Part 3: Image Development

Exercise details:

In this exercise I will be taking an image and trying to focus in on different areas of the image; presenting the image in different ways, and in different aspect formats.   Key questions (from the handbook):

• Do some images seem to have more drama because of the way you have cropped them? 
• Has the focus changed – have you made the original subject of the image seem more or less important?

The image that I've chosen to focus on is an Asian street market photo.  I chose this image because it is quite busy and offers potential for a varied range of crops:

The 10 (cropped) images:

UNFRIENDLY

This man stood out in the original picture.  The gaze is rather unfriendly and unwelcoming. The stare and the body language screams, "go away!"  Overall I find this crop - and the resulting image - to be quite powerful.  I like the directness and intensity of the emotion.  I think this would make quite an interesting portrait illustration. Strip away the background and have the focus all on the man.

 HARVEST

Harvest was an obvious association; a good crop of apples. I like the repetition in this image and the subtle shifts in the colours.  But overall, the image is rather dull and of no great relevance.  There is little "narrative" and it lacks any kind of context to give meaning to the pile of apples.  But I suppose this image could act as an interesting starting point for an abstract drawing or painting.

APPREHENSIVE

This boy on the edge of the picture caught my attention. The boy is clinging to his father and looks apprehensive. I wanted to try and enhance the drama by the tight and claustrophobic cropping.  I feel that the long narrow format adds some drama, and you almost feel as though you are looking through a crack in a door and peeking out at some worrying scene outside.  Overall, though I wouldn't say it is a particularly engaging image - rather mundane (despite what I said about the emotion/crop).

SALE

I like this crop.  There is a lot of life and energy in this scene.  In the full picture, the eye flicks around lots of detail, whilst here in this image, there is a concise narrative of the man eager for the sale of his apples.  The composition is also quite pleasing to me - seems to conform to the rule of thirds and there is a pleasing diagonal cutting across the image from the bottom right (going up alon the edge of the apples).

FADING

I was interested in the fading fascias of the buildings.  The texture and grey tones are visually appealing to me.
But not much drama in the crop/image though.  As a photographer you'd move around the scene and get better framing and composition, focusing on interesting areas of the building(s).

PRIDE

Of all the images this is the one that, arguably, has the strongest composition, visual interest, and hint of narrative.  I've read into the Sikh gentleman a sense of pride in his market wares, whilst the potential buyer inspects a piece of fruit contemplating purchasing.  There is interest in the foreground and background and although the eye moves around it seems to rest of the expression of the stallholder.  Again, a strong diagonal cuts up from the bottom left leading the eye into the image.  If I were to draw or paint this image, I'd ensure that the gaze is particularly engaging as the focus (as it is a little blurry on this tight crop).

RUBBISH

I cropped to the rubbish at the bottom of the photograph.  I was interested in the textures and contrasting materials - paper, concrete, rubber, plastic, fabric, organics.  Not much drama perhaps but strangely interesting to me!

PROCESSION

The shop dummies looked to be in procession.  The colours are intense and bright. The visual repetition seems to create a serene mood.  But certainly surreal given the content.

FEARFUL

I was roving around the main photograph experimenting with different crops, and I cropped tight to this woman's face on the left edge of the market.  She is barely noticeable in the main picture, but when I cropped I was interested in the emotion on her face.  Although she probably wasn't feeling fear in real life, there is something fearful in her expression caught on camera.

This image reminds me of the importance of looking, looking and looking again when composing an image from a real life scene.  There may be incredible potential in a small detail/area, easily overlooked because the eye is looking around "at the big picture".

HOME

I was curious on how things would look if I took out all the people and just focused on the buildings and the perspective.  The word home came to mind.  Not only is this a market, it is surely a collection of homes where people live.  However, this image is not strong.  Although it is busy with some interesting details, the overall composition and framing lacks drama/impact.  I feel it would be a very different - and better - image if the tops of the buildings were in the picture frame.

Final reflections 

Although it didn't seem a particularly promise exercise at first reading, I feel there has been a lot of learning and reflecting in it.  I think an important conclusion to draw is that the illustrator must be sharply focused on the dynamic between composition, content and the focus of the image.

During Drawing 1 I was very mindful of composition and content.  But Illustration 1 is making me more reflective on the need to create/achieve a focus for the illustration's "message".  I think I'm starting to get an understanding of what the handbook's states as an image's hierarchy, What has a precedence in the visual pecking order? And perhaps how it can be achieved with content, colour and composition.

Creating an illustration based on one of the crops

I've decided to create my illustration based on the first image of the ten, the unfriendly one.  I'm drawn to this image for the illustration because it feels as though I haven't drawn many portraits recently. Portraiture is an area of drawing I feel I want to improve; I never feel particularly confident drawing portraits and life drawing.  But I also feel it will be a challenge to capture an unfriendly mood without going too strong into hostile.  Or going the other way and achieving only moderately aloof!  It will all be in the rendering of the expression.

Here is the final illustration:

Firstly I decided to keep things monochrome in keeping with the original photo.  Colour would have disturbed the effect I wanted to achieve.  Also, I'd say the lack of colour suits an unfriendly mood. 
The portrait is drawn in watersolube graphite - a media which I'm fairly new to and one in which I wanted to experiment with.   I'm not displeased with the portrait itself (especially given that I'm working in a media that I don't have much experience with).  If I were to give the drawing a final judgement I'd call it "adequate".  


The type was a separate drawing, and added in Photoshop.  I went for a jagged and spiky style trying to represent the emotion itself.

I wasn't particularly enamoured of the guidance in the handbook to, "position the text alongside

the image".  This suggestion seems a little flat footed.  The single word made me think of poetry titles, so I experimented with adding some poetry to the image.     Although I'm unsure about the addition of poetry; I think I've made it a little more thought provoking compared to the dull handbook suggestion.    Although, integrating the typography into the drawing isn't too bad really:

Final thought:  I feel my image is perfectly "functional" as an outcome.  Stating a strength:- I would argue that the drawing is perfectly fine as a portrait showing some of the emotion I set out to achieve. However, I think the illustration is pedestrian, dull and very safe.  

I'm thinking of my tutor feedback again: Whenever I try to "do the job" - perhaps I'm subconsciously playing a bit safe and not quite in tune with my inner voice as an artist.  My 2nd experimental drawing (at bottom of this page) is perhaps a much better outcome from the exercise?  That image is a lot more more instinctual to me and from a deeper source of expression.

I think I've seen many times that looser and freer experiments turn out better than when "trying to get it right."  Perhaps that is sometimes what I worry about on this course, the getting it right can switch the brain into the logical side, inhibit the creative process and lead to more literal work (rather than the lateral work I'm attempting to achieve).

Further experiments 

After reflecting, I felt the urge to do some fairly open ended experiments.  Just to relax really... just see where things go, and not to try and create a "good piece of work".  Just creating and experiment for the sake of it.  I sometimes feel, when following a course such as this, exercise-by-exercise, perhaps there isn't enough opportunity to go off on a tangent and create random stuff (which isn't particularly part of the expected exercise outcomes).

Experiment 1

I pondered the idea of combining a quick and loose sketch combined with the photo itself.
Some kind of hard blend in Photoshop?  Try different effects on different layers.
The very quick sketch and photo crop:

 

And now below, using Photoshop overlaid on top of the photo and various hard layer blends / effects:

An interesting effect I think.  Possibilities for more future experiments.  The choice of image in the first place not a particularly great choice perhaps, but at least I find the outcome visually interesting in itself.

Experiment 2

I think the last image put me in the mind for something sinister, brooding and fearful!  Therefore, I took the crop of the boy and tried to enhance the "apprehensive" mood in a quick sketch:

The image was produced with 2B graphite and white oil pastel, scraped and scratched into the graphite to create a tense and moody visual.   I then took this image into Adobe Sketch on my iPad and just went a bit mad with brushing over the top in order to try to create something different and more abstracted; trying to feel more instinctual and subconscious in my mark making:

I wasn't trying to create correct and accurate features, my aim was to try to explore and enhance a mood of tension and apprehension.    (**Note - this is the image that I refer to above in my reflections on the outcome from this exercise)

Also with apprehensive text added: