Final version of 'Castles of Norwich 12'

 

Below is the finalised version of the 'Castles of Norwich 12' montage. This iteration also differs from previous 'Castles of the...' montages by imitating a fictional representation of Norwich, a 'greatest hits' or sorts, by only showing a representative of the architecture.

The composition reminds me of an early montage in the series for Nottingham, which now comes of as a prototype in it's rougher, more 'obviously mirrored' appearance. Similarities are found in a greater depth (to simulate a city) present compared with the montages imitating a building (especially Oxford, which is quite flat in comparison). Both the Norwich and Nottingham montages give the impression of a hilltop city in how the build up from the bottom, therefore allowing buildings placed behind to be visible.

1st draft of 'Castle of the Norwich 12' montage

Below is the 1st draft the 'Castle of the Norwich 12' montage.

While it follows a similar compositional style to other 'Castles of the Architects' montages, it comes across more as a collection of individual buildings rather than a fictitious building created from parts of structures of the same architectural style.

This is not necessarily a bad thing as the montage is designed more to showcase the Norwich 12 in an eye-catching montage, and if I were to follow the montaging style of previous entries in the series more closely, this focus may have been lost.

Photo holiday to Norfolk, 'Norwich 12', and erosion of Norfolks coasts

Hello! Just got back from a holiday in Norfolk, specifically the coast around Cromer and Overstrand.

Naturally, being a photographer, I took loads of photographs. During the holiday I noticed the extent of erosion along the aforementioned coastlines. This is reflected in some of my photographs, shown below, where I came across an assortment of debris from collapsed structures due to cliff erosion. This included the cross-section of the foundations of a former building long since collapsed, with chunks of the wall now covered in weeds, forgotten.

 

In places, the wooden sea defenses had seen better days, now reduced to it's skeleton.

Finally, south along the coast from where I stayed, the steps down to the beach had collapsed, and while I could not tell how long ago this had happened, no attempt to create a makeshift path appeared to have been made.

NORWICH 12

In other news, I photographed the 'Norwich 12':

"the UK's finest collection of individually outstanding heritage buildings spanning the Norman, medieval, Georgian, Victorian and modern eras." (as the Norwich 12 website describes them)

Originally, I planned to create a 'Castles of the Architects' entry featuring these buildings, in which the tourist information was interested in. In addition to this, however, I plan to create more montages centering around how there are '12' buildings, and the number 12 (e.g. use a clock face as it has 12 numbers on it. Perhaps, 'time to visit Norwich!' as the slogan).

Anyway, these montages are early days as I need to edit down the photos I took down first, and I will keep you posted!

'Purpose Removed' (cornerstone project) - CREATIVE PROCESS

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 photographic shoot focused on the cornerstone photographs previously posted on this blog as I had not been able to find suitable examples for the ‘building cross-section with statues’ idea from the notebook. High Street was the best location of cornerstones, most dating from 1900-1905, and they were also in a high up location, out of sight of the average pedestrian. This meant that an aspect of the core idea behind the ‘statue’ concept was present in the photographs.

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.

New project: Cornerstones montage

My new project will focus on the Cornerstones of buildings (specifically the date of construction), and how they are represented. For example, they may be functional or flamboyant, discreet or eye-catching. Whatever appearance they take on, they serve there purpose of setting the structure in a time period.

Traditionally, the concept of a cornerstone was derived from the first stone set in the construction of a building. This was important because all other stones were set in reference to this stone, and therefore determined the shape and position of the entire structure.

Since then, the cornerstone has become a symbolic stone that had construction dates or the names of individuals who were important in its construction inscribed on it.

Internship end & new beginnings

Hello!

It's been a while, hasn't it?

Fortunately, I may now be more able to continue with my own photographic/photomontage projects in the near future, as I have now finished my internship at Neotrims.

While I gained a huge amount of business experience, I felt the company was not right for me.

This does mean that I am job seeking again, but this time I have a better idea of what jobs I want to apply for, and the keywords associated with these jobs if you want to find them.

Busy busy busy!

Sorry I haven't been posting recently. For the last month, I've been in an internship (which might become a full-time job) at Neotrims/Janeo Jewels in Oadby, Leicestershire. There, I assist with the order management as well as photographing the stock, amongst other responsibilities. As it is nearing Christmas, it is very busy there, and so I have not had time to work on new projects or post here.

Sorry!