Activity 1: Who were Surrealist and why was photography important to them?
In my opinion, people who are known as 'Surrealists' are people who see extroainay things. See things differently to how other people see them. For example this image that was taken by Man Ray. This is a photo of a mannequin resting on a sphere a triangle. That is probably how Ray looks at this, however other people might just look at this and think, a mannequin. Another interesting bit about this is that the title of this image is Untitled. So Man Ray is trying to get people to think what they are looking at rather than doing something like, this image is of a Mannequin, then the creativity of the viewer is gone. So the main thing that Surrealist attempt to do is create pieces of art and photography and want us to think about the piece of art. Rather than tell us what it is. I also think that Surrealist try to capture the small but marvellous things about life. Surrealists also like to make the ordinary things of life look extraordinary, mad, our of place, doesn't make sense. People are known as surrealists are people who have done work that are considered surreal or are part of the surreal movement. The most common surrealists are artists and writers.
One reason why I reckon photography was so important for surrealists is because a photograph can capture and keep hold of things that us people can't. Once you've taken a photo, whether it is on your phone, with a SLR, with a film camera, I will stay on that negative, on that file for ever, whereas if you try to remember something in your mind, there is a chance you might forget it and it will be lost forever. One example in my opinion is this image which I found on the Surrealist Photography Pinterest Board. Maybe it is a bit obvious how this image was taken however, this might not of looked the same if you took it a 2nd time, or took it with someone else holding the picture. One other piece of evidence I have for photography being important to Surrealists is quote that I found on the PhotoPeagogy. The quotes are below. I think that both quotes below are showing how thankful surrealists are for photography being available. The 2 quotes are said by Salvado Dale a famous surrealist painter. The other quote is said by Andre Brenton who is considered as the founder of the Surrealist movement.
One reason why I reckon photography was so important for surrealists is because a photograph can capture and keep hold of things that us people can't. Once you've taken a photo, whether it is on your phone, with a SLR, with a film camera, I will stay on that negative, on that file for ever, whereas if you try to remember something in your mind, there is a chance you might forget it and it will be lost forever. One example in my opinion is this image which I found on the Surrealist Photography Pinterest Board. Maybe it is a bit obvious how this image was taken however, this might not of looked the same if you took it a 2nd time, or took it with someone else holding the picture. One other piece of evidence I have for photography being important to Surrealists is quote that I found on the PhotoPeagogy. The quotes are below. I think that both quotes below are showing how thankful surrealists are for photography being available. The 2 quotes are said by Salvado Dale a famous surrealist painter. The other quote is said by Andre Brenton who is considered as the founder of the Surrealist movement.
"Surrealism found its most ardent ally in photography"- Salvador Dali |
"Over time the true revolutions will be carried out through the power of images"- Andre Brenton |
Definition of Surreal
Activity 2: What role did change play with Surrealists?
I think that the aspect of 'chance' plays a massive part in the way Surrealists liked to work. One reason why is because they really liked the game which is known as Exquisite Corpses. The idea is that you have a sheet of paper, someone discretely draws the top quarter. Then the next person draws the next bit. Then you can end up with one of 2 options. You can something that looks right, or look doesn't make a single bit of sense, as a result it will look surreal.
By looking at these really good examples of corpses on the right, you can see what the element of chance is in this idea. As I said you can come out with something normal and a bit boring, or you can come out with something surreal, abstract and exciting. The most common response I have seen in exquisite corpses is a cross between human and animal. This shows you the chance involved in this game. Its shows you how the players simply don't know what the previous owner of the sheet of paper has drawn.
I decided to answer this question, I need to do more research than looking at the PhotoPeagogy page. So I decided to search Tate, Surrealism and I found the link below. It showed me another reason why 'chance' was so important to Surrealist. The reason why was because chance makes the artists feel like it being released from the constraints [restrictions] of the world to display in their art. |
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Photos that are Surreal
Activity 3: Photo-shoot
1st Set: Scottish Fish-eye Mix Up
For my home summer learning, I have decided to follow the project of "Select a number of printed photographs you have taken some time ago. Tear them up randomly. Re-arrange, either together or separately to create new images". I have decided to do this digitally with Photoshop. I will select 5 images that I have taken from a while back. Then they wil; be cut up into 5 equal sections. Each photo will be labeled 1 to 5. So if I roll 1, I take a section of photo 1. Roll 3, take a section of photo etc. To create some new photos. [Video at the bottom demonstrates]
This is the first lot of images that I made. Seeing on how I was using images that were taken with a fish eye lens, some of the images don't line up because each different image might be framed differently because of different levels of focus. This shows the element of chance in this project, which is what this project is all about.
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2nd Set: Macro Mix-Up
Below are my 2nd lot of mixed images. I liked making these ones because the element of chance wasn't only about the content. There was also chance as to whether a certain section of the image is in or out of focus, because these are Macro photos, a significant amount of all 5 images have a an area that is out of focus,
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Set 3: Sport Mix-up
Element Of Chance
These aren't my favourite mixed-up photos however I feel these mix-ups defiantly show the element of chance in this exercise. The reason why is because these 2 images below. They all both have the same 3 photos at the start. This shows you the chance, this shows you can receive anything in this idea.
Set 4: Scotland Landscape Mix-up
Set 5: New Zealand Landscape Mix-Up
The next bunch of photos were old photos I found in the loft that were taken in New Zealand around 10 years ago. These produced some interesting results with the top half with the clouds, especially if image 1 was involved because of some reason the sky appears to be black and blue.
All of the mix-ups
The Process
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On the left is a Youtube video of me making the 1st one of these. The process is usually a lot quicker however the processing speed on my MacBook pro is running a lot slower than usual.
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Best/Most Effective One:This is my favourite one. The first reason why like this one is because none of these photos put together don't make sense. Because the sections don't make sense together it feels like i have created a completely new image also because the don't make sense they feel abstract and maybe slightly surreal. Which mean it is the most effective one. The reason why it doesn't make sense is because of the contrast in colours an angles. For example the first photo is low angle, the 2nd one is a normal angle. So you can tell this is assembled of different images. Another way of telling these images are not lined up is because of the different colours, first section is a mixture of red and white, second is green, white and blue, the next one is red, white and blue. On and on.
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Wost/Least Effective One:This is the least effective photo of the idea. The reason why I believe this is because the mix up appears to be natural, it appears to be typical, it looks very similar to the images it was made of. I reckon I know why this happened. This happened because all of these photos were taken with a fish eye lens. That is why the photos don't appear to be linear, they appear to be circular. As a result of this the middle section appears to be natural because the buildings appear to line up, especially with the white building and brown building, appear to look similar. The top section, the clouds defiantly line up because the clouds are consistent. However the bottom half, the pavement, doesn't line up. So this is the only section of the image that appears to be Surreal. However there is one good part of the image. These images wee taken with a fish eye lens, however at slightly different levels of zoom. This means that mixing the images up means it doesn't form a perfect circle. However this makes the image feel rather surreal and bizarre.
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Final Set
I decided to do one more set for this project. So I found some photos that I took inside Sutcliffe park in A level photography or my Typology unit. I chose 5 photos that were significantly different. However with this set, I thought rather than make 5 mix ups. I should make 15/20 maybe even 30. The reason why I thought I should make around 30 is because I wanted to fully explore the element of chance in what images were chosen. I wanted to see how many sections were repeated in each mix up. There were some really surprising results.