Project Initial Research

Having a better idea of what I want to do, now it is the time too looking into some artists that will help me build up my idea and contribute for my project.

Diane Arbus

An American photographer born in 1923 known for taking pictures in black and white of people. In the early 1960s she started taking pictures of the suburbs capturing people. In these portraits she includes , clowns, exotic dancers, circus performs and transvestites.

In this particular picture I notice a that the subject is probably walking and gets surprised by Diane Arbus. I want to bring this movement to my work. It is a great composition, the light is really good and we can see the depth on the picture too, which allow us to focus mainly on the subject.

In this picture Diane, might ask them to pose. While the man was looking to the camera the women was not that interested. They look quite relaxed as they are holding hotdogs and the women has already bitten her food. I want to be able to do the same. Having a walk around and ask strangers to pose for me. 

A women holding a child. I do not know if this child was injured or just sleeping. The woman looks a bit down and worried. The kid also looks big enough to walk on his own. The composition is really good, the depth field as well. 

I like the aspect of the black in white photography. That allow the viewer to focus on what is really important. The photography itself when colourful could lead us to many distractions. This is the style of Photography that inspires me mostly for this project. 

SMART Objective: Street Photography

My project it will be focus on Street Photography and I will go out to be able to take pictures of people, in groups or not. A decisive moment is also something that I want to have in mind while outside. I will ask strangers to pose for me. I might just be seated in strategic places where can I have the chance to see as many people as I can. I will shoot in portrait or landscape.Objects left behind from people is something that I want to capture. I will visit places such as markets, busy areas or quiet places. This project will take place in Leicester and London. I will explore different areas of both cities to take the best pictures. As Diane Arbus I want to capture 

I will use a Canon 700D and two different lens such as Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 and Canon EF-S 55-250mm f/4-5.6 Lens. I also use different software such as Photoshop and Lightroom to editing my pictures. 

I took this picture back in 2013, I was in the beach and I saw this man just seated enjoying the sun, while the dog was watching him. Probably, someone left the dog there for a couple of minutes. I want to bring this aspect and moments to my project. Capturing life in public areas. This will based in walks around town and explore different areas. 

Another picture that I took in Rome in 2020 while walking around town. This an example of Street Photography where we can see a good composition and symmetry. 

A picture that I took in London. We can see a protest on the street. I like the composition and also the colourful aspect of the photograph. Could not work that well if was a black in white in my opinion.

Development Exercise - Meditation Exercise

This is the first time that I have a different approach to a project. I choose to meditate for a few minutes, clear my mind and think about the options that I have. 

I have chosen this exercise because I prefer to think quietly first and then express my ideas in a paper. Mixing up words and options. I have decided to do it because I have many possible ways to mix this ideas. Initially, I thought about drawing or painting, however, looking into words it makes things easier for me.

I have many different options that I'd like to explore. From people to architecture, playing with lights, focus on diversity or in a decisive moment.

This project will take place in Leicester. I want to go and explore the many options for street photography I have. 

I have already planned the material that I will ned to use such as camera, tripod and different lens. Also some of the software options I have, that could be Photoshop or Lightroom to editing some of the pictures that I will take. I still don't know if I want some black and white pictures or colourful. I think will depend on the some experimentation that I will do with software. I am a big fan of black and white photography and that could be an option for this project.

I looked briefly into some artist. I don't know everyone's work but I will look into their work and understand how can bring some of their ideas into my project and understand the different perspectives they have. I want to see also some of the work that I have done in the past and see how can I improve it regarding their techniques. 

My initial idea is to go outside and capture moments. This could be through a window, playing with reflection and light. This could be from musicians in the street. This could be from group or a single person. Or even simple objects left behind. Architecture is also a good option as I have done things related in the past.

I have been living in Leicester since June 2021, however, being busy working or studying I do not have many free time to explore and see things differently. TO be able to shoot some Street Photography I will have the chance to see people and things that maybe I could not see before. Also this will help others to see how people and the community looks like.

First Thoughts

This post aims to describe my first thoughts about the three themes that was given to me, to explore my first ideas for the major project on the module Art Portfolio. This project will be in my progression route, Photography and Video. 

The themes available are:

• Purple Haze. Use the colour purple as your theme, consider what it represents and how it can be incorporated into your art or design project.
• Earthly Delights. Interpret this title as you please to represent, incorporate or express the nature of earthly delights in your art and design project. 
• Expressionism. Look deeply into expressionism and incorporate this style into your art and design project.

Which theme are you most drawn to and why?

Earthly Delights I think about life in general. Capture moments where people are doing something could be a starting point. Also, I relate this to religious art. Could be architecture photography or simply capture moments inside of a religious place.

However, I do not have a final decision on the theme, that I will choose. Earthly Delights it is a good chance to create something good. This will be done on my self study time where I can do some research and explore what I can do with the different themes more in depth. 

How do you think you can apply this theme to work in your own subject area?

First thought comes to my mind about Purple Haze is Nudity. I could explore human body and shape capturing nude academic pictures. This could be in a studio or in a personal space depending on the situation I want to explore.

Earthly Delights could be an experiment of street photography. Capture moments and situations in Leicester. I thought about Religion too, where I could take some pictures of people having their moments while in the church/cathedral/temple/mosque. This includes to go to a mass, a ceremony or a cult. This requires a bit more communication with the people on the charge for the different places that I want to visit. But I do like to explore different religions and people activities inside the different places. 

Expressionism I could go for long exposure experiments. This could be a good idea to explore a new field. This could be done for landscape photography or city life where lights are present every day/night. Using the light present in the city would be a good experiment.

The places that I have in mind they will take place in Leicester.

What pops into you head first when considering this project?

Show the real life. Capturing moments, waiting for the right moment to shoot something going on around me. I want to travel and see small towns around Leicestershire and be able to discover new things and places. 

Icebreaker - Self Portrait

For this first session I had to create a self portrait as an icebreaker. As we usually draw in the sketchbook, this time I have decided to do something different as my skills when drawing are not the best ones. 

My self portrait is a picture that I use for my website that I have to create on the first term for the module of Digital Arts. With that same picture I have painted some parts of the image with black acrylic paint and then stamp this into the sketchbook. 

Mixed media that I have use: Acrylic paint, brush and sketchbook.

Was intuitive how I wanted to show myself in a portrait and this technique came to my mind easily. However, when I have started painting with the acrylic paint I found it difficult because the paint was drying faster. So, the next step was to go slowly on the image and do it by sections. I was not completely happy with the first result because I did with more water that the necessary and the image, as you can see, has many black areas which interfere with the result that I wanted as you can on the second piece.  I had a break to clear my mind and after a couple of hours I started working in a new piece. Same process and I knew it what and how I could easily achieve this result. 

This idea was so clear in my mind that I felt so happy and excited through this process. Even without many drawing skills I feel that I did something really good when I think about creativity. With this achievement I started the second term with a good sense of understanding in this kind of technique. 

Welcome to the Spring Term at DMUIC

Hi all,

It is so good to be back after a break where I could enjoy myself, go back to my country, enjoy with family and friends and enjoy the beautiful and simple things in life. Also was a time to look back what I did in the first time and reflect about the different works I have done throughout the term. I am very proud of my achievements, however, I know I have much more work to do to become the artist that I want to be. I am so excited to be back and to be able to explore and learn new things, always having in mind what I have learned in the first term. I am feeling more confident about myself as an artist and what I want for my next projects to express the good moment I am going through now.

Holidays it means a break and also enjoy myself, family and friends but something that I could see differently was my city and how beautiful it is. Colourful, dynamic, historical, cosmopolitan, diverse and many other adjectives that could use to describe. After a year and half was good to be back.

Lisbon Downtown, December 2021, Edgar R.

The picture above I took it last December when I was having a walk in Lisbon. The most beautiful city in the world. The historical buildings, the energy, the colours, the different architecture, the people, the weather, the food. I could write infinite posts about how amazing my city is. However, behind a beautiful and colourful picture something sad is behind it. This use to be a very busy street, known as Pink Street, where you could catch up with friends to have some food, drinks or just a walk around. Unfortunately, this street it is about to disappear due to the construction of a hotel just on the left of the street. It is sad because many people in the past could meet up there, a very busy street, full of music, bars and restaurants and unfortunately it will loose some identity because of a new business coming. 

I believe that everything in life comes to an end at some point and we need to re-invent ourselves and things, and this street is part of that. The same thing for me as a person and artist. Probably, I will need to give up in some things to allow other things to come. It a process where we need to be aware of things changing in us and around us.

This term I want to be be better, I want to experiment more, learn from different artist and this includes more research. I want to share and learn from course mates. I want exchange knowledge to be able to step into another level of my journey. I will apply some of the techniques that I could learn in the module of Study Skills that will help to organise my time in accordance to what I want to achieve. Time management it will be my best ally for this term. I do not want to procrastinate, instead I want to create.  

Looking forward to share with you my next steps in the amazing journey at DMUIC!

UX Testing my Website

 A helpful exercise to understand how the end-user reacts to the interface and navigation through my website. Understanding if the user enjoyed it or not and having the chance to have feedback helps me to improve my work.

Creating this form was easy. I knew which questions I wanted to add there. I shared my website with some coursemates and friends to get feedback from different people in different areas. 

I opened Google Form, and after adding a name to the form, I could start thinking about some questions. I clicked on the toolbar on the right-hand side to add some questions. I had the chance to create different answers with different options answer such as multiple-choice, writing responses. In total, I had nine questions, and all of them were mandatory to make sure I had the feedback that I needed. 

After completing the form, I added this to my website to give a chance to the users to go through my website, testing and give me some feedback. This was in the menu bar that I created. The feedback section will be removed after I have completed this task. I think it worked very well following my website design. I had a total of 10 responses on this. 

Lets have a look on the feedback that I got:

From this feedback, I can see that people liked my homepage, with more than 50% of the users agreeing that it was excellent. Having some users say that it was good means that I would proceed with some changes according to the feedback that I will get.

 

I have chosen the writing option for these questions to have a more constructive comment about this section. It is the most important page where I will showcase my projects, and I want to make sure that it looks appealing to the viewer. The feedback was good in the majority of the commentary. I will do it some changes according to this feedback.

From the feedback I got on the About me page, I can see that I have made good choices here. Most, 70%, of the viewers said it was excellent, and only 30% said it was good. It makes me happy to know that people liked this section.

This section was where I got more diverse commentary from Okay to Excellent. In my opinion, it is the weakest page on my website. I want to change the picture and add more text in this section. This it will be done by the deadline. 

I got some written feedback in this section rather than a multiple-choice option. But from what I can see, people are happy to see a dark colour or a minimal look on my overall website. However, having feedback about adding an orange colour almost brick that goes with my About me page picture could be a possibility in the future. Very happy with the feedback.

This graph show us that people are happy with the overall experience throughout my website. 

The feedback about my logo is good and some of the answers constructive commentary. I wanted to make it professional, with a good design but also easy to people to identify my progression route.

The overall feedback was good just having one commentary saying that was not easy at the beginning to find this. Although the commentary is positive and in my opinion I think it works very well in my website.

Final questions for the users. I had some good commentary but also constructive. By the time I did the website live was a few things missing such pictures missing, the mobile version updated. I still need to rectify some last few things to make sure everything is working good before the deadline.

The overall feedback is very positive, however, I still have to work some things out based in some commentary. 

Photoshoot 2 - Contact Sheets

We can see my pictures from the second session in this contact sheet. In this second photoshoot, I had the chance to try more light settings, such as low key. I started the session with more exposure than I wanted for my work, but I could quickly adjust the correct setup for the purpose I had in mind. However, I had to make more adjustments throughout the session by moving and adding other lights. It was a challenging session when I thought about the final result I wanted for my project. But step by step, I could know where my project was going. The light that I used for this session was primarily key to creating shadow spots in my subject. I tried to add some fill light, but the result did not come as I expected. 

Also, I have tried a few shots with a white background, but I wouldn't say I liked the result because of the contrast. 

This second photoshoot, in my opinion, went better than the first one. I could be aware of the equipment that I could use, the space, and the previous feedback from the tutor. I had the chance with my tutor feedback to adjust the depth field, bringing the subject forward to create a better picture. It was beneficial because it improved the final result. 

I have tried different compositions during this session and consequently achieved great pictures. I used a chair to have my subject seated. 

Some of the pictures are blurry or out of focus due to the lack of knowledge. But having the chance to practice and focus on my progression route will undoubtedly help me in future projects. The overall experience went good for my first experience in the photography studio.

Light Setup

In this photoshoot, I had the chance to experiment with the light technique I have been exploring through this project: the Rembrandt technique.

Having the chance to play with the lights and understanding which theme I want to bring into my work. Definitely, I do not wish too many lights on my subject for this project. Light and shadow spots are very present in my final pictures. Therefore, I have explored some light setups while doing my photoshoots.

In this project, I have explored three different pointing lights: Key Light, Fill Light and Back Light where I will show 

Key Light - First light that photographers use in their work. This light helps to highlight the subject.

Fill Light - This light helps to fill the shadows that other lights, such as key light, may do.

Back Light - With this light, we can give more depth and add more dramatic effects such as silhouette.

My Project

Also, having other details such as hands or different body language could help achieve what I have in mind. Also, my final project pictures will be displayed in black and white. Firstly, I have a special connection with black and white photography, which I love due to the personal experience and the environment where I grew up. Second, I want the viewer to focus only on the light and shadows that the pictures show without having distractions due to the colours and so on.

In the example below, we can see the use of the backlight where the light is situated just at the subject's back. We cannot see much apart from the silhouette, with some places more illuminated than others. Still, we cannot really understand or see clearly, which adds some dramatic effect to the picture. This light set is shown below the lighting diagram in one of the pics that I took for the project. 

Marta, 2021

The second example is an experiment with a key light on one of the sides. As shown below, one of the sides of the subject is more illuminated to help to highlight the subject than the other. One of the sides has the main light focused on the subject, whereas on the other side, we can add a reflector to manipulate the light into the subject.

Suzy, 2021

The third experiment is an excellent example of using the key light and filling light together. Two subjects and not many shadows added into the subject. However, as I have explained before, I will not include this in my final project, but having the chance to experiment gives me more knowledge of how to set up the different lights available to create further works.

Bart and Fatima, 2021

This was the three lights that I have used in my experiment. Was good to be in the studio and be able to understand a bit more how things work. Looking forward to learn more about photography and the different techniques that I can apply to my works.