Imogen Rowland Digital Project

Overall I am happy with my final image. As with every brief my initial plans changed, however with this project as soon as I had an idea of creating some sort of dream-like house i continued to research and inspire my ideas to see what could be created.

On my first shoot  I wasn't 100% sure of exactly what I was going to create as I just had the idea of either putting different elements of a house together, or placing elements of houses onto an object, such as a mushroom, a tree, or a rock. When out shooting I came to the realisation of how difficult it would be in putting different houses together, as the lighting was changing throughout the day, the angles would all be different and I would be giving myself a lot of hard work which most likely wont look very good in the end.

So I decided to shoot on the basis of getting a main image of a rock, tree etc and shooting different houses to put onto it. I still struggled with lighting and angles, trying to keep it all as similar as possible. When I finally got to the rock which I used in my final image, I immediately felt positive about this idea as the rock was a perfect shape for a house. I struggled as it was a busy area with walkers and climbers in front of the rock. After a while of waiting and shooting around it, i eventually asked the climbers for a couple of minutes for me to shoot the rock. My only regret is that i didn't move their climbing bags and equipment as i struggled with getting rid of them in the final image. 

Once I had shot this rock, I knew exactly what pictures i needed for the house, so I went travelling around the area and shot as many houses as i could which would look fitting with the rock. I also looked out for houses on my way home. 

After doing a mock edit quickly in class, I thought that I should do a bit more shooting just incase I had missed anything out. I went to Hampstead to try and find some houses, as i know the area is similar to Derbyshire so the houses might have a similar style. Unfortunately i didn't find a lot here which i could use in my final image.

I found the final image quite tedious as it took me hours to complete, especially when i zoomed back in to realise that areas were quite messy. The most difficult part was editing the bags out and making the windows look like they were embedded within the rock instead of obviously placed on. 

I had used photoshop before, however only for editing the colour tones and contrast of the picture. Not in as much depth as i have done over the past few weeks. I have really enjoyed this project and feel it contributes well to my future in photography. I have also enjoyed blogging instead of  sketch booking, when I have seen things that relate to the project or inspires me i can upload it straight away, without leaving it till later and forgetting about it. 

The photo's which i manipulated into my final image. 

The rock was the background image. 

The door and chimney were both taken.

The three windows from the house.

The light.

Editing Process

Contacts continued,

Shooting for elements of houses to put onto the rock.

Contacts,

Surreal House

Photographs  by Lyndon Douglas.

An exhibition held in the Barbican Art Gallery, London. Through June - September in 2010.

The Surreal House explores the power and mystery of the house in our imagination. It is the first exhibition to throw light on the significance of surrealism for architecture. Bringing together over 150 works, the exhibition also reveals the profound influence surrealism has had on contemporary artists, filmmakers and architects. In an ambitious installation by acclaimed architects Carmody Groarke the exhibition is designed to be experienced as an extraordinary surreal house in its own right. 

For the Surrealists the house was more than ‘a machine for living’, as identified by Modernist heavyweight Le Corbusier. Instead it was a ‘stage for living’, a convulsive theatre of the domestic; a real space, inhabited, if not by people, then by their ghosts. In The Surreal House all the exhibits show the significance of the unconscious world of dreams and desires, presenting extraordinary dwellings that reflect everything that the rational, sanitized house sacred to Modernism is not.