I chose the theme fantastic and strange because I thought it would be a bit of an open door to photography, meaning I could just experiment and try wacky ideas without having to worry about the boundaries or topics of a more specific theme. I like the idea of manipulating photos or catching strange moments or objects in a photograph i think that if photography is good for anything, then its to show people how weird the world is and to show people a more thought about 'strange' than the more common generic 'strange'.
I have composed this page to have it so the new stuff is at the top, please scroll down to see my earlier work.
Some final outcomes
Jade in a mask (final piece)
These photos are my final edited pictures of jade, this is after I have put them on photo shop and played around. I mainly played with the brightness and contrast as I wanted these in black and white because the stripes would match if it was in black and white as in colour they don't really work together. I also put a tint on some of the photos because it made it look a bit more lively and added some more tone to some parts of some of the photos. There are doubles of some photos because I thought some looked cooler with a fair bit of light and some with not much light at all. For example I like that in one picture you can see jade holding her head but in the other you can really see much apart from the head so it looks like its floating and it looks very centre with the stripes behind it.
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Jade in a mask
This collection of photos are the un-edited pictures I took of my girlfriend Jade. I chose her because I wanted a set of pictures that were quite intimate and personal but that also looked quite creepy and dominant. I chose these poses because i thought they were quite sassy which i think adds a funny sexyness about the pictures aswell as it being fairly weird, out of place and eery. I thought the striped top and striped background would go quite well together and it was only after taking quite a few photos that i added the chair because i wanted some variation to work with. My favourite photos of the bunch were the ones where she is sitting down with her fingers all flared out and the ones with her hands spread over her face. I like these because they seem to be the most interesting and characteristic of jade.
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Seb in a mask (final piece)
The two images on the left are of my friend Sebastian, I chose him because I thought he would be very willing and brave as he wants to be an actor and I needed him to climb through stinging nettles and such. I chose the forest because I thought the mask I had and the jacket I wanted in the picture would look best against some woodland. I wasnt completely sure on what sort of stance and pose Seb should be doing so I thought i would find the right place and then find the right pose as some poses worked better than others in different places. in the first photo the decision to take the photo was very quick because I was dressing him for the shoot then the sun came out and it looked pretty cool with it shining over him so i ran back and took it which i think worked because none of the others had the same look about it with the shadows and the light seeping into the scene. The two images at the bottom are the drawn on final pictures, I like them because the drawn in parts blend in quite well and you can only really see them if you look close and you cant really see them that well from a far but they do create nice texture to the photos.
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Process of making 'seb in a mask' (navigate the arrows to see the process)
Chantay in a mask (final piece)
These two images are of my friend Chantay I chose Chantay because i thought her hair would look really cool and wild if she had the mask on because it would kind of bulge over the mask making the mask look more like a face. I chose to take it next to some trees because I wanted to play with focusing on different things and have something in the way of her but I ended up just focusing on a nice looking section of the tree and Chantay was playing with her hair which i thought looked really pretty and elegant so i just took it. I found that the more photos I took throughout the more I preferred to capture natural movements more than set shapes or poses. One thing i liked about these sets of images was the focussing on the branch hanging down and Chantay's face but everything else is just a warped fuzzy background. So i think it attracts your eye to strange parts of the picture you wouldn't originally think to look at. The two lower images are of the lens I used, its called a lensbaby and it is a very short focal lens so you can get that really cool warped effect.
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Clunie Reid
Clunie Reid is a photographer who now just does portraits with good looking models but she did do some work with strange writing and covering photos with paint or another photo. This photo in particular is of a woman posing in quite a provocative way but then Clunie has stuck a very grainy, out of focus ugly face onto this womans face. I like this photo because even though the ugly face is stuck on out of place and too big it does make the body seem to fit the head and gives the lady a very scary, crazy look about her. I also like that the writing is done in handwriting as it adds to the kookyness and crazyness of the face and makes it seem as though the crazy unfocussed man has written it.
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Robert Heinecken
Robert Heinecken is an American photographer who works with projecting news tories or TV shows onto images usually. But the set of images im attracted to by him are the ones like this on the left where he has gotten a picture of a pretty naked girl and projected a, what looks like a killing scene from a film onto her body. I think this is cool because the nasty scene seems to contrast with the a petite looking innocent lady, i also like how the colours of the projected image and the background make it feel as though you were in a cowboys and indians style saloon bar or strip club. I dont think this links to my idea in particular but it is fantastic and maybe to some people strange and i would like to experiment with things like this.
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Jens Ullrich
Jens Ullrich is a Tanzanian photographer who takes pictures of a number of strange compositions. I mainly like and am focusing on is his work with african tribal looking masks replacing heads in everyday scenes. I think this completely takes the identity away from the person and focuses on the scene or pose or action. I think the mask helps to link all the photos together and connects the people within the picture, say if two people both had masks on they might be the same race or family but one with and one without a mask completely divides the two individuals. Jens Ullrich creates a sense of eeriness about his photos with the black holes of the eyes in the mask always seem to be staring at u whatever direction it might be facing. Jens set of masked photos are linked to mine as they are trying to hide identity and create a false one in the same way i am by putting a mask on and capturing a scene or pose.
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Joe and Kai in masks
These images were a bit of an experiment to see what I could do with shapes, masks and props and what I thought of it once i had actually made it instead of thinking it would be cool in my head. From this I learnt that certain poses look better than others and that a mask can create a strange identity for someone that is completely different to the person behind the mask.
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A strange cat in an alley
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This photo is a photo of a cat I was following round as it took a keen interest in me by rubbing up on me a lot. I also thought it looked quite cheeky and mischievous so I expected it to do something quite funny or interesting. As I followed this cat it got more and more shy as I took more pictures so it crawled under a fence. I like this photo because you dont know they are cats eyes but you can assume that it is although I like to think that it could be any sort of animal and that there are some sort of scary creatures living down there. I didnt think about any sort of background or pose i just thought id follow the cat and let her do her thing.
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My skate trip to wales, experimenting with drawing on pictures
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This little set of images are just me trying to experiment with different ideas to do with strange. I got the inspiration from Mark Gonzalez's work on blind skateboards and in their video parts because they always strangely place monsters and creatures all over their boards, poster and videos. An example of his work can be seen as my banner photo for this page as that is done by him. The scene for these photos is wales because i went on a skate trip up there in the snow and i thought the sight was too crazy not to take a picture of.
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Just some un-edited pictures of my trip to Wales
Mari Mahr
Mari Mahr is a photographer who works with cropping strange images onto normal everyday images. For example the photo to the left has a fish eye replacing a woman's eye but its blatantly still a fish and she has made no effort to try and blend the two images together apart from that eye. I like this because it seems really silly to stick a fish on someones face and it even makes me laugh a little. I think it works because the fish eye in some way works with the face and fits this good looking woman's face. One other thing I like is at the bottom of the picture it looks like some sort of pavement so this could be an advert for something and someone has just slapped a fish on it i think its quite wacky and crazy. It makes you wonder if the fish was placed there before the picture had been taken, after the picture had been take or even if the photographer put it there or not.
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These images are from an air hanger in bedford and an alley near my house. These aren't completely linked to my theme although i thought some of the pictures are fairly strange and cool. I liked the shadows and lines in the hanger as it all looked quite gloomy and mysterious but taking pictures was hard as I only had my phone and the lighting wasnt amazing but I think it worked out alright.
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