Research Influences:
My research influence for this shoot is Damien Hirst, the English artist who has an ongoing project of 'spin paintings'. These painting are made using enamel and sinning canvas. I have chosen to use Damien Hirst for this shoot as his spin paintings have a profoundly joyful effect on any individual and he has an excellent eye for colour combinations. This may seem like a contradiction to the theme of selective colour, however Hirst is highly adept at mixing complementary colours together without creating a clash. I will be mindful of his work in this shoot in the order I lay the crayons out in as this is the way in which they'll be stuck once they have melted.
Plans for Shoot:
My main ideas for this last shoot were to use a solid material that would turn in to a liquid so that I would be able to document the different colours separately and then as they converged together. To do this I will conduct a Macro shoot with a tripod and remote release; for the subject of my images I chose to use crayons. I chose crayons as the subject for this shoot as they are a solid in their natural state but can be melted, and to do this I will use a heat gun. I laid the crayons out onto a piece of tinfoil so that they could be easily removed after the shoot and I wouldn't mark any furniture.
Contact Sheets:
Images that need improvement:
DS7_7868- 7871.JPG:
These are the first few images in this shoot have a blue object in the reflection of the tinfoil which takes away from the image. This is the reflection of the heat gun as I was melting the heat gun on the tinfoil. As is visible in the next images I noticed in a quick review while I was shooting that the gun was in the shot and moved further away in the next images.
DS7_7918.JPG:
Another issue I experienced was when I was using the macro lens and a torch to later take closer images of the crayons mixing, the auto-focus on the camera wasn't working. I attempted to direct more light with the torch and the camera wasn't cooperating. To solve this issue I used manual focus and LIVE VIEW, however I was dubious about doing so as the screen is of a low resolution and so makes it difficult to determine if the images are completely in focus. I was also unable to use the VIEW FINDER on the camera as when I moved away from focusing I would jog the tripod while almost blinding myself with the torch. There isn't an outright solution to this issue an so I chose the lesser of two evils and used LIVE VIEW, which also causes immense battery usage.
DS7_7962.JPG:
As I was using a torch in the last section of the shoot I was able to change the lighting drastically from shot to shot. This enabled me to use the torch as an incredibly low angle across the melted crayons to highlight the small hexagonal imprint left by the tinfoil. However, in this shot I was reviewing the images and accidentally pressed the remote release in my hand meaning the shadow of the camera was in the shot. This was an easy fix as I simply changed the angle at which I was holding the torch and this removed the shadow.
Best Images:
In this image you can see small scratches created with a nail file when removing the crayons from the tin foil, this adds texture and dimension to the image. There is a relatively centred line that splits the pink tones from the green thus preventing the two colours from mixing. I like the symbolism in this image as the large shadow being cast in the middle of the image obscures the two halves, suggesting to the viewer that there is a conflict between the two. This is further reinforced by the two different colours I have chose: pink and green.
These two colours are opposite each other on the colour wheel and so create a clashing atmosphere.
In this image the landscape of the crayons in completely smooth resulting in no shadows being cast across the scene. This enables the viewer to see the orange strip that has now come between the two colours like a mediator in a fight. The reason the orange works as a 'bridge' colour is that is holds the warm components from pink and the fresh components from green. This is further supported by oranges place in the colour wheel as the mid-point between green and pink.
In this shot there are many different colour 'currents' converging in the centre of this image. I used a low f-stop so that there would be a large amount of focus on the point of convergence in the centre of the frame as I wanted the viewer to focus on the different colours mixing together. Much like the image before it the green and pink are on opposing ends of the shot with orange being the mediator in the middle, however in this image there are multiple colours being involved. This array of colours descending on one area has produced a large 'stream' of the different colours as they are all moving in the same direction.
In this image the scratches left by the nail file are extremely noticeable due to the low f-stop. The effect of this on the viewer is that something has attacked this singular hexagon in an attempt to see what is underneath. I enjoy the lighting in this image as it follows the colours with the blue crayon being cast into the shade at the edge of the image. The connotations of this is that the hexagons are the scales of an animal and the scratches are battles scars that it has gained throughout it's life.
The colours in this shot are much softer than those previous, these soft tones when paired with the lighting suggest a much calmer atmosphere than the last images. There are also fewer scratches in this shot which allows the viewer to focus on the colours as they blend into one another in the shot.
The deep green and brown in this image are reminiscent of a dinosaurs scales, designed perfectly through evolution to enable the to hide in the dense undergrowth of the primeval forests. This 'dinosaur' has similar scratches to the other image and so suggests the age of the beast. The effect of this image on the viewer is that it brings back childhood memories where dinosaurs weren't fossils and facts of past lives lost but mystical creates you'd liken to dragon or unicorns.
The lighting separates the foreground and the background down the middle of the image thus causing the viewer to focus more on the very closest point of the shot - the pink and the teal. The colours throughout the whole image are of the pastel variety and so emit a soft and pleasant air due to their small tones and highlights.
In this shot the manner in which the white crayon has broken and the canvas of deep blue underneath have connotations of weather reports and satellite views of the world. The external view of the planet paired with the low f-stop suggests to the viewer that they are approaching the atmosphere; this shot is also slightly tilted which further provides contextual evidence leading the viewer to consider this the Earth.
This shoot was split into two different halves: the first was the documenting the crayons as they melted, and the second was documenting the different colour combinations created by the destruction of the crayons. This is fitting for the title of selective colour as the main objective of this project is to investigate how different colour combinations create different emotive effects.
As the white crayon had begun cooling it separated into the nearby colours which created the impression of cloud coverage as observed from a satellite image. The connotations of this in the shots containing tertiary colours is that this may well be an image of the Earth. This illusion is dissuaded by the other images that contain more primary and secondary colours which suggest this isn't Earth, consequently leaving their imaginations to consider other worlds.
For this shoot I used a Nikon D7200 with a 60 mm macro lens, remote release and Manfrotto tripod; I used both the light bulbs that were present and a torch to light this shoot. For the first half of this shoot I used a relatively large f-stop (f/8) so that all of the crayons would remain in focus while I was melting them. Then in the second half of the shoot I used an f-stop of 5 so there was a shallower depth of field when shooting the macro shots of the melted wax.
This shoot was more rewarding than the last two shoots as I was able to document the colours after the act of mixing as them using incredible close macro photography. I was unable to do this in the last two shoots as they were both comprised of particles that changed upon movement or touch, for this reason I wasn't able to manipulate the composition as I would have liked to. In the pursuit of attempting to document different colours and the effect of different colour combinations and I believe that this shoot is the most successful as I captured an in depth viewpoint of the different colours as they converged.
To improve my images I will use Photoshop. To begin I entered all of the RAW files so that I was able to use the sliders which change the image more subtly than the other settings in Photoshop.
I them opened all of the shots into Photoshop so they would be present as individual files.
As you can see in the image above the different files have been opened as different windows. I then used copy (CTRL + C)and paste (CTRL + V) to create copies of these separate files and add them to the first document as layers.
After moving all of the images into layer in the first document I then clicked WINDOW then TIMELINE which brought up a small bar at the bottom of the screen with the option to create VIDEO TIMELINE or FRAME ANIMATION.
Once chosen the first layer is moved into the bar as the first frame in the sequence. I then held down CTRL to select all of the layers in the first file, then I clicked on the small drop-down menu of the top right area of the bar.
Then selected the MAKE FRAMES FROM LAYER OPTION. This them moves all the layers in the right side of the screen to the bottom bar.
I then needed to change the duration of each frame and so held down CTRL and selected each frame duration to 0.2 of a second.
To save I them clicked FILE, EXPORT and then SAVE FOR WEB. This brought up another window where I ensured the settings were 128 dithered and the duration of the whole animation was forever.
Here is the end result:
I used these same techniques to edit my other images.
I feel this shoot is the most successful in this project as I am able to demonstrate the different colours merging together rather than documenting the after effects. This involves the viewer more in the image as they become invested and want to see the end result, however as I am using GIFs this isn't possible. Another reason this shoot is one of the most successful is that I was able to photograph the after effects of the merging of the colours in depth which I haven't been able to in the other shoots as they involved semi-liquids.
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