Serieel Beeld

The first time I had a look on our schedule, Serieel Beeld was the subject that told me less. I was therefore curious to our first lesson. It turned out to be a really short one. The most important thing was that the teacher gave us the homework to realize a 12 minutes walk our journey and the way back, and to take photos all the time. We were free to choose time and place, also a “mental journey” was possible. As I had no further information, I was not sure what to do, if I should make myself a concept for kind of “special journey” or just go to the supermarket around the corner. I wanted to try something, so I made myself the concept of a “way towards my future and the way I’m coming from”. I surrounded a lake which gave me the possibility to take photos of place were I would go to on the other side, and the same for the way I was coming from. While realizing that walk I noticed that I could not stay with my original concept, because I was more interested in interesting sceneries and details I found on my way. So I took mostly photos in that style, until my batteries were out of energy.

I showed the photos to the teacher in the following lesson, explaining what I originally wanted to do and finally did. I for myself “lost” my concept, so I was surprised that he started to analyse my photos and found a new concept in it. He made me aware of that I mostly took photos of wide sceneries, but always with some kind of “border” between myself and the wideness, like leave of a tree. He asked me if I would perhaps be looking for freedom, setting own borders to myself in order not to loose orientation. I thought about that and, I must admit that, he was right. I was so surprised (and even a bit scared) what we seem to do without being aware of it, and that it is so easy for other people to realize. But finally I had a new concept, maybe a even better one, not so mentaly constructed.












I compared my photo serie with photos I had taken in the months before I came to the art academy and found out that I could find a lot of photos taken in the same way. I also saw that I had a lot of times water, air or light as a motive in them. This could be seen as symbols for freedom as not touchable, soft elements. I did a second walk, trying to focus even more on these things, and compared the new photos with the older serie and got the impression of an increase of expression in them. I also experimented a bit with a glass plate, because on the one hand you can see through it, on the other hand it is also kind of a border and reflects what there is behind one, or even oneself as kind of a transparent shadow, making your own standpoint between the world and the freedom not so clear. It was an interesting experiment to work with such an artificial “thing”, I got some good photos, whereas tryouts with Photoshop effects led more to an innatural kind of “wanna-be” look. Another analyse of my series made me aware also of details I banned on photo on my walk. Kind of momental snapshot where I was actually standing.





































Next lesson I had an interesting conversation with my teacher. I showed my tryouts to him and explained my thoughts. We also talked about the final aim of all that, the final presentation. At the end I had two possibilities left: I could make a serie of really large printed photos, hanging next to each other on a wall with some space inbetween, or realize a moving photo projection on a big wall. After some thinking I chose the second option, it seemed to fit more to my concept to work directly with light (projection), this would give a better impression. I anyway tried some prints, but they just confirmed me in my thoughts.
I also worried a bit about esthetic, because with my concept and the way I took the photos I was pretty much in very soft and smooth colors, and generally I got the feeling that esthetic is seens as blocking the expression at the art academy, but I discussed that with the teacher and he told me that in this case it would be ok, because it would support that I wanted to do.

I tried to come closer to a point for my presentation, and looked for words what I could use to realize my projection. These were:
Air, light, soft, free, transparent
Water, flow, relflecting
Connecting, movement
I was not really secure about all that and did some more photo series to focus more on these things, which forced me to use good natural light moods, so I went most of the times in the late afternoon. Finally I had a big amount of photos to choose from.

I was now ready do plan my presentation. The projection project needed some kind of “guidance” through it, especially because I wanted to “melt” photos out of different situation together, because one aim was also to make the border between a physical and mental movement more transparent. This is something really important for me, interpretation the things I see while seeing them. So I devided the project in several “chapters”, which should alltogether lead through my “journey”, letting the viewer see the world out of my eyes. The whole presentation should not take more that 3 minutes, because I thought that would be the maximum in order not to get bored.

I went to the realization with PowerPoint. It turned out to change the things again. The most difficult thing was to choose the right photos out of my really big collection. 3 minutes are fastly filled, there don’t fit more than around 30 pictures in them. So I really had to concentrate on the “essence” of all my photos. Therefore I had to leave out a lot of photos or photo effects I wanted to work with, but I had to admit to myself that just packing together a lot of photos and showing them in a short time would more destroy the effect than to support it, so I worked more minimalistic as I wanted. But after I had finally finished it and watched the whole presentation afterwards, I knew that it was well done to choose less, but therefore the best photos and put them in a senseful order. The final result was a 3 minutes projection which connects all the different aspects of my project and “takes the viewer by the hand”, guides him through the whole journey, seen “out of my eyes”. I also learned a lot how to connect the photos, because there were photos that fitted better together than others, or there were also photos that needed some kind of “border” inbetween. So I worked with fading, zoom and movement effects.



































































After having finished this project I can say that it was really surprising for me that I seem to have a personal “signature” in the photos I take without being aware of it. At first I was a bit scared of that, but after a while of working with that it started to interest me more and more, more than a constructed concept I could not hold like the one I had at the beginning. It was fun to take all these photos then, trying out different things in order to get always an increasing expression. My enthusiasm turned around a bit then when I had to choose a selection out of all the photos I took, because I noticed that it’s a different thing to make photos just to show them on their own, or to combine them to kind of new project. This was therefore the hardest part for me in the whole process, I’m not that good in selecting things out of a big amount of things I like, but I’m good to produce a lot of things once I found the theme. But I think I learned a bit how to do it while realizing it, now I see a lot of photos I wanted to bring in at the beginning as nice when you are the one who took them, but looking on the final presentation (which I can do now in a more objective way as I could during the construction progress) they would seem in the wrong place. I still have to work on choosing the most important aspects.