Possibilities for Assignment 4

I have spent quite a long time thinking about possibilities for assignment four, largely because my initial thinking was based on using a Polaroid camera to take photographs of illuminated shop windows. This idea has been frustrated by the Covid lockdown, which not only limited my own possibilities for going out, but meant that shop windows were not illuminated in the way I had wanted. I expand on my original idea here below as I would like to undertake this project at a later date – probably over the Christmas period.

Idea 1: To take a series of photographs of shop windows that feature chandeliers using my old Polaroid camera.

Rationale: For my previous assignment, I chose to take a series of double exposure photographs. The research and experimentation involved in this deepened my interest in double exposure work. However, I also wanted to produce prints in a ‘novel’ way since this was the original requirement for the course pre-Covid. As the assignment concerns capturing the qualities of light, my idea was to create images which showed the artificially lit interiors of shops, plus the reflection in shop windows. Here is a test image that shows the general idea:

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I thought that this approach would enable me to explore several qualities of light at the same time – namely, artificial light, natural light and reflected light.

However, lockdown limited my options for travel and I found only three shops that met my criteria within the space of a couple of months – one of which has since closed down. Needing to get on with the assignment, I decided to put this project on the back burner!

Idea 2: A selection of still life compositions on the general theme of ‘white on white’, two examples of which I provide below (unedited).

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Rationale: Since discovering the work of Rinko Kawauchi, I have been drawn to images that are verging on being over-exposed and I thought that a collection of white objects on a white background would challenge me in terms of getting the exposure and focus just right (which it did!). However, having taken a number of photos, I began to feel that this project didn’t adequately meet the brief of ‘capturing the qualities of light’ – which is what I really wanted to focus on.

Idea 3: Still interested in the idea of ‘two pictures in one image’, but wanting to capture this in just one exposure (as per my first idea), I decided to explore ideas involving reflections in bodies of water, beginning with the sea. Day by day, I cycled down to the seafront to take a photo a day capturing the light effects caused by the weather conditions. I found it remarkable how different the ‘same’ scene could look depending on cloud cover, humidity etc.

Struck by the colour differences in particular, and having developed a greater interest in pixelation as a result of undertaking this course, I was reminded of Spencer-Finch’s sea palette installation on Folkestone’s seafront, which depicts 100 different colours of the sea, derived from photographs taken over a period of several months.

This got me thinking even further about the relationship between light and colour and how the impressionist painters used the qualities light to create their colour palettes. Indeed, I discovered an interesting article on artists’ palettes which aided the formulation of my ideas for this assignment – namely, to create a series of groups of three images comprising the following elements:

• A straightforward photograph of the scene
• A pixelated version of the photograph to disclose the colour palette
• An edited ‘painterly’ version of the original image showing how the palette might be used in a painting

I would put these images together in a series of slideshows, much like this test version here:

However, taking pictures of the sea, interesting though that was, would not, I felt, create a set of images with sufficient variation for the purposes of demonstrating my photographic skills within the context of an assignment. I also felt that the sea images did not have the reflective, almost double exposure quality that I was looking for.

I therefore decided to focus on the reflections of trees in a local lake and on the nearby canal. This would enable me to capture not only the reflections of the trees, but the leaves floating on the surface of the lake and the light itself reflected from it, thereby meeting all the requirements of the assignment brief.

Furthermore, I decided that I would produce a series of prints, even though they were no longer required by my tutor (due to Covid).