Final Project Proposal and Artist Research

Final Project Proposal:

The concept of my final project will revolve around adventure and how the things you see and experience in life and the paths you choose to take shape who you are and how you perceive the world. I plan on using a collage technique and create a feeling of cohesiveness between the images by connecting the images in a narrative fashion. My narrative will focus on my dog, Huey, as he adventures beyond his dull life and into new places. The "story" will split based on the paths that he decides to take, and these choices will ultimately shape how he views the world, even if he looks the same on the outside. This concept relates to me because I'm not the most adventurous person, and I would really like to try to push myself beyond my limits and live a little bit more instead of cooping myself up most of the time.
I plan on starting the shooting process the week of Thanksgiving. I will start by taking photos of my dogs at home the Tuesday and Wednesday before Thanksgiving (or the Thursday before Thanksgiving, if time allows). I’ll also visit the woods near my house the weekend after Thanksgiving (11/25 and 11/26) to get some pictures for background and any other interesting objects I might find there. The following week, I plan on visiting Mount Hope Cemetery and the Sunken Gardens near campus on Monday (11/27) and Tuesday (11/28), and taking enough pictures to start creating my final images in class on Thursday (11/30). I’ll continue working on my images in class on Tuesday (12/5) and come in outside of class on Wednesday (12/6) so that I can have my images prepared for the work in progress critique on Thursday (12/7). Following the critique, I will continue editing and finishing my final images over the weekend and the following Monday (12/11).

Artist Research:

1. Hüseyin Sahin (https://www.artpeoplegallery.com/digital-photo-collages-huseyin-sahin/)

I love this image because it ties the two images together seamlessly. The perspective that the picture has provides a lot of depth to the visual field, and somehow having the iPhone at the center, even though the grid is entirely cleared out, separates the railroad track enough to make it seem like there is an image within the phone itself. I definitely think it would be cool to try and use this technique in one of my collages. I might use the railroad track as one of my backgrounds/landscapes, or I might use my phone as the center of the image and have one of the animals I photograph coming out of the phone. I might also end up taking a picture of the picture of the animal through my phone and make a collage with that image to have a layering/mirrored effect.

2. Tony Stromberg (http://tonystromberg.com)

Horses have always been the most beautiful animals to me. They have a dreamlike quality and don’t even have to be facing the camera in order to have an elegant appearance. Their silhouettes alone are breathtaking. I felt that this image portrayed all of these aspects of the horse, which are aspects that I hope to include in some of my images. I might choose to include a headshot, side-shot, full body shot, or close-up  of a horse in several of my collages. I hope to incorporate light and shadows in an interesting way, as I feel Stromberg did in this image with the warm light filtering in through the window. It would be nice to try and take the pictures of the horses during sunrise or around sunset in order to get this effect.