The topic I have chosen for my first unit two project is reflections, I have chosen this theme in particular because I have used reflections in previous projects and enjoyed how different you can make the images. I find reflections really intriguing as you can use them in many different ways not with just a mirror, you can do things such as the reflections in windows or shadows which most people don't normally associate with reflections or even using water either in a glass or water that has naturally formed either a puddle or even a lake/river. Each of these ways can be used to create reflections.
Lee Friedlander is an american photographer and artist in the 1950s and 60s, Friedlander evolved and often imitated visual language of urban social landscape. Many of his photographs include store front reflections of buildings, my favourite image of his that i have chosen is the one of the puddle with a reflection of a building. The theme in most of his images appears to be having reflections of buildings or having buildings in the background of the images, in some of his images he does have reflections of people however their face isn't really shown its more of a silhouette, i think that he has done this so that the purpose of the image is obvious also it has a better effect on the image by having just a black figure. |
This is one of my favourite images by Lee Friedlander, as i like how he has used the puddle to get a clear reflection of the buildings instead of using a mirror or a shop window like he has previously done also using a puddle to get a clear reflection is not something that most people would expect a photographer to sue as a source of reflection. Also almost all of his images are taken on the streets so there are no special effects used in his images the only thing that looks like its been changed is the colours of the images, they look as if they have been changed from there original colour to black and white which gives them a better effect then if they were black and white. Also I like the angle that they have taken the image from, as it isn't just taken from above but it has been taken from the side to get a full reflection of the buildings also a slight reflection from the cars that are driving past. This is just one image that is like this that Lee Friedlander has taken there are many others that are very similar some are also a reflection of buildings in a puddle however some are also taken in a shop window with the same theme of the buildings/ Street life being reflected.
Experiment 1
These are a few images i took around school the other day, it had been raining perviously that morning which was a positive as i could use the puddles as a source of reflection. Also many reflections that i wouldn't normally relate to reflections however as i was walking round the school i found many that i thought were different and wouldn't be thought of as a reflection for example in the third image i went into one of the buildings were there was a black shiny floor also by there being a quite large window it had reflection of the floor, there wasn't any detail in the reflection however there was still the shape of the window it was slightly faded as the top but you could still see the shape.
This has to be one of my favourite images that i have taken as it has a clear reflection of a person instead of there being many colours and details of this person it is more of a silhouette however it is still a very clear reflection of the actions that this person is doing. Because it was only a small puddle i took the image from above to make sure i got the whole person in the image but still making sure that i didn't get the actual persons hands or feet into the image otherwise it could distract from the purpose of the image which is the reflection of the person in the puddle. Also it is quite a plain background which will not distract from the purpose of this image.
EBI: To make this image better and more interesting, I think that i could make sure that the reflection has a bit more detailing for example colours and detail in the face and body of the person.
EBI: To make this image better and more interesting, I think that i could make sure that the reflection has a bit more detailing for example colours and detail in the face and body of the person.
Experiment 2
I took these images using numerous mirrors to give a better effect then just one, also instead of being one full perfect reflection i have moved the mirrors around so that theres a more messy effect so that you can see the grass between the mirrors and the concrete so there isn't a perfect reflection. Also instead of using a mirror in one of the images i have used a long still puddle to get a reflection of the buildings opposite, this is one of my favourite images because the puddle was very still so i could get a perfect reflection without any ripples or movement in it. In a couple of the images at the top I have slightly included abstraction as I placed some of the mirrors up along the wall, this creates an abstract effect. I took all of these images from an angle, to get an image of the reflection that I wanted I mainly took these images from a reasonable distance away and to the side.
These images were taken by a man called Bing Wright, most of his images are of a broken reflection of skies but there not just an ordinary image of a plain sky he has made sure there are unusual colours that you wouldn't expect a sky to look like. I like how he has made the mirror's the main focus of the image's and the sky isn't in focus it gives it a better effect and makes it more eye capturing. The last image is fairly similar to the others except it isn't a reflection in a mirror however is still an image of the sky. Each of his image have many different colours in them they are not of just a normal blue sky, i wasn't to sure whether he has edited the images and added the colours or all of his images are un- edited and natural. Also he hasn't used a large frame for the images, each of them are quite small and only have a specific part that they have taken a picture of and that has been reflected. |
This is just one of the many images that i have taken that stand out to me as I have got many mirrors laid them out on the grass, i like this image as it isn't a perfect reflection, you can see little pieces of grass coming threw the gaps between each of the mirrors also instead of them all being laid out in the certain shape I have left spaces around the edge so that it doesn't all look the same and boring. Also the mirrors are the only thing that people can see when they look at the image as they are laid out on the grass so there is nothing that can distract the audience from the main purpose of the image.
However something that could improve this image is if i took if from a different angle and slightly further away then it is now so that the audience could see the whole reflection and exactly how all of the mirrors are laid out for example there was a bench near by so i could of stood up onto the bench and taken the image from above so that the audience could see everything. |
Experiment 3
These images were inspired by Bing wrights images, they aren't all reflections of sky however i have taken images of broken reflections. I liked the idea of taking images of broken reflections as they wouldn't be like a normal reflection and simple instead they would be more unusual as they are more of a distorted reflection, also they could fall into the category of abstract as they are slightly abstract because the broken mirror adjusts the normal shape of the object.
WWW: In each image I had a distorted image so it wasn't a perfect reflection of something, the object that I was focusing on was not aligned like they originally were.
EBI: To improve these images next time I am going to take more images however focus more on the sky and the different colours that I can include instead of them being simple and white. Also some of the images aren't in focus.
WWW: In each image I had a distorted image so it wasn't a perfect reflection of something, the object that I was focusing on was not aligned like they originally were.
EBI: To improve these images next time I am going to take more images however focus more on the sky and the different colours that I can include instead of them being simple and white. Also some of the images aren't in focus.
Experiment 4
Each of these images are not of reflections however they are images of the sky with unusual i capturing colours. The artist that inspired me to do this was Bing Wright, as he has also got images of sky's with very unusual colours. I took these images quite randomly as I found the sky very eye capturing also how some of the images include a silhouette of buildings and cars which i really liked and i thought that if the sky was eye capturing to me that some other people may find them very attractive and eye capturing. My favourite image out of these six images has to be the first one as i like how the sun in the background contrasts with the blue of the rest of the sky, also the sun being in a background has created a nice silhouette of buildings and a crane.
Experiment 5 |
This image was one of my favourite image as i like how the sky had the pink and blue colour to it, the pink was created by the sun going down and reflecting off the clouds and it is also very clear to see which direction the sun is setting as it gets lighter as you look across the image. Also the image includes contrast from blue and grey to pink and blue. I found this very eye capturing as it also looked like it had been edited which is why I thought that this would be a good image to use. As again this does relate to Bing wrights images, with the different colour sky to make this better i could of actually used a mirror to get a reflection and take the image like that.
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I took these images using two mirrors quite a small heart shaped one and also and large rectangular mirror, each of these mirrors made really nice images. I had the girls face in the mirror in focus but her actual face out of focus to create a really nice affect. It was fairly difficult trying to find the right lighting to take these images and the right angle to take them, i did keep having to re-take some images and either getting closer to the girls face or getting further away to get a good angle so that i had the reflection and her face in the image.
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This is how I edited the images below to make them all black and white. I got up the image that I wanted to put an effect on and then went on to the tab at the top that said image then i clicked adjustments and then finally clicked the black and white filter.
Experiment 6
I decided to change some images into black and white because I have been researching many photographers and many of them have used the black and white effect. An artist I have recently looked at, Lee Friedlander, inspired me to also change them to black and white as the images that I looked at of his were all black and white. I thought that this created a nice effect on them all, as in some of the images it created a silhouette of certain things. There aren't any silhouettes in the images above however the black and white still gave each of the images a nice professional look. My favourite images are the three of the girl as i think that in each of the images the black and white neutralises the amount of light there was in the images so the light isn't as bright as it was without the effect.
Throughout Naoya Hatakeyama work it appears like he has taken images of the floor and flipped them to look quite abstract. In many of his images he has taken images of the floor that is quite wet and/or rivers so that he has got a reflection of buildings and many lights, the lights help to show that it is a reflection. I like these three images as there are many lights also the reflections aren't perfect and still, there are actually ripples on the water so the reflections are all quite distorted so you can't clearly see what each reflection actually is. Also the colours that are shown are very bright and vivid. Experiment 7 |
Francesca Woodman is an American photographer who is most known for her black and white photographs, which feature either herself or a female model. I really like Francesca woodman's work as they are all very unique and i like how she has also got herself in a fair amount of her images. I picked these images out specifically because she has used reflections using a mirror, the one that stood out the most of these images is the one of the girl being reflected in a broken mirror as this s a theme throughout my sight.
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In these set of images I changed up what I was photographing, so instead of taking images of broken reflections using mirrors I have decided to use water, water is a good source of reflecting specific subjects. In all of my images I have got an image of the sky and each image of the sky there have been different colours used, in some images there are more orange tones and in other images there are more pink tones. I have carried this theme on throughout my images including the images above, however instead of it just being an image of the sky I filled a glass with water and held it towards the sky, move it around a bit to get a same reflection but from different angles and then took the image. Also to make sure that the glass of water is the main subject of the image I have made sure that the glass is in focus and the background is not, for example, the trees and bushes and even the sky in the background are out of focus to prevent distracting there being a distraction.
I really liked these images as all of them have got a reflection even though it is only glasses filled with water. I like this images as they are very unique and would not be expected to get a perfect reflection, especially in the wine glasses there is very prominent reflections for example the image of the the eiffel tower there is a perfect reflection in the water, also I like how all of the artists have specifically got the subject of the images are always in focus however the background is not but you can still tell what is in the background and what is being reflected. These images are what inspired me to take the images of the wine glass and the sun reflecting in it also the images below as i found each one of these images very interesting and also quite eye capturing.
Final Piece
Experiment 1
These are the images that I took that I thought would be best to refine and make better, as each of them need to be made better because in some of the images there are quite harsh orange tones also in others their isn't enough lighting to get even a slight reflection. To refine these images I will be changing the colour of one of the images to get rid of the orange tones and make sure there isn't anything in the background that could be distracting to the audience. Also to make sure that the subject of the images are always in focus to make it obvious to the audience. My main inspiration for these images set of images were from the images above them where the artist used wine glasses and a pattern behind it to get an abstract look from the patterns behind, as they have filled up the glasses with water which has extended some parts of the pattern behind because of the shape of the glasses are fairly elongated. Before taking the images i got four of the same jars and then i printed out four different patters finally I folded the patters to fit inside the jars originally I did only still the patterns on the back of the jars and took the images from the front however you could see the piece of paper coming round the sides which was fairly distracting so i chose to put them inside the jars which actually gave a better effect then putting them behind.
Looking at the images that I had taken I realised that they didn't match my theme of reflections, so I took one of the images and edited it in photoshop to produce the image below. To get this image I cropped the original image slightly, next I copied the cropped image and flipped it vertically. next I enlarged the canvas size so I could fit the other image into the photo and so that it wouldn't cut off to much of either image, finally I put the images together to get a reflection effect so that it would fit into my theme as originally there wasn't a reflection like I originally thought there was going to be.
This is a before and after of the image that I have edited, the first image is how my original image looked as you can see it was quite orange toned, quite plain and quite simple. Which is why I put it in photoshop and reflected the image so that it fit in my theme of reflections. I changed the image to black and white to get rid of the harsh orange tones throughout the image and also to give the image a more professional and refined look to it unlike it did previously. Experiment 2 |
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Again this is a before and after of the image that I chose to edit, I did the same to this image as the image above however this time I reflected the image twice, each reflection was on both sides of the original image. However I didn't put a black and white effect on this time as I quite liked the original colours of the image, as it was quite orange tones with a few hints of blue and dark greys from the clouds. I reflected this particular image twice because I found that by doing this it gave a more abstract look and made it a lot more obvious with what I was trying to do as in the other images that i was reflecting there were more dominent objects so that when I did reflect them it was very obvious, however because this image was quite dark with only one source of lighting it was more difficult to see the reflection. |
Experiment 3
These are my images from another experiment that I thought would be good to develop because of the bold subjects of each image it would give the images more of an abstract look to them when I reflected them. Again I have used photoshop to get a perfect reflection of each image, although all of the images already had a reflection because of the mirrors I still thought that I should reflect the actual image to make them look more interesting. |
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This was my final experiment reflecting an image. I have given you a before and an after image so that you can see what it looked liked before compared to how it looked after I edited it in photoshop. Before I reflected the image I adjusted it by putting on a black and white effect, then i changed the canvas size so that i could fit the copied image next to the original image so that none of the images got cut off and I got a full reflection. |
Finished Piece
For my final piece I have chosen to put together these three images as I think each of them work together really well as they are all very different from one another and contrast against each other. I only chose three images to use because by only using three there isn't lots going on so that it doesn't confuse the audience, if I did chose many images to use it could be seen as quite confusing because of the many reflections that are being used in the images and also the images themselves. I chose to lay them out in this particular way because I didn't want the two images with the trees next to each other otherwise they could clash which us why I separated them and put the image with many mirrors in the middle to separate them and the middle image is very different to the two either side of it.
Evaluation
For my final piece my initial idea was to use jars and water to create a reflection of some patterns that I had printed out, however this did not make a reflection like I previously thought it would which is why I took one of the images and reflected the image on photoshop, this ended up going quite well which is why I left my idea of using water and a jar and instead I took images that I had previously taken in other experiments and done the same process a few times to see which images worked well being reflected and which ones didn't, as the images that I reflected already had many reflections in them using mirrors. Also all of the images that I put into photoshop I converted into black and white to give each image that I used a much more professional, refined and a final piece worthy look. As most of the images that I had previously used didn't look as good as they do now they are in black and white. For some of the images that I edited I done a slideshow of the before I edited and after I edited so that you can see the difference of adding the black and white filter also reflecting the image, reflecting the image was a fairly simple process once I got the hang if it however at the beginning I didn't know how to use photoshop well so it does take a little while to get the hang of it. I showed the process above some of the image to show how I got each image. Towards the end I started to narrow down how many images I was going to use, originally I was going to use about six images as my final piece however by looking over some of the images I had realised that not all of them worked as well as others also some of the images looked very out of place and didn't work well as some other images, for example the image of the sunset that I reflected seemed really out of place as the images themselves didn't have reflections unlike the other images that I chose to use in my final piece.
The many artists that I have researched have all helped and inspired me to do the experiment and final pieces that I have done. As many of the artists have very different images of reflections, either using water or mirrors which inspired me to do each of these reflective methods in experiments .
The many artists that I have researched have all helped and inspired me to do the experiment and final pieces that I have done. As many of the artists have very different images of reflections, either using water or mirrors which inspired me to do each of these reflective methods in experiments .