Experimental Photography:
A case study on Melinda Gibson and David Hockney
MY THOUGHTS
Gibson’s photo collages consist of separate images cut and pasted over one another, mimicking the shapes of objects and people. In her work, the shapes of the cut-outs provide the context for interpretation, while the photographic content assigns qualities & emotional attributes to the cut-outs.
For example, in the first collage, the discrete shapes of the head and clothing are used to represent the private and public self respectively. When placed together, the collage possibly suggests a causational relationship between the two—on the outside, the lady calmly wears a coat of contained tranquility like water in a flooded room—and she does so because her mind has already hardened like jagged ice on a winter’s branch.
There is also a distinctly poignant, almost melancholic quality to Gibson’s work because of the treatments and subjects of her photos. She tends to use desaturated, unassuming photos that would probably be considered dull and uninteresting on their own. But in conjunction, these images take on a contemplative and meditative quality that invites thought and reflection.
MY THOUGHTS
David Hockney’s Joiners consist of multiple photos of a subject taken from different angles and at different times, which are pieced together in one composition. He claims to use this technique as a way to overcome the limitations of single photographs which cannot show multiple perspectives, nor the passage of time.
Personally, I do not think Joiners has succeeded in doing so because the technique still ends up with one static composition from one single angle. I find it more apt as a criticism of photography as a medium, which David Hockney has possibly acknowledged it being.
To me, Joiners is a negative commentary against the human tendency to process the world through rigid and deconstructive analysis. When something is taken apart and pieced back together, it loses a certain beauty and value—a subject as personal and dear to Hockney as his mother becomes robotic, even slightly grotesque, when pieced together using the sum of her parts. But this is unlikely to be Hockney’s intended interpretation based on comments he has made about his work. And I doubt his intention was to ‘deconstruct’ his mom’s face.
EXPERIMENTATIONAL OUTCOMES
For this class assignment, I used photographs that I took while overseas in June. I experimented with various techniques from Melinda Gibson and David Hockney's work to create a series of 3 images.
1.
Stranger's Home
BACKGROUND
Took this photo on the first night of my bike tour in June, at the border town of Bukit Kayu Hitam. I stayed with a very kind stranger who saved me from having to spend my first night by the side of the road in the rain.
It was a huge relief to have a complete stranger offer me his home while I was 1200km away from mine, especially at the end of a really long and crazy day. But at the same time, I couldn’t help but feel completely NOT at home, even though I was super grateful to have a hot shower and a mattress to sleep on. I wanted to represent these mixed emotions with this composition done in Melinda Gibson’s style.
PROCESS
Couldn’t find appropriate looking images from the magazines I had at home, so I used an online photo of a typical HDB living room and edited the colors to resemble Melinda Gibson’s desaturated, moody style. Wanted to juxtapose the cold, clean lines and colors of the background image with the comparatively warm and cosy looking image of a Singaporean living room.
I felt that this pose was appropriate because the palms clasped together could simultaneously represent relief, gratitude and despair, which was kinda how I felt.
2.
SICK OF THE ROAD
BACKGROUND
Took three photos of the road while taking a break near Sik, Kedah. It was my third day of cycling and I was beginning to find the hours on the saddle really repetitive and tiring.
Around afternoon is usually the time when the road and scenery just starts blending together in a mess for me. When you’re really bored on the road, most of the time your vision is just focused on one spot in the distance, while objects like cars and stop signs occasionally catch your attention. Sort of like seeing the world in bits and pieces which is what I wanted to communicate with this Joiners-style composition.
PROCESS
Uploaded the three photos to an online image splitter tool, which gave me a 9x9 grid of squares for each photo. Afterwards I pieced them together in Illustrator, before picking and scaling individual squares from each of the photos to create the final composition.
Had to cheat a bit by duplicating some squares and using a slight drop shadow to create more separation, because the original photos weren’t different enough.
Overlaid everything with a crumpled paper effect and an emboss effect to make it look more raw and realistic. Also treated it with sickly, greenish colors.
3.
Strange Cultures
BACKGROUND
I took this photo of a wall while visiting Borobodur, an ancient Buddhist temple in Indonesia. According to my taxi driver, each carving represents a different story in Buddhist literature.
Upon reaching there I realised I wasn’t enlightened enough to be able to appreciate the carvings and they were only cool to look at for about 30 minutes. I am not proud to admit this haha. With this composition, I wanted to illustrate how puzzling and sometimes unwelcoming foreign cultures can be when travelling.
PROCESS
Used Photoshop to cut out the individual slabs/tiles of the wall, and then pieced them back together in an irregular, lopsided arrangement.
Applied a dark drop shadow to each of the slabs to create more depth effect. And then decided to make everything monochrome to complement the black drop shadows.
THANKS FOR VIEWING!
