to this. I wanted something yummy and colourful to photograph! I like the bright colours in the background and on the cake, it makes the image very crazy and interesting. This is a very simple photo as it's just a cake placed on a menu but it works effectively due to the bright colours. One selection of things he photographs is British food from doughnuts to sausages all following colour as a pattern. 

This is the photo i took following the same theme as Martin Parr's. I have picked out a smaller aspect of colour in my image so there's a slight difference between them so i haven't done exactly the same photo. I went to the market and found a small cupcake stall and all the cakes were homemade and looked delicious! When being asked to photograph food i automatically think of cakes,sweets and chocolate as you can get some really colourful looking images!! 

Definition of still life

Spot the difference task

My image

Tony Howell

We had to do a task called spot the difference where we had to choose a photographer who's work we liked and create an image with similarities to theirs. I chose Tony Howell's abstract images because it was something different and i don't usually do abstract photography. 

To create my image i took a photo of a water fountain in my back garden and simply zoomed in loads, edited the brightness and contrast and cropped it into a square. I really like my photo because i think i have captured the detail well and i love how the water droplets have a sparkle and glisten to them! The only main big difference in these two photos is Tony Howell has focused on 2 single droplets of water and i have focused on more. There are some droplets on the outer side of the fountain that have a very similar shape and colour to Howell's. I could of created the exact style by simply focusing on a small number of water droplets but it may of slightly pixelated and lost the detail as i would of had to zoom in so much and i used a standard lens not macro. This was an image that i took in my spare time and i thought it related a lot to this task so i decided to use it.

Tony Howell - abstract photographer and Snibston talk

I really like Tony Howell's work as i'm quite inspired by abstract photography. I find it interesting how you can create a completely different image from something simply by zooming in, editing colour and shape. The first 4 images aren't very abstract in my opinion but i think this was what Howell was aiming for in his work. He has concentrated more on the colours and shapes in the photos to create a sharp clean  look. These photos are amazingly detailed and this is what i really took into concideration when i was creating a similar image. I think the bottom two images are water droplets on a flat surface and he must of used a macro lens to capture the detail of the shape and colour. 

The dandelion photo is my favourite as i love the detail of the water droplets on the seed stems against the more out of focus dandelion head. The crisp blue background shows off the detail more, you can see this at the very ends of the seeds blurring out onto the blue. I also really like the composition of the image too as it's very much focused on the stems and seeds of the dandelion which gives it the abstract look. As you can see from these images he closely works with colour making it one of the main aspects of his photography. For this style of photography i think it works extremely well as you can really play around with the colour enhancing it if you want to create even more of an abstract look to a photo. The two bottom images of the water droplets are fantastic as he has even captured the colour in the water from the reflection of the sun and lens creating multicoloured streaks of light in the water. This is something i would love to experiment with if i can get my hands on a macro lens! Tony Howell is definitely a photographer i will be looking into again in the future for inspiration of abstract images.

 

Snibston talk

We had a talk from two people who work for Snibston, they showed us a website that they were getting involved with and creating. The website was all about layering photographs and creating a show of images easily projected onto large objects e.g the side of a building. They were doing a show which needed to be shown outdoors and wanted it to be shown on the side of a building so this website was great for them to create to make this work. This talk wasnt exactly what i'm interested in but the website will be handy to try out at some point to see how it all works and i may need it for use in the future.

A bit about Snibston

Snibston is an interactive museum with an historic Colliery railway, outside play area and a country park and nature reserve area. The Snibston museum established in 1992 following closure of the Colliery railway. This museum is the showcase for Leicestershire's historic science, technology, design and fashion collections. A substancial collecetion of material relating to coal mining is held in the Mining Study Centre at Snibston. The resources include technical aspects of the industry, digested copies of films produced by the National Coal Board, oral history interviews and a series of maps, photographs, document and books relating to Leicestershire's industries and transport systems. The grounds of Snibston discovery park form a mini country park covering 40 hectars of mixed habitats. The grounds include the former colliery spoil heap which has been reclaimed to form woodland and an open rough grassland area. At the heart of this area is the Grange Nature Reserve, the Grange became Leicestershire County Council's first Local nature reserve in May 1993.

http://www.leics.gov.uk/snibston.htm - Snibston website

First task-what i did over the holiday photo

We had to take a photo of something we did over the summer holiday. My tutor says it was a nice way to welcome us all back :D .This is a photo of mine and Carmen's ynot festival bands, a festival that we attended locally in the summer. I thought it would be a nice idea to change the photo to black and white and rub out the ynot band to create a flash of colour. I like how i've kept the rest of the image in black and white including the other bracelets as i didn't want to attract the colour away from the ynot bands (the main part of the image). I cropped the image down so it was simply just the wrists with the bands on as i didn't want loads of arm in the photo to draw your attention away. I really like this image because every time i look at it, it reminds me of the festival and how much fun i had! I like the other braclets around the bands aswell, it adds to the festival look and effect because true festival go-ers always wear crazy things, lots of braclets and jewellery! This photo would of worked well in a series i think, if i had four more of the same image lined up next to eachother and maybe the two end images all in black and white.

Seung Woo Back fantasy landscapes

This artist creates fantasy landscapes by taking many different photos and incorporating them together to create unusual, interesting and unique images. His work has been edited to perfection to make the image look completely realistic. The pyramid image is my favourite as i love how well the pyraimds fit into the simple bridge background and they look so realistic, like builders work at the side of the road. The 'fantasy' objects aren't too crazy there quite subtle in the sense that they blend into the image and create such a realistic look.

                   The colours in these images are fairly neutral and not very bright. This works well as having bright images would make it look unrealistic and ruin the fantasy subtle landscape look. There is a noticeable contrast in these images, the built up working city area with either nature or a well presented famous building incorporated. I like how there are buildings faded in the background to show the normality of the area around the fantasy section. By looking at these images it shows me that it doesnt matter where or what you photograph as long as you can edit it perfectly in photoshop and the object your adding in to the image is interesting. I found it difficult to create as it was my first time making an image like this and i think i should of reffered back to my research more whilst taking my photo as i know i could of made it look a lot better if i had! It would of given me more ideas and more inspiration.

I think that in the future i may reffer back to this artist as i really like their work, it's very unusual and interesting and these images have worked extremely well. Showing that a dingy building site at the side of a busy road can be manipulated and created into something completely different, suddenly looking like the builders have made pyramids! Its a very artistic style of photography which i always find interesting as i love an artistic side to images, you can manipulate them in so many different ways. Layering, stitching, painting...the choices are endless!

Fantasy Landscapes - image one

Seung wooo back

My image

This is my fantasy landscape image, it has similarities to the image above of Seung Woo Back as i have added the lanmposts and she has added the trees. This was a first attempt at creating a fantasy landscape and i found it quite hard creating the image on photoshop as there was a lot of detail from the lamp-posts i had to cut out. I think i could of made this image a little bit more interesting by adding some more things to it, i could of added tress or a unusual building like the image above. As a first experiment i am happy with what i have created as i feel it is a fantasy landscape and something like this would look especially good at night with the street lamps lit up along the side of the train track.

It was very simple the way i did it but very fiddley on photoshop! I took the photo of the train track then took a photo of a lamp-post outside a pub next to Branston river. I cut out the lamp-post as carefully as i could on photoshop and added onto the train track image, duplicating the lamp-post and repeating it over again down the side of the train track. The down side to this task was we only had Burton to try and create an interesting image which is always difficult as Burton isnt somewhere you would see as a fantasy place to live but i tried my best and i am pleased with the final outcome.