I have found another new way of ‘reviewing’ my work. Digital photography and processing open up new possibilities for the presentation of images and their intended meanings or messages as I have begum to explore with the abstract images I have presented in a post already. I had prepared a work in progress portfolio that told a story from beginning to end both horizontally, left to right and vertically, top to bottom. It ran from beach finds through rubbish collection and recycling, to incineration for waste that cannot be recycled. A logical and neat contained story which used images I had collected in the past four months.
One tutorial and inspired self-reflection later allowed me to let go and mix things up . Apprehensive that my neatly tied up package would disintegrate if realigned (there’s another potential title I may use) and my meaning and attempt at awareness raising would melt away, I gingerly took up the challenge.There were several results.
Firstly, I could see that clusters of unprocessed and processed waste and waste management images had a symbiosis through colour or shape or textural definition.
Secondly, experimenting with processing disguised some beach finds but did not entirely lose them in their new ‘psychedelic’ abstracted forms. Pleasing to me they may not be to everyone’s taste. The downside is that my intention to raise awareness and encourage appropriate waste management may be lost unless displayed with Dis-Integration and Re-Integration to clear all possible doubt about interpretation.
Thirdly, having learned about Nick Brandt’s work I tried juxtaposing two images, one of a beach find and a second of an incineration tower, I attempted to match shape and colour to give the images a complimentary ambience while maintaining a contrast which would invite viewers to ask why they were placed together.
Fourthly, although I have not combined finds I have collected into a montage yet, I have instead combined images to see if finds placed on recycling and incineration images work. This is the new discovery. I think it has potential and merits research into the use of collage in photography as well as continued experimentation with combining images.
I am not sure that my collage images would be described as other artists and photographers working in this way can be. For example, some works are likened to Dada and Surrealist movements, others to Pop Art (AnOther, 2014). From what I have read so far the work of Eileen Agar, Precious Stones (1936) appears similar to my attempts. Placing objects (precious jewels in contrast to my beach rubbish) onto a background image (in her case a profile torn from a magazine, in my case a recycling or incineration image) work in her case ”to show humour and irony” (AnOther, 2014).
Clearly I have much more to explore in this new direction of ‘mixing up’ images. While it remains to be seen how viewers respond to these new images, I should mention there is another outcome, perhaps the most significant:
Fifthly, the story from beach debris to incineration has not been lost! I can see that I may be telling it in a different and possibly more enticing, exciting and effective way.
References
Agar, Eileen. Eileen Agar 1899-1991. Tate. Available at: http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/eileen-agar-633. [accessed 23-04-2018].
AnOther. January 14, 2014. Top 10 Collage Artists: Hannah Höch to Man Ray. Available at: http://www.anothermag.com/art-photography/3318/top-10-collage-artists-hannah-hoch-to-man-ray. [accessed 23-04-2018].
Sarah Newton Photography 