Port Talbot

Friday went out with my friend How to take some pictures of the steel works in Port Talbot, to use as secondary Research for this Module I’m Failing. The weather was good, but not too good for Photography, the sun being too bright and it being a bit smogy on the horizon. So didn't get many good pics, one or two which I will post here, the rest are on my Flickr Page which is and Huw's is
One day i 'm going to have to go some place awesome, with good lenses, I borrowed Huws for this trip, which was nice. So maybe after uni ill take it up as a serioues hobby. God i wish i did photography in uni, Fine art is no longer for me.
Also I wasted a fair bit of time renaming my photos on my Flicker pages with this like the 10 uglyist deep sea fish, Jack the Rippers Victims, Other names for Steel and iron. I thought it be better than DP100000 and shit like that.

The Road

UM...I’ve read a few things during this project outside of uni that have a lot to do with the work I’m threatening to make. These being 2000ADs Thrang's Future shocks, The Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons Again, 2000ad in general, The Road by Cormac McCarthy, the Filth by Grant Morrison, And I’ve Started reading J Conrad's The Heart Of Darkness. Other stuff I’ve read this year that has nout to with Uni is Babylon's Burning: From Punk to Grunge By Clinton Heylin, Vic Reeves's Sun Boiled Onion and The last volume of The Losers by Steve Diggle. All these Books were Awesome.
However the Road is connect to my prints for obvious reasons. The book has these bleak descriptions of a post apocalyptic America and my prints are messy images of some post apocalyptic city. Though out the book there are these briefs descriptions of the landscape like this" In The long gray dusk they crossed a river and stopped and looked down from the concrete balustrade at the slow dead water passing underneath. Sketched upon the pall of soot downstream the outline of a burnt city like a black paper scrim". So there’s plenty to take from for my prints. Again very good book, I think this is the only post Apocalyptic book I’ve read with no Sc- Fi, mad max themes in at all, which is nice, and which makes it a very bleak and terrifying book, but it got this father and son things that is very umm sad and tender.
Also they are making a film of it, very good people involved, including John Hillcoat, Viggo Mortensen, Nick Cave and best of all Omar from the Wire Michael Kenneth Williams ( oh how I miss the wire , also I’m currently reading Homicide By David Simon, creator of the Wire.). Should be good.

Last Chance

Got about 8 weeks left so I need to work....here is a four week time table, I need to get two prints completed in that time. The hard work begins now.
Also I’ve edited together another image using photographs...this one is better.

Four week Time Table from the 16th March to the 18th of April.

Week One: 16th Mar

• Complete Statement of Intent.
• Start one of two Prints.
• Develop print in sketch book.
• Update Blogger with information of project progress images.
• Have a Tutorial with lectures and class mates.

Week Two: 23th Mar

• Complete One of two Prints
• Take photographs for primary and secondary research.
• Update Blogger with information of project progress images.
• Have a Tutorial with lectures and class mates.


Week Three: 30th Mar

• Start the second of two prints.
• Develop print in sketch book.
• Take photographs for primary and secondary research.
• Update Blogger with information of project progress images.
• Have a Tutorial with lectures and class mates.

Week Four: 6th Apr

• Take photographs for primary and secondary research.
• Continue to work on the second of two prints.
• Update Blogger with information of project progress images.
• Have a Tutorial with lectures and class mates.

Week Five 12th Apr

• Finish the second of two prints.
• Update Blogger with information of project progress images
• Have a Tutorial with lectures and class mates.

Solving Problems

I've scanned a few photographs and messed around with them on my very out of date image editing software to try out some of the solutions that were discussed during my previous tutorials.
The idea was to create the sense of endless and awe with my city landscapes prints, and to sort out the problems I have with depth and the boarders of my prints. I thought that removing the boarders and using collage and layering to create repetitive patterns would achieve this, and to some assent it does. The images does give the sense of an endless gray, concrete city stretching beyond the horizons; however I need to recreate this on a much larger scale and to execute it more accurately in the print making room.
The images would also benefit from being edited with on Photoshop, but there’s no time for that.
I also created some images with a red tint to see how that would look. I like it, but I’m not sure if it would open a big can of worm problems, like why red and a not another colour? also keeping the red the same tone on all prints would also be difficult and again there’s no time.

"Cocksucker!".

"No! Woo"
Deadwood is awesome...can't believe its based a bit on the ture people/events...anyhow nearly finished a print...need to move on now.
Not too happy with it. It’s ok, but doesn't solve many of the problems already mentioned. But it’s a start. A very late start. Need to start a new one this week! Must complete about one print every two weeks now, tall order.
I’ll work on the print though with pen...fix it up a bit. I did also produce a colour version...but as I’m creating a serious of prints depicting the same city i need to keep them all consistent, which is a problem with mixing colour.
Next print i, m going to work on will be a lot smaller and from the point of view of looking up, woo.

NO! 9 WEEKS LEFT.

Only 9 weeks left, going to fail this year again if I don't do something about it now. Anyhow I’m redoing my statement of intent. I know what I need to do and I’ve got a good picture of it in my head, if it works or not is another problem, but no time to worry about that, I just need to pass this term. Anyhow here is my tutorial write that solves alot of problems.
There will be allot of posts on here over the next 9 weeks so bob ......

Tutorial Write Up.

Problems:

• My work is not clear; the viewer does not see my attentions.
• I don’t quite fully know my own attentions.
• I judge my work aesthetically.
• I am drawn to these aesthetic qualities pattern, mark making, scale, lines, Shades and tone (light and dark) but my prints are too messy and distorted.
• My images are flat and static, no good if I want to create a sense of awe.
• I am more interested with my printmaking techniques, than meaning of my work.
• My film making has the sense of awe, has movement and an atmosphere my prints lack.
• My prints boarders are a problem, they need to exist beyond their boarder.
• Tiff feels I need to clarify my intentions; I can’t avoid politics, what is dystopia, why dystopia over utopia.
• Need to know self, what I want to create
• Need about what the viewer will get from my work

Solutions

• Clarify statement of intent
• Work out, write down- form intro to statement of intent, this is me, this is what I am about; move on to what viewer will get out of my work.
• Clarify what I want to do.
• State what I don’t want and what I do want.
• State that I am trying to create a sense of awe and fright, each piece should answer a question, intention, from statement of intent.
• What do I want the viewer to see?
• Focus more on the what the prints say, not the printing process
• Simplify my prints
• Remove boarders from my prints
• Add depth, awe and atmosphere to my prints
• I could solve problems by layering objects in prints without employing photographs.
• Use the film stills taken from my short film footage, recreate that look create in my film.
• Cover walls with prints of city, in micro and macrocosm.
• Each piece will depict one aspects of me, and answer one question from statement of intent, for example, size – insignifcatent, be watched, unseen wealth, power, and so on.
• Light-shade need get imagery clarified.
• Detail, add detail to my prints to create the above feelings. Example; a human figure against a towering skyscraper.
• Pattern, create a sense of endlessness using pattern, but break that pattern with detail.
• Create, print and present a city that answers the questions asked in my statement of intent (or depicting myself when in contact with my feelings towards the city, the future, sc fi fiction, music and IT).