Artist Statement

Artist statement

Everyday life, the shapes, lines and textures are the foundation of my portfolio. The simple things that are not so simple after all. In this portfolio of images I am exposing the simple things people would simply walk straight past, they are more complex then you may first think.

I decided to call my portfolio “Life’s simplest beauties” and it consists of a

mix of black and white and colour images.

All of my photos have been taken outdoors and they are all part of the themes of lines, shapes, objects and textures.

My original idea for the portfolio was to base it on black and white abstracted landscapes, but as I started taking photos it was hard to get the landscapes to come across as ‘abstracted’.  So then I moved towards the idea of shapes and lines, objects and textures both man-made and natural. This idea worked a lot better and photos started turning out more abstract. When I was taking the images I thought of the viewer and basically put myself in their shoes viewing my images and the aim was to have the viewers think ‘What is that’? I have done my job as an artist if this is what the viewers ask themselves.

I did very little editing to the images; I sharpened most of the photos and brightened or darkened them, cropped Number 4 8 and 10. I used the Vignette tool on some of my photos as well, Number 2 and 4.

My Abstract Portfolio - Life's simplest beauties

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Assignment Research - Ciro Totku

Ciro Totku

Totku was born in 1967 in Moscow. He is a Cambodia-based Russian photographer. There is really not very information on the Internet about Totku unfortunately.

Jihad

Phnom Penh, 2007

Latest Photos

This photo annoys me, because I cannot work out what it is. It looks like sand or mud and a sand dune, but the bottom part of the photo also looks like a blanket with a scary looking fish underneath it! I am not sure. I congratulate Ciro on this.

Since I don’t know what it is, it is hard to comment on what he might have used to create/manipulate this photo. It has no explanation of how he took any of his photos or what equipment he used to achieve the images he has.

Assignment Research - Mark Raymond Mason

Mark Raymond Mason

Mark Raymond’s pictures are quite abstracted. Pretty much all of his work is landscape. It’s all very vibrant and colourful, although I do love a nice black and white, I love colour in photographs, it makes me feel happy and I can more fully appreciate the scene they are capturing, it just feels more real to me. There is a lot of texture in his images, such as old peeling paint, burnt plaster and cracked soil. He has won two awards and had nine exhibitions, three of which have been solo exhibitions. Raymond’s work is very earthy, natural, it doesn’t look like there has been too much editing done to his images, except for maybe colour changes and the usual brightness/contrast, blur and sharpen.

 

Burnt Plaster, Paper

Calgary, AB

Urban Portfolio

This is a lot going on in this photo! Different colours and textures keeping you busy. This photo has quite a high level of abstraction. Raymond does not specify the brand or model of camera he uses but in the Q&A part of his website, he states that he has only recently started using digital cameras and up until 2010 most of his portfolios had been shot on film. I thought that was interesting. The lighting in the image is very natural and there are a lot of shapes and lines in the photo making it complex to view.

Assignment Research - Brett Weston

Brett Weston

Brett Weston’s photographs are also all black and white. Brett has 14 different portfolios and has had four exhibitions. Weston was born in 1911 in Los Angeles. His father was also a photographer, so it obviously runs in the family! At the age of thirteen his dad pulled him out of school and took him to Mexico and made him his apprentice. He died in 1993 in Hawaii. It does not say on the website, but I am quite sure that Weston used film camera’s to shoot his work.

Reeds

Japan, 1970

Japan Portfolio

This photo is awesome; it doesn’t look like real scenery at all! When I first saw this photo I thought, ‘what is that’?! And I believe if you ask that question when viewing a photo, it is most definitely abstract. The black lines look like shapes that have just been painted on. The light in the photo looks natural, but I think it may have been altered slightly to make it a bit brighter because the water is not transparent, so the sun is obviously reflecting off it. The picture looks quite soft. I do really like this photo, it’s very cool. As I said before, it looks like a painting or a drawing.

Assignment Research - Michael Kenna

Michael Kenna

One thing I noticed about Michael Kenna’s work is that all of his photographs are in black and white. He has also been to a lot of places in the world! Michael Kenna was born in England in 1953 and has won several awards throughout his photography life and held numerous exhibitions, both one- person and group exhibitions. I really like his style, it’s edgy and stunning. I am guessing he uses long shutter exposures to achieve his specific look. Since the photos are black and white, it makes the photo more dramatic and because of this, at first glance it is hard to determine what it in the picture.

 

Ferro de Gondola

Venice, Italy, 2006

Italy portfolio

When I first looked at this on the website, I was like ‘what the heck’! But it wasn’t until I opened it and saw that it was a gondola that I actually knew what it was. This is one of the few slightly abstracted photos on Michael Kenna’s website. All of Michael Kenna’s photos have incredible lighting, this one is no exception; it looks like he has used the vignette tool in Photoshop to create the darkened effect on the edges of the photo. This photo makes me want to just drop out of school, move to Italy and live a simple life. It is nor happy, nor sad photo.  It doesn’t state what brand or model of camera or any equipment he uses on the website.