#taking form

Three separate occasions during this semester I have seen the exhibition in the Lavit Gallery titled: Taking Form Students of the Year 1973-77 featuring the work of three former students of the Crawford College of Art: Maud Cotter, Eilis O’Connell, and Vivienne Roche.

Curated by Sarah Kelliher and Brian Mac Domhnaill.

Since the beginning most of my photo shoot sessions that I have done are mainly for experimenting. If I got something that I could use in my final Major Project then that was a bonus. I have been trying to find the right angles, colours and shapes for each instrument. Even just seeing if the instrument is aesthetically pleasing in the first place. Just seeing what works and what doesn’t. Up until the last photo shoot I have had really nothing that I could potentially use for my Major Project. Using the landscape photographs that I have gathered for reference, I have been able to apply landscape elements to my shooting style to try and derive landscape qualities within my musical instruments.

Experimentation is the biggest part of my process while shooting and post processing images. Trying things that usually would be applied to photographs such as these but would apply to landscapes.

shooting strictly horizontal

finding and using a horizon line in my frames

using lighting that represents some sort of natural light eg. Sun or moonlight

flattening the image rather than trying to exaggerate it using a wide focal length eg. 24mm vs 100mm

a open aperture that can give my images a sense of scale and distance.

I have been using these shooting techniques so far and have been getting good results. The only thing that is separating my images from being usable in my major work is the angles that I am capturing. The shapes and components I am shooting are interesting but obvious. I need to shy away from details of my instruments (potentially what’s giving away that they are musical instruments not landscapes) and focus on shapes and form.

Most landscapes are made up of shapes and interesting forms rather than details that suggest “landscape”. One technique that I have only just started to experiment with is cropping in hard on my images from what I have originally shot. As ling as I keep shooting at ISO100 I can crop in close to my photographs and find interesting scenes within my original scene. I will have to go back through photographs that I have previously found better than the rest and find interesting crops within the original shot.