As I began formulating scientific ideas for this project, I went back and forth between using kinetic energy as a theme or using natural elements as a theme. Naturally (no pun intended), I chose the nature-oriented one because of the different textures in leaves, flowers and twigs. Soon after shooting the photographs, I began thinking about the presentation of my photos, not one of my strong suits I would say. It's not that I don't enjoy coming up with ideas for presenting my photos, but I would much rather spend my time taking millions of photographs. That being said, once you take a bunch of photos, you want to present them nicely and professionally, so I try to come up with innovative ideas for my presentation.
Luckily for this project, we had the opportunity to work with Beth Mullins in coming up with ideas for our projects, which certainly helped me a lot. Beth is incredibly creative in her personal work and that definitely translates into her advice. Between the two of us, we came up with numerous ideas for my project, which gave me a lot to choose from for my final product. I decided for my photographs to cut them out and arrange them in pairs as to have the different textures interacting with one another. It's difficult to tell in the photographs, but I think the couples complemented one another well.
I have, for the most part, addressed some sort of textural element in most of my series and this collection was one in the same. Hearing that this project was entirely dedicated to texture obviously made me excited and I'm glad I got the chance to explore more uses of texture in my work. However, this project was still distinct from my others because it was a black and white series shot in a studio as opposed to directly in nature. Adjusting the lighting of these objects definitely made my series more complex and dynamic, but I hope to return to the outdoors and let nature guide my photographs soon.
Largely in this assignment, my intentions remained uniform, except when it came to presenting my photographs. Originally, I was going to put these "larger than life" flowers and leaves into a vase, but given the time constraint and unrealistic nature of that plan, I started with Plan B. Not being entirely sure of what Plan B entailed, I decided to start cutting out the images and went from there. Through talking with Ms. Seal, we came up with the plan to mount the photos on the wall in twosomes. In hindsight, I'm glad there was a time constraint and technical difficulties with my first idea because I would not have discovered my final product otherwise. That being said, the vase idea was original and unique, so I partly regret not giving it a fair shake (perhaps in another project).
Lastly, my choice of materials. Probably one of the most important decisions I made with this assignment, was choosing which materials to use. I ended up with six different leaves, two flowers, one twig and a peacock feather. My favorite material to work with by far was the peacock feather. Not only does this material look incredible in black and white, but it looks even better in color, as it was slightly unfortunate to have to make it black and white. In the future, I would like to incorporate more peacock or other kinds of feathers into my work because of their colorful and textural qualities. Since my scientific aim for this project was regarding biology and the make up of different natural items, I think the leaves, flowers, twig and feather did a wonderful job of exemplifying that intention.
Overall, I am pleased with the outcome of my series and hope to include texture in my next assignment.
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