Digital Collage/ Layering
After looking at David Hockney and his work, i wanted to try and look into layering and different ways i can use it to display and showcase my work. As i am looking at both digital layering and physical, i wanted to try as see which would be best for a final outcome or if layering works with my imagery at all. At the moment, i believe physically layering my images will be fun and a different way of working, especially now as everything is modernized and digital however, i believe i may end up in working digitally for my final outcomes as it is easier and you can display them in a lot more ways than physically as there is a limitation to how much you can work into an image before it starts to lose its wow factor making it too overcrowded and overlooked.
Layering images can make a whole new look to an image, apply it into different contexts and warping its perspective in a way. I wish to do this in some resort as my main goals to show an audience a perspective on my work which they may have not seen before, i want to open up minds to different possibilities and i feel Hockney, Westley and Luxemburg do this amazingly.
I made all these images in photoshop by adding images, usually two, into different layers using dodge and burn to allow certain parts of one of the images to show through the other, allowing me to manipulate what the viewer can see and what they cant, similar to Gerhard Richter and his overpainting imagery.
I like how simplified this image looks even though it is two put together, almost making it feel natural. However, i don't think this process or the way i displayed it turned out as i don't believe it actually changed anything about the image. What i mean by this is, i don't think it was truly necessary to do anything to this image to make it look that much different to the point it physically changed the impact to the image. When comparing it to the original, i think it looks better as its more clean looking, this to me looks choppy and cheap, which is not good at all. I want to work with this further and try and figure out how i can change this to be impactful and worth while.
Even though this is the same method, i like how this image turned out than the other two. Even though i do like this one more and i think it is more visually pleasing, i don't think it adds anything worth while either. Unlike the artists i have looked at where everything they did is meaningful and impactful, meaning they can describe a why to everything/ mostly everything they have done, in this i cant really do the same. I can tell you that i did this to change the perspective but to describe why and what to i could not say. I think this is where i need to change in the project, the wall i need to get over to find my true meanings of this project.
Evaluation:
With this work in particular, i feel as if i am on the right tack into making something truly meaningful and impactful however, i don't think that is achieved here. I like the idea of digitally layering my images, changing the perspective slightly, almost as if you are struggling to see what's going on and your surroundings. I think i should work on this idea little more adding context behind the work and truly ask myself 'why am i doing this?'. i feel then i can change this work more to a more refined outcome than dancing around an idea. I think i should also revisit this area to shoot but also to think, i want to go and sit there while working on my images, even if its just making my contact sheets, picking out what i believe are my 'best imagery, from these shoots as i can fully emerge myself into the project allowing my brain to think more logically and practically. I think also changing the work to be in colour, even though i changed it to black and white as i didn't want the images to feel too full and overcrowded, i think it will work better and be more true to a perspective of 'artistic realism' (my own perspective of what i deem to be the perspective of me, what i see).
