The challenge I faced with photography was that the instantaneous static viewpoint, provided by the camera’s lens and shutter, didn’t represent the continuous flow of the act of looking. It seemed as if the still photograph had been held back to the level of the dictionary; the single word. It was the visual equivalent of overlooking the potential to link words to convey ideas and meaning. I couldn’t accept the notion of an isolated, decisive moment being capable of encapsulating our experience of life.
(Myles, N. 2020)
With this quote reverberating round my head, it was time to relook at what I was attempting to achieve. It seemed I had spent a lot of time and energy researching trees and how to photograph them in the best way possible. However, this project isn’t about getting the perfect tree image. It’s about practice-based research, which requires EXPERIMENTATION!
When I looked at the images I’d created so far, I was very happy with the progress I had made technically. I was now taking a different approach to tree photography compared to the one I used in the AGM60 Research & Experimentation module. What was missing at this stage in the images was the element that made them distinctly ‘Jennie Meadows’. I also felt that I wasn’t being ‘creative’.
Editing and experimenting with images digitally is integral to my work. Why not now?
The fact that I hadn’t started this process for the current project was strongly sparked by the work and words of Noel Myles. Why should my images be restricted to one view point?
My first experiment involved a Black & White conversion of the following image.
Next, I flipped the image 180 degrees.
I then combined to two images in Adobe Photoshop.
I wasn’t sure about the two images connecting. I thought the middle section may be two distracting. So I also created a version with a small between them. I also tried a third version showing one in Black & White and the other in colour.
Something was starting to evolve. Further experimentation was required. My classmate, Mark, suggested putting the two trees together. I planned to do so later that day.
References
Noel Myles | Reframing Photography. [online] Reframingphotography.com. Available at: <https://www.reframingphotography.com/resources/noel-myles> [Accessed 7 December 2020].
Jennie Meadows MA Photography 