Module 4 – Week 5 – 1:1 Tutorials – Andrews Masters Journey

This first 1:1 tutorial of Module 4 was incredibly well received with Laura commenting on how my work has started to evolve.

I showed three sets of images which are shown in the galleries below. The first set being of a new shoot with the family snake, ‘Nagini’.

This shoot came from feedback from my peers in last weeks webinar where it was felt the scene in the previous snake shoot had been too busy. For this l had wanted to shoot on black and had wanted to replicate the previous images. I stripped it back to have, at first, just the skull and the snake in the shot. These images worked well and particular favourites of mine and Laura’s are of the goat skull where the camera was set on a tripod and did not move.

The next gallery shows three different still life scenes all within one image. My commentary on how these were received will follow the gallery.

These images were quite well received and the feel was that these images are heading in the right direction. The use of the tungsten heads was most successful and I have been urged to use these more as my practice continues. This is largely due to how easy it is to control and modify the light from them.

The next gallery shows my most recent shoot at this stage using slow exposure and Nagini again.

These images were felt to be the most successful of my most recent practice so far and came entirely from a thought while driving home. The slow exposure creates a distortion of the snake while the skull remains still and clear.

This also lead to artist suggestions to take this work forwards. These include; Petri Anttonen and Anton Giulio Bragaglia. Examples of these are below and from here I intend to create artist research pages and to begin transcription shoots also.

Following these suggestions there were also suggestions on a more practical level for the development of ideas and practice. These include the possible use of lights shining up through holes in the set, making further use of the periphery and background of the scene and a more concentrated use of the tungsten redhead lamps.

I also took the opportunity to share images created in the Week 4 activity using a flatbed scanner. These were also very well received and I have been urged to create more in this style but to further this by experimenting with moving the objects while scanning to creates a distorted view of them. I would also like to try doing these in a darkened room resulting in the background space of the frame being black or darkened.