Journal: Reflect on Proposals and Realisations

When I first started drafting out ideas for my Final Major Project, my idea was to create a calendar using photos of key elements from towns in Staffordshire Moorlands and the surrounding area. While this was a nice idea and a way for me to practice new skills in the area of landscape photography, it was brought to my attention during a group crit with Gwen, that this idea would need to have something that made it different. I realised that they were right and that it would be boring and just like any other calendar. So then, while listening to others talk about their ideas for their projects, I was inspired by what they were saying to take photos of areas in Staffordshire and the surrounding area that had a legend or a story attached to them, for example the Mermaid Pool. I decided to create a book with a photo of each place and some text to tell the story.
Originally, I envisioned a published book (through vistaprint or blurb) with a good quality photograph and some text on the adjacent page, or an illustration. However, I came to the realisation that I want to do fine art rather than photography as a career and after this course, so I started experimenting and trying to find ways to combine the two. What also helped confirm this realisation, was when I seeked out feedback on my plain, unedited photos on talkphotography.com - the comments put me down and made me realise that I am making the right choice with choosing fine art.
While experimenting with trying to tell the story just using pictures, I tried printing on acetate and layered it over a collage with the text from the story. This worked really well I thought, so I developed this technique further and did a couple more smaller samples. I got feedback on the samples and was told that you can't really tell what the image on the acetate is of as it is all black (because I used image trace on Illustrator). So I then experimented with putting colour onto the otherwise black images. It didn't work brilliantly so I added a bit more black in, experimented with the cutout effect on Photoshop and the poster edges effect, and found that the poster edges effect worked the best.
A college tutor suggested that I put the text inside the black image so you can see through the writing. this was very effective so I realised that if I combine the poster edges effect with the transparent text, I would have really effective images. I tried it and it worked very well and realised that this is what I'll be doing for my final piece and also, that if I scan the collage and acetate in to publish, the detail will all be lost so I will put them in a physical book, or bind a book myself.

My Final Images and Final Book

Staples

I decided to print my book with Staples because I would like to display my originals at the exhibition. I designed the layouts and the front and back covers on Adobe InDesign and printed them out on A3. I will trim them down and bind the pages myself.

Book binding...

http://www.wikihow.com/Bind-a-Book

I found instructions on how to bind my own book, but I'm thinking of just buying a sketchbook and use that to put my final pieces in...

Journal: Reflect on Exploratory and Pathway Stages in Relation to the FMP

In my Final Major Project, I have revisited many of the techniques from the Exploratory and Pathway stages such as emulsion and tape transfer, collage, wax trapping and Photoshop layering techniques. I have further developed the collage, wax and Photoshop techniques because I felt as though they lend themselves very well to my project of stories from the Staffordshire Moorlands and the surrounding area as they allow me to tell the stories effectively. In addition, I have tried layering and collaging with new techniques such as printing on acetate which I also find works very well.

The collage images...

I decided to try to add a map into the background and a title on each one, I tried it on the Butterton Moor image first (Headless Horseman) and thought it was very effective and would make the collage underneath the acetate more interesting. So I did the sane with all my other chosen background images and also made the saturation lower so that the bright colours on the acetate stood out more.

Developing Ideas

Developing from my previous experiments, I produced some pieces that i have used the cutout and poster edges effect on, made them more colourful, and added white and black bits as well as the white text to get some bits transparent. (I added the cutout effect on Photoshop before the poster edges effect to make it even more posterised and simple.) I think the transparent parts work really well as you can see the collage underneath the acetate more clearly and it is more effective.





I think that when I do my final pieces, I will think more about where I'm putting the white bits and the collage underneath.