What is the Journey project ? For this task we have been asked to research one artist and do an in depth photo analysis for them , then we had to take at least 100 images of one of our own journey's in the summer holidays . The artist I have chosen is Mari Mahr.
Mari Mahr research - Mari Mahr ( born in 1941 ) is a photographer and artist originally from Budapest , Hungary who is described as producing work of ''astute elegance'' . Mahr's work interests me because she says that each of her photographs are personal to her and also because she is a well travelled women so her work features a variety of subject matter and she often edits her photographs after she has taken them to make them more interesting . I can see that she adds elements after she has printed the photographs and this is something I would like to as I think this makes effetctive final pieces .
Mari Mahr photo analysis - In this image I can see that Mahr has used repetition in the star shapes and the straight lines at the edge of the image which I think makes her work look abstract because she has taken an image of normal everyday objects and added outside materials to give a more spooky feeling for example blocking of the rest of the girls face and making the stars come out of the bin . I would describe this image as spooky and gothic because she has kept certain parts of the image (like the girls face ) a secret to make her seem less human and also made the image in entirely black and white so that there is no happy bright colours at all . I think this image is effective because although it has no colour in it it has contrasting textures and features many of the formal elements such as line , curves and repetition which show that the artist thinks a lot about her work and this photo sets the mood nicely for the rest of the series of images .
Rinko Kawauchi research - The photographer Rinko Kawauchi likes to experiment with form and produces images that are very in the moment and portray what is going to happen an example of this is that the raindrop has just fallen on the flower and the eyelid is about to blink . I have noticed that Kawauchi often features nature in her work but edits her photos slightly so they seem sparkly and extremely bright . I think her work is effective because she manages to use different view points and zooms in on specific things so you always know (as the viewer) what she wants you to focus on. Kawauchi uses lots of different subject matters to make her work more interesting , I have noticed her work often plays with light and and the subject matter often seems illuminated like it is not from this Earth . I like that Kawauchi often focuses on certain items however I do not like that often her photographs seem out of focus so If I am responding to her work I am going to take certain elements that I like such as the composition but I am going to make my images more clear .
Visually documenting a journey - My Journey through Battersea Park
In these sets of images I tried to depict my journey through Battersea park . When looking at these images I can see that I have tried to capture a lot of people walking because one of our tasks was to capture movement , I think that capturing movement also gives my work a street photography feel because I managed to capture people going about their daily buisiness . I also tried to get in different textures because I was experiencing the park as having different textures and smells and different sound and wanting to make sure that the viewer can interpret this from my work . At certain points in the journey I would take a picture of the pathways - I repeated this several times to show what way we were going through the park and to make sure the reader understood we were going on a journey through the park . In this task what I found challenging was the fact that I wanted to show what my experience of the park was and this meant taking a few pictures of people so I had to be quick about getting the photos and if they were not what I wanted I had to delete the image and try and find something new to capture . On the other hand I would say that because I found this task hard it made me think more about the quality of photographs I am producing (because I would delete something if it was not what I had in mind) so a lot of the photographs are of good quality because I made sure I was picky about what I would upload to my website and what would be deleted . I knew that I wanted to use the formal elements and I think I have achieved this because I have line , repetition and reflections but I also have lots of qualities from other projects that we have studied like street photography and openings which is what I think makes this work effective as it has lots of techniques and a lot of thought went into my work .
Photos I am pleased with - WWW I think that these images are effective because they are all different even though they are in the same place , they are different because when taking my images I thought about using different angles , textures and also cropping the images after I was done so the parts that the viewer can see are the most interesting . When experimenting I think I am going to try and incorporate these images because although they are natural photography , I have used different techniques with each one . For example in the third image I have done an extreme close up so that the holly bush looks different and more interesting .