Thinking about what strategies I will use on this project, I’ve summed up a few points on which I’d like to focus on:
- To create an immersive other world with unfamiliar lighting, landscape and characteristics
- To evoke an emotional response from the viewer
- To evolve and grow my project
- Unless the project goes in a direction that raises awareness of how threatened the natural world is
Focusing on the last bullet point this week’s topic on rephotography brought the idea of creating an initial image of the underwater landscape followed by second manipulated image of a plastic world, what the world will look like in the future in the style of diptychs. Maybe the world is made of plastic or some other material. From last project I looked at Noemie Goudal’s work of the natural being invaded by mankind, where Goudal is creating her own waterfalls I’m thinking of adapting current water-based locations with manmade objects. Taking care not to affect the environment I’d make the illusion of a part of the scene being replaced or covered with that manmade object, to show the suffocation and contamination of the water world.
https://www.saatchigallery.com/artists/artpages/noemie_goudal_cascade_2.htm
Another visual strategy is to make the water world look as artificial as possible or a vision of what it would be in the future. This photo below by Tom Stirr has been heavily manipulated so that it looks like flowing plastic, literally using the plastic wrap filter, but what it could also be a vision of water flow to come.
https://tomstirrphotography.com
All this is if I decide to take my practice in a new direction to highlight a contemporary issue, if not then it would be for the first 2 bullet points. To create an immersive otherworldly experience. To create an emotion response from the viewer.
https://www.domobaal.com/exhibitions/34-06-daniel-gustav-cramer-04.html
Daniel Gustav Cramer’s underwater and woodlands series goes into the depths of both subjects, creating immersive photos that should concealed scenes that are visual candy. Looking at Cramer’s work aids my own work, to find focus on how to create points of interest in a full photo, to use techniques to create clarity in a dark and shadowed photo. This project would turn into an investigation of how the underwater environment, combined with different lighting scenarios can create the otherworldly that is so close to the travelling person but is never seen. Taking photos in the shallow that create a different sense of scale and depth is aided by looking at Cramer’s work, finding that focus point was an issue in my last project but I feel more keen to get that perfect on this project.
My intention for this project is therefore to create evocative photos of an underwater landscape that is ignored by many (out of sight, out of mind). To possibly make a photobook for my FMP as I’ve always enjoyed landscape photobooks and I believe this would be a suitable format for this kind of photography after looking at others photobooks.
