For this new project we’re focusing on books, specifically fictional novels, so I thought I’d focus on a novel I loved when I was younger called grail quest. Written by the late J.H Brennan Grail quest is an adventure novel with a twist, it’s an interactive game book. J.H Brennan is known for his different game books such as sagas of the demonspawn, Horror classic gamebooks and grail quest. While Grail quest is a gamebook it still succeeds at telling a story as any other novel would.
Now I don’t know at all what I want the final product to look like however one thing I want it to focus on is the way the book operates, giving you different routes and experiences on how you read depending on how you play. I think that idea can result in some interesting editing results.
Research
The first photographer I’m researching is a photographer that goes by Slinkachu. Stuart Pantoll or as he’s known as online, Slinkachu is a miniature photographer, using small little figurines from train sets in placement of real people. Once he has finished with his photoshoot he then leaves the scene there as a public art display, giving his fans to see it in person and people to just stumble upon it. By doing this he aims to make the people living in the areas he visits to be more aware of their surroundings, to notice the small details. The stories he tells through his photos try to show how melancholy it can be to live in a big city, being shown not just through the scenes but also through the titles.
I have two main reasons for choosing to research Slinkachu, reason one being I’m already familiar with his work. I was introduced to Slinkachu back in high school and became interested in the whole miniature scene photography but it was something I never really had the chance to experiment with since I was too focused on landscapes. The second reason being he’s able to tell stories through his photos, show a narrative and that’s something I wildly respect and hope to do with my own photography, I’m very ambitious about story telling so being able to do that through one photo is just incredible and inspiring to me and something I hope to be able to do with this project.
A key method I’m wanting to experiment with is compositing, the process of taking multiple images and combining them and editing them to make them seem like one complete picture. I have experimented with this loosely in a previous project however this time around I want to get more ambitious
Cyanotype Experimentation
Cyanotypes are a form of prints, kind of the reverse of darkroom photography, with dark room photography the printing process it’s completely in the dark you can’t let any light in. With Cyanotypes it uses UV light so letting light in is a big part of the process, I think that’s interesting since dark rooms are very much associated with photography but Cyanotypes are still a big part of photography history.
One photographer that uses cyanotype prints is Bonnie O App
Shoot plan 1
I know that I want to use figures for my shoot, but the question is what kind, I have 2 options for myself either I use Lego figures or Full scale action figures. Now there are benefits and draw backs for both options.
Some of the benefits of using Lego figures is that I already have experience with using them as the main focus of a shoot. I have a lot to hand so using different looks to tell a story as I want for my shoot will be far easier. However one major drawback is possibility, Lego figures are very limited on articulation which can be key to showing emotion in just a picture using body language, when you’re very limited on movement that’s also very limited. However there have been people who have come up with methods to get around this so finding ways shouldn’t be too much of a hurdle to overcome.
As for the full scaled action figures I have they have one key positive and that’s their range of articulation, when you can’t use words or really face expressions to convey emotion body language is always the way to display how someone may be feeling and the figures I own have plenty of articulation to display such things. However in my mind a key draw back is the type of figures I have, I own transformers which for practice and testing methods are perfect for shoots however I worry they’ll feel really out of place whereas the Lego figures will probably look better in the final result.
So what I need to do is do shoots with both, testing the different criteria I need for the end result, compare which fulfils those criteria the best and to me more importantly what looks better for the end result.
Based on weather conditions and the area I will have available to me I will attempt to complete this shoot either Tuesday 26th of November or Saturday 30th of November.
Proposal
Last project I wanted to ignore my previous projects since they weren’t to a quality I was happy with. This time I want to embrace the more creative aspect of how I used to do things, focusing more on what I’ll enjoy making and playing to my strengths, while still keeping the ambition and progression from last project. I want this project to be a nice balance of the progression I made last project but with the creativity of previous projects while still keeping it dialled back as not to end up with lack Lustre pieces like I have before. I really can’t understate how much last project opened my eyes and gave me a fresh outlook on how I do things, something that I’m hoping will only be exemplified in this project. Like with last project on this one I’m hoping to capture more so the feeling rather than showing exactly what it is, leaving for room to interpreter my work.
For my project I’m focusing on the book series Gralequest, an adventure game novel I grew up reading. I want to focus on trying to capture the feeling of reading those books and the experience choosing your own routes can feel. The way I’m going to try and accomplish this goal is by using methods I’m already familiar with, this allows me to spend less time perfecting the methods and doing practice shoots. One key method I’m using is figure photography, specifically minifigure photography using toy figurines in place of people allowing me more control over small details and allows me to work on my own time and just generally accomplish things that would not be possible with people, at least not without lots of time recourses and editing. Figure photography also ties back into my specialist practice of macro photography, similar with my last project focussing on the reality warping aspects of macro photography however unlike the last project I’m not reversing it, this time I shall be taking things that are small and making them seem life sized in order to tell the story I want to. The other method I’m wanting to use is one I’m not as experienced with, but I’ve used before, that being compositing. I used a form of compositing during the future project, but I want to explore it more here as compositing has always intrigued me and something I want to try myself, being a perfect way to make limited resources work better. There are a few editing ideas I have in mind like making the multiple different figures different colours in editing to resemble the different paths but that’s still just a concept. Overall, I hope my project will give a feeling of what it’s like to experience the story told by the Grailquest books and show a story of my own.
For the evaluation process of this project I think the best and most logical method would be comparing my original plan and concepts to what I’m doing to see if I’m staying on track. Once the project is done I think the evaluation process I will do is seeing my skills I started out with before the project and seeing what skills I have at. The end and again seeing what my original plan was and seeing how well I was able to accomplish it. My hope is that at the end of this project I can look back and feel that I was able to accomplish everything I set out to do.
Shoot plan 2
To practice my composite skills I’m going to do a home based shoot using one figure set on my desk. The plan is to take 2 photos with the figure on the left and right and then to edit together the two shoots to make it look like one picture. I aim to have 2 different edits done, one where the right hand figure will be a different colour just for fun and testing purposes and a second edit where the colours just remain the same