You’ve seen the photographs from the photo shoot, and you can seen the final retouched photos at https://www.behance.net/gallery/16360393/Purpose-Removed-%28cornerstone-project%29, but following is a collection of ideas from the creative process that lead up to the final images.
These sketches were made prior to the first shoot to help focus the photographs taken. The first page drafted ideas for how cornerstones could be photographs, for example, in a brick layout (1), slices of different cornerstones blended together (2), or focusing on how the cornerstones differ in their surrounding architecture (3).
The second page focused on statues on the upper floors of buildings, preferably above shops. The photographs would be tall and thin, and would give a cross section of the different layers of the building e.g. shop, residential then attic (where the statue is located). This concept would focus on the differing stages of development the layers have undergone, such as the ground level receiving more renovation to appear as a modern shop, with the layers above a pedestrians sight receiving less.
The first montage created was the one below, which focused on drawing the viewer’s attention to the cornerstone, as they weren’t as visible in their actual location. While the architecture in this example, and the angle it was photographed is interesting, I felt that the idea did not feel like it had much potential, though it may be developed further in the future.
The montage below was a brief exploration into the shape of the architecture around the cornerstone instead of the cornerstone itself. By mirroring and rotating the photograph, the subject is removed from reality and forms a surreal new shape.
A brief exploration was made into combining a chequerboard pattern with a cornerstone to separate it into suprematist-esqe squares (shown below).
Inspired by the grid-based paintings by Piet Mondrian such as the example above, I created this montage (below). The main focus was to break the square frame into squares and rectangles, the 2 of the main shapes of the Mondrian example shown, and art in the Suprematist movement (some examples can be seen here: http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/malevich/sup/), which has been inspiration for many of my projects)
The montage below was part of the idea that focused on blending several cornerstones together resulting in a representation of the most distinctive aspects of each. The colour was removed from the montage because of the differing colour in stonework that made the seams obvious.
Some of the feedback given on the previous montage included how aspects of it were blended seamless, and therefore appeared to be one cornerstone. Based on this feedback, greater emphasis was placed on seamlessly blending similar shaped cornerstones together. In addition, like with the ‘Castles of the Architects’ montage series a more convincing blend. If this montage was continued, the date would be copied from the original image and placed on top so that it was not mirrored. While the blending was an interesting exercise, the removal of colour, and the lack of an eye-catching aspect, means that I find the final product somewhat uninteresting visually. If I were to take this montage further, catching the viewer’s attention would be the main focus.
After the previous image, blending cornerstones was dropped and I concluded that I was overcomplicating things. ‘Keep it simple’ often is a very true saying, so I decided to stick to one cornerstone and alter it in some eye-catching way. This lead to the final images, where the date (the most important part of a cornerstone) was removed in post-production so that it appeared that it had never been carved into the stone, leaving a gaping void. This results in what has been taken away, not what has been added, that draws the viewer’s attention.
