#inspiredbyart

🌟 Created in the fall of 2023, this painting has found its new home at the Grove Hall Library! 🎨📚 We're thrilled to announce that "Text Compost" will be installed on the 2nd floor of the Grove Hall Public Library✨ Crafted in collaboration with community members and the sparc! the ArtMobile team, using text stencils and patterning that move across the canvas. This painting embodies the spirit of connection and creativity which lives in all our sparc! events 🎉 

Thank you to all who added their brush-strokes and imaginations.

Michelangelo Merisi da (from) Caravaggio (small town in province of Bergamo 40km north of Milano in the region of Lombardy, Northern Italy).

Better known as Caravaggio c. 1571 - 1610

Known for creating dramatic paintings with a strong sense of lighting and drama. His work has inspired many artists, including golden age Dutch artists, and photographers.

The entombment of Christ 1602 - 1604, currently in the Vatican Museum

Boy with a basket of fruit c. 1593

Harmen Steenwyck

This was much harder than I anticipated. Finding items that fit with the theme of the initial painting around the house proved difficult so I did my best to improvise. I believe I managed to convey the general look of the painting despite some of the objects being very different and missing some objects. The other problem I encountered was space. Finding space next to a window in my flat was also very difficult and I spent a decent amount of time rearranging rooms and moving tables until I got a set up that I was satisfied with. The only available space I had meant that I couldn’t get the lighting 100% correct but I tried my best to find an area that would emulate the lighting in the painting as best I could.

Contact Sheet:

About halfway through the process, I noticed that one of my props was left out of the frame so I added it in and got back to taking pictures. I used a mix of tripod shots and handheld to get a bit lower down. I believe my white balance was correct for the type of shoot but not for the look of the painting I was emulating so in post production I just lowered the temperature slightly to try and match the original painting a bit more.

Final Image:

Visual:

The subject matter of the original painting and the kind of painting it is often reflects a more sombre tone. Looking at death and the life of individuals showcasing what the hold most dear. For this reason when in optimisation I decided to lower the temperature of the image to give it a colder tone. I believe this helps convey a darker, more mysterious and ominous tone. 

Technical:

For this shot I used the natural light from the window coming from the left side. I feel like the angle of the light matches the original quite well but I was unable to flag it fully giving me the nice shadow on the background wall. I shot this with a wide angle lens as there was many subjects to get into the same shot and I wanted to make sure they were clear. By shooting at a slightly narrower aperture of F8 I’ve made sure that all of the objects in the scene are in focus along with the background.

Contextual:

Having shot this during the Covid-19 pandemic, I feel a lot of the themes of these kinds of paintings/photos will really resonate with people. Hoarding things and relying on your own material to entertain yourself during lockdowns has been at the forefront of everyone's mind in the last year. With Covid-19 being so dangerous, human mortality is also right up there in everyone's mind, fearful to leave the house and hoping for the day where its back to business as usual.

Conceptual:

The vanitas paintings of the 17th century often depicted many of the objects that I managed to get into the photo. Items that show death and the passing of time. I wasn’t able to get a pocket watch like the original but I feel like the hour glass also serves this purpose too. They also showed an amount of worldly possessions like books or expensive dishware which I feel I’ve also been able to show.

Edward Collier

Due to the covid-19 pandemic, I had to change my plan of doing this in college and do it at home. When I finally came to do this project I hadn’t been able to gather all of the items that I wanted to get in my plan, but I came up with a new idea. During lockdown I was unable to participate in one of the hobbies I used to love doing, playing Dungeons and Dragons. Meeting with friends at least once a week to pass some time in another land and having some fun. Like most things playing online just isn’t the same. A lot of the materials shown in the original photo have that historic/fantasy feel so I decided to roll with it, using materials needed for a Dungeons and Dragons game, one of the few games played nowadays that still relies heavily on writing and imagination. 

Contact Sheet:

Finding the best way to frame the objects was difficult as the bit of wood wasn’t as big as I imagine the reference for the original painting was. so Spacing all of the items was difficult. Finding decent lighting was also difficult, I ended up using a torch attached to a tripod to give me a nice steady, strong light that would help properly illuminate the objects. 

Final Image:

Visual:

As I decided to shoot this from above and lay everything out on the ground all of the subjects are in focus. between that and the odd placement of the objects it lets your eyes wander around as opposed to being drawn to a specific point. The black ribbon also acts as a line guiding you subconsciously from side to side allowing all of the objects to hold their own in the frame.

Technical:

The lighting offered by the room I was using wasn’t enough to give me a decent shot of the objects, and I couldn’t use a long exposure as fixing a camera on a tripod would make getting this angle difficult, I had to use a torch. I did this by attaching the torch to the tripod with some rope, allowing me to easily hold it steady and adjust its position as I needed. This allowed me to dial in a 45 degree light on the objects giving them a very subtle shadow but allowing them to stand out. As it was a lay flat shot and everything was on the same plane I was able to shoot at a wide aperture, F4, to take advantage of as much light as I could.

Contextual:

For me, turning this into a project about some thing I am passionate about really helped with the process and I believe made for an interesting image. Finding the materials I wanted to use and how best to showcase the world of D&D whilst trying to match the original painting was a good challenge and had me digging through lots of old material and things that I haven’t used or seen in almost a year. 

Conceptual:

I believe this image works in the same style as the original paintings and others in this style as it shows a specific set of materials and tools dedicated to a craft or subject matter. From recreating this style of image I have learned that even though it looks quite simple, getting the materials correct and placing them in a way that looks decent is actually quite hard. I can’t imagine how difficult it would be to paint something like this.

Evaluation:

This project was actually a lot more difficult than I had thought it would be. Finding objects around the house to try and emulate the original images was hard but I think I managed to find some good items to replicate and convey the messages of the original pieces.

For the Harmen Steenwyck image if I was to shoot it again I would have probably used a reflector of some kind to try and bring out the shadows on the right hand side a little bit, just to give the photograph a bit more detail.

inspired by art still life

1/15 sec. f/22 38 mm window lit flowers   5/2 sec. f/22 55 mm LED panel lit skull both were at ISO100

for the window lit still life i used a shower curtain as a scrim to decrease the intensity of the bright window light. the final photo was cropped with the contrast increased