Lo all,
I promised everyone I would do a write-up explaining my entry into last months competition Reflection so here it is:
Background
First of all, I’m going to provide a bit of background information about myself which will put what is to follow into context.
I’m a 23 year old Graphic Designer and a year ago I graduated from the BA(Hons) Graphic Design course at The Arts Institute at Bournemouth. Thanks to my parents, I have been immersed in Fine Art and Design culture all of my life and thanks to a certain secondary-school teacher, I have been formally studying Art and Design since I was 15.
Ever since my Fine Art GCSE, I’ve used photography to engage, inform and express myself artistically. During my Art Foundation course (between A-levels and University) I was introduced to Black & White SLRs and Darkroom processes. This experience led me to buy a dSLR and get involved with the OCUK Photography section.
Technical vs. Artistic
I have noticed, both in the Photography Section of OCUK and in Real Life™ that there is a rift between photographers. There are the purists who seek perfection through the ‘rules’ of photography and then there are the artists who challenge them. However, (this a bit of a cliché) you usually have to learn the rules before you can know how to successfully bend (or break) them.
Because of my background, I always approach the photography competition from an artistic perspective. I like to challenge the briefs and I always try to be original. I’m don’t try to be facetious or different for the sake of it but equally I don’t want to re-take cliché or what I would consider ‘obvious’ photographs when answering the theme.
That’s not to say that I don’t appreciate a well-taken photograph. I’m not trying to mask a lack of technical skill with pretentious, artistic ********.
I just believe that there’s more to photography than technical perfection.
I also don't want to follow the herd. Everyone has done the headlights-over-the-motorway long-exposure or the make-water-look-like-clouds shots.
I'm not saying I haven't taken some of these myself, I'm just saying I think the competition should be used to push the boundaries a bit.
Concepts
One of the problems with many of my entries into this competition is that you’re not allowed to attach an essay explaining why and what you’ve done (kind of like I’m doing now).
The rules clearly state:
During my degree we were taught that the concept is more important than the finished piece. I would argued that this is usually not true in the real world but at degree level, it gets the students to think about why they are doing something rather than just making everything look pretty. Many of my photographs are conceptual and it is very hard to convey much, if any, of that under-pinned thinking through one final image.
I’ve come to accept that because of this, I’m never going to score that highly in the competition (as we can see from “Reflections”).
However, I’m going to continue to work this way because I enjoy it and the competition gives me a reason to continue taking photos.
The Concept
For this photograph I wanted to do more than just shoot a shiny thing.
Therefore, I decided to focus on a different definition of reflection:
An artist I admire very much is the abstract expressionist Mark Rothko.
I’ve stared at his paintings for hours during my life-time and this has provided me with plenty of time for reflection.
This is an example of his work for those who aren’t familiar with him. This particular painting is N°14, 1960 exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco.
I wanted to try and replicate the sense of depth and colour that Rothko achieves with paint but through a photograph.
Over the last few years I’ve been building a collection of close-up metal abstracts (i’ve entered a few into past competitions) and this seemed like another good opportunity to expand my collection. Here’s one you might recognise.
The Execution
I’ve just bought myself a new guitar, a Republic Resonator, steel guitar to play Delta-slide. Seeing as it is so shiny, I thought I could kill two birds with one stone and for-fill the traditional definition of Reflection and achieve my conceptual idea.
However, I needed to try and capture the depth of colour for my Rothkoesque photograph.
What I decided to do was add coloured gels to my flashgun. As you can see from this picture I cut strips of red and blue gels and laid them over the flash. I actually held them in place with my sto-fen-omni diffuser rather than a rubber-band but I did this for illustrative purposes.
I actually overlaid the gels in the middle of the flash so that I had red, purple and blue light emanating from the source.
This was the best ‘out-of-camera’ shot that I achieved.
You can see where I cropped this to get my final entry.
Conclusion
There’s not a lot more to say. Regarding the competition, I’m a victim of my own ego. I appreciate that few people would have been able to extract even 1% of the above from the image I entered without further commentary. As a result I’m not complaining about the score I was given or the comments the photo received:
I am a little bit disappointed that there’s not more love for abstract photography in here but I understand that it’s all subjective.
By writing this post I wanted to show everyone that while the final image might not have looked like much (or anything for that matter) there was a lot of thought, experimentation and passion behind it. Ultimately, in my eyes, that is what this competition is all about.
Panzer
I promised everyone I would do a write-up explaining my entry into last months competition Reflection so here it is:
Background
First of all, I’m going to provide a bit of background information about myself which will put what is to follow into context.
I’m a 23 year old Graphic Designer and a year ago I graduated from the BA(Hons) Graphic Design course at The Arts Institute at Bournemouth. Thanks to my parents, I have been immersed in Fine Art and Design culture all of my life and thanks to a certain secondary-school teacher, I have been formally studying Art and Design since I was 15.
Ever since my Fine Art GCSE, I’ve used photography to engage, inform and express myself artistically. During my Art Foundation course (between A-levels and University) I was introduced to Black & White SLRs and Darkroom processes. This experience led me to buy a dSLR and get involved with the OCUK Photography section.
Technical vs. Artistic
I have noticed, both in the Photography Section of OCUK and in Real Life™ that there is a rift between photographers. There are the purists who seek perfection through the ‘rules’ of photography and then there are the artists who challenge them. However, (this a bit of a cliché) you usually have to learn the rules before you can know how to successfully bend (or break) them.
Because of my background, I always approach the photography competition from an artistic perspective. I like to challenge the briefs and I always try to be original. I’m don’t try to be facetious or different for the sake of it but equally I don’t want to re-take cliché or what I would consider ‘obvious’ photographs when answering the theme.
That’s not to say that I don’t appreciate a well-taken photograph. I’m not trying to mask a lack of technical skill with pretentious, artistic ********.
I just believe that there’s more to photography than technical perfection.
I also don't want to follow the herd. Everyone has done the headlights-over-the-motorway long-exposure or the make-water-look-like-clouds shots.
I'm not saying I haven't taken some of these myself, I'm just saying I think the competition should be used to push the boundaries a bit.
Concepts
One of the problems with many of my entries into this competition is that you’re not allowed to attach an essay explaining why and what you’ve done (kind of like I’m doing now).
The rules clearly state:
(That’s why I waited until the results were out before writing this post.)
During my degree we were taught that the concept is more important than the finished piece. I would argued that this is usually not true in the real world but at degree level, it gets the students to think about why they are doing something rather than just making everything look pretty. Many of my photographs are conceptual and it is very hard to convey much, if any, of that under-pinned thinking through one final image.
I’ve come to accept that because of this, I’m never going to score that highly in the competition (as we can see from “Reflections”).
However, I’m going to continue to work this way because I enjoy it and the competition gives me a reason to continue taking photos.
The Concept
For this photograph I wanted to do more than just shoot a shiny thing.
Therefore, I decided to focus on a different definition of reflection:
An artist I admire very much is the abstract expressionist Mark Rothko.
I’ve stared at his paintings for hours during my life-time and this has provided me with plenty of time for reflection.
This is an example of his work for those who aren’t familiar with him. This particular painting is N°14, 1960 exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco.
I wanted to try and replicate the sense of depth and colour that Rothko achieves with paint but through a photograph.
Over the last few years I’ve been building a collection of close-up metal abstracts (i’ve entered a few into past competitions) and this seemed like another good opportunity to expand my collection. Here’s one you might recognise.
The Execution
I’ve just bought myself a new guitar, a Republic Resonator, steel guitar to play Delta-slide. Seeing as it is so shiny, I thought I could kill two birds with one stone and for-fill the traditional definition of Reflection and achieve my conceptual idea.
However, I needed to try and capture the depth of colour for my Rothkoesque photograph.
What I decided to do was add coloured gels to my flashgun. As you can see from this picture I cut strips of red and blue gels and laid them over the flash. I actually held them in place with my sto-fen-omni diffuser rather than a rubber-band but I did this for illustrative purposes.
I actually overlaid the gels in the middle of the flash so that I had red, purple and blue light emanating from the source.
This was the best ‘out-of-camera’ shot that I achieved.
You can see where I cropped this to get my final entry.
Conclusion
There’s not a lot more to say. Regarding the competition, I’m a victim of my own ego. I appreciate that few people would have been able to extract even 1% of the above from the image I entered without further commentary. As a result I’m not complaining about the score I was given or the comments the photo received:
I am a little bit disappointed that there’s not more love for abstract photography in here but I understand that it’s all subjective.
By writing this post I wanted to show everyone that while the final image might not have looked like much (or anything for that matter) there was a lot of thought, experimentation and passion behind it. Ultimately, in my eyes, that is what this competition is all about.
Panzer
Last edited:
but you would have come to one. 
