DSDN 144 Project 3: Final Image Choices

So, I've finally made it. I've captured my five final images for my final project. I couldn't be happier. Or more tired, frankly. Duct taping the walls to mark electrical cabling, getting weird looks from my floormates about the lack of light in the hall at odd hours, and having to fend off questions about my project. But it was all worth it.

What I've created, I feel is rather spectacular in an odd way. Light is energy in one form. Here I am highlighting energy in one form with another form of energy. I think that's pretty cool. The images I've created show an intense matrix, a network of energy that perforates the building, supplying all the lights, all the rooms, and all the sockets. It's one hell of a network, and I really have to commend the electricians who did it decades ago. In a way, this network of energy is like the veins and arteries of the building. It is alive! In a weird, non-living way.

Making the unseen seen in this case really helps you understand what little of the world we see, both in an energy sense as well as a physical sense, as in not being able to see the cables or the energy that runs through them.

Light painting straight lines on the ceiling is really hard. I can attest to that. Doing the second image in the dark took me at least 10 tries, just during the FINAL shoot! And really, I would say it's still not that amazingly straight. Having to stand on your tip-toes and draw a straight line while holding the torch at an optimal angle for the camera is really tricky. I don't recommend it if you're under time constraints.

Overall, however, I'm really pleased with the results, I achieved what I set out to do, after changing what I wanted to do once, and I'd call that a success.
I really wanted to capture this as a documentary style series of images (or image pairs, in this case), and I've done it. I wasn't sure to add the location in on the images, but in the end I decided it went with the documentary style I was going for.

One of the things I really wanted to achieve is a really bland setting that would let the light painting really show through as the dominant aesthetic, which the building I live in lent itself perfectly to. The lack of adornment on the walls was really a lacking in my favour.

Given more time I'd want to study the electrical plans some more and do one or two more spots. But marking up the electrical cabling accurately is really time consuming, and given the time constraints imposed by my other courses as well, maybe that one is better left for another time.

So, without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, I give you "The Unseen"...

DSDN 144 Project 3: Contact Sheet / Final Shoot

The final contact sheet for the final shoot of the final project. It's so META!! 

DSDN 144 Project 3: Aesthetic Test

One thing I really want to do before the shoot is see what the aesthetic I'm going for will look like. The idea of a direct comparison suits what I'm trying to achieve, namely trying to make the unseen seen. One of the things I need to decide on is how the two images interplay in the single frame. The nature of the light I'm using is a rather blue-ish white light. While this does make for an interesting image, it might be overkill? 

Possibly the highlighting of the electrical cables could be black and white.

...Which is what I tried out here. Overall I think it makes the image a little more subtle, while at the same time offers a different kind of contrast. It has a classier feel to it as well. The blue almost seems a little bit tacky in comparison. 

Oh, and don't worry, the masking tape is only there as a marker for the final shoot. It won't be there in the final images. 
One thing I also really wanted to achieve is the sense of blandness next to something completely other-worldly, that still has an element of technicality.

Another thing I experimented with for my photos was testing to see how the images were altered if the angles of the torch was changed. I discovered that having an actual light bleed along the walls, ceiling and floor helped to show the space as well as giving the sense of the "energy matrix" more form.

DSDN 144 Project 3: Choices from Third Shoot

I've closed in on my final spots now. These are the five photos of the 5 different spots, I just need to refine the actual photos. I'm going to do a final shoot on Monday night, and achieve these spots just the way I want them. For this shoot I experimented with different colours as well as electrical arrangements, however I decided that simplicity is best. I've also decided that for colours, my white light is best. However, in the first four photos, I had the white balance on the wrong settings, which meant that the light came out far too blue for my liking. In the final image, I had figured this out and adjusted it to the correct setting to counteract this blue-shift.
These images are all of spots that dominate my life significantly in my Hall of Residence.

Location 1: Stairwell

 Location 2: Kitchenette

 Location 3 (possibly 1 in stead): My Room Entrance

Location 4: Bathroom Corridor

Location 5: Fire Escape

DSDN 144 Project 3: Contact Sheet / Third Shoot

DSDN 144 Project 3: Choices From Second Shoot

I found a new aesthetic I want to test for this third project, and I think I've finally nailed the idea. For this shoot I was really trying to test the aesthetic and understand the electrical plans of the building. Surprisingly, there are actually a huge amount of cables in the walls, floor and ceilings, so I have a feeling to not overdo it, I would do different sections at any one time, a concept that I tried to experiment with here.

Here I experimented with doing the light painting with no flash-light exposure to capture the actual surroundings. It was here that I began to realise that there are a hell of a lot of wires, and that the lighting itself illuminated the scene when there was enough around. 

A little bit of a rogue light going on here at the bottom middle of the shot. The aesthetic achieved in darkness is more interesting, and kind of portrays the space as almost non-existent, flipping the standard world on its head. Usually we see the space but not the electrical cables. Now we see an abstraction of the electrical cables and not the space.

Here I experimented with the aesthetic of taking shoots that had a flash-bulb exposure. I exposed the image for a few seconds with the lights turned on, then flicked the lights off and painted my electrical cables in the darkness. The overall image than creates this aesthetic.

Here I had a look at the floor around my room, and according to the plans, there are a lot of deviances from the main central cable. One thing I really need to think about doing is using a big ruler to do all the straight lines, because for this aesthetic to look good, I really need to make sure it looks really crisp.

Here I made a number of mistakes with regards to the continuity of all the lines. I also chose too many lines to do for this image. I need to think about marking out all the lines with masking tape before actually painting them. This would save any doubling up of the lines and also keep my lines very consistent between images. Overall however, I think the bright lines in darkness is a more effective aesthetic.

For this image, the overall composition of the space could have been much better, so in that respect it is lacking. I tried to split some of the available cables across two images here, just so I get the idea of seeing if fewer lights looked better. The aesthetic of the flash-bulb exposure is not as effective as the straight darkness, so for the next shoot that's what I'll be looking at in more detail.

Another thing I want to try is seeing what the images could look like using different coloured lights to highlight different types of electrical cables. I could use one colour for the electrical lighting, one for socket power, and one for miscellaneous power appliances.

DSDN 144 Project 3: Revised Proposal

For the last project in Photographics, I want to capture the unseen. I want to capture the things in our everyday world that we simply take for granted. There is an extensive matrix that is all around us in out lives, at home, at work, and at university. This is the matrix of the electrical cabling. There are cables in every single wall that surrounds us, and I want to make them visible. Light is energy, so displaying the presence of energy as light is a natural atomic progression. I'm very keen on achieving this through light painting. I want to find a way of getting much better at using this technique effectively and to convey the ideas that I'd trying to portray. One of my inspirations for this was the Wi-Fi light stick, that made visible the invisible fields of information in a 3-D space. I really want to document the electrical cabling that we just forget about. The style I want to achieve is a documentary style, showing the real world that we can see, right next to the real world that we can't see. I want to capture the images in pairs, so that I can really document the spaces I live in.

The way I plan to make these images is to use a standard exposure alongside with a long exposure, where by using the bulb setting on my camera, I can expose the image for as long as I like. I have the plans for the electrical cabling that I have been given access to by my Hall of Residence's warden. Sadly I am not legally allowed to post these plans on the internet, as this information being available could potentially endanger the lives of the residents. For my examples, I'll find freely available plans on the internet. During the long exposure, I will then paint the electrical cabling on the floors, walls and ceilings with a torch.
The purpose of the true image accompanied by the painted image is to document the spaces I live in and how perforated by electricity they are. Them being next to one another will allow for a direct comparison. To make sure that the light looks as natural as possible, I want to use a rather small aperture, which would then allow all of the space to be in focus.

I chose this idea because of a fascination with the unseen, and then when I saw the Wi-Fi light stick, I had my idea. Sadly, I don't have access to such technology, nor the knowledge to assemble it, so I went for something far more doable. I asked for the plans, was given them, and then I had my concept. I think this series of paired images would definitely interest people because it is displaying something people just don't think about any more.

I want to capture this concept via a series of pairs of images, showing different places in my everyday life and how the electrical cabling is evident there.

DSDN 144 Project 3: Precedents

I found some appropriate precedents for Project 3: Light that fit with my idea of analysing energy currents and tracking the lines that we don't see in our everyday world. They inspired my ideas for the project and are both beautiful and astounding.

My first precedent is a group of people who developed a method of measuring the invisible patterns of the wifi network in an area. These people are: Timo Arnall, Jørn Knutsen andEinar Sneve Martinussen. They created a "light post" that measures the available wifi strength of a given point through the amount of lights lit on the post. The lights go up the length of the stick, and when the wifi is weak, the height of the lights lit is low, and when the wifi is strong, more lights light up and the lit portion of the post extends much higher.

Taken in Oslo, copyright Timo Arnall

Taken in Oslo, copyright Timo Arnall

This presentation of the non-visible as something much more tangible and visible, in this case a light painting, makes the whole thing far more real. In a way, wifi signals aren't even real to us. We only see them as little bars on our phones and laptops and don't experience them per se. This presentation of them as something far more real is therefore why these images are so interesting. 

Pablo Picasso is an inspiration to light painting all over the world. It was some of his light paintings that made the art mainstream. He made it popular and brought it to the world. His small, arguably inaccurate sketches were done with a tiny little lightbulb attached to the socket.

Taken in Vallauris, copyright Pablo Picasso

Taken in Vallauris, copyright Pablo Picasso

His light paintings were uncommon at the time, and the art was only just starting to appear, so in many ways it's this showing what is new and different that makes his work a precedent for me. I want to do the same. I want to show things that are different, things that we just haven't seen before. I want to demonstrate originality.

My third precedent is a lady called Vicki Dasilva, who does some fantastic work in the field of modern light photography, and who calls up a very unique look at the whole art form. She uses a combination of different bulbs and colours to generate a whole range of different effects. Most of her light work is used to enhance the area in the photograph.

Taken in Paris, copyright Vicki Dasilva

Taken in Paris, copyright Vicki Dasilva

Her work is really cool and presents a whole range of different light effects. Sadly I don't have her tools at my disposal, but the effects she does are still very achievable.

Photos from:

Timo Arnall: Work

Pablo Picasso: Work

Vicki Dasilva: Work

DSDN 144 Project 3: Choices From First Shoot

For this shot, while the idea is very cool, like light paintings in general, it's not terribly crisp at all. I think for this, I should definitely look at making stencils, since they would also aid in the cool futuristic look I'm trying to achieve. Let's face it, the light painting is pretty sh*t. But the idea for it is rather cool.

Possibly looking at this idea also from a mapping or pathfinding sense?

Reminders? Again, a stencil would greatly improve the overall feel of this and not make it feel as crap. This is the future! It's a holographic display, not a crappy light painting.

Potential direct interaction with the environment itself? The light could take on many different forms depending on the area it is used in.

Highlighting and selecting specific items?

DSDN 144 Project 3: Contact Sheet / First Shoot

DSDN 144 Project 3: Proposal

For the last project in Photographics, I want to try and merge the digital world of video games and CGI with the real world and see how that could be integrated. One of the things that I'm very keen on experimenting this with is light painting. I want to find a way of getting much better at using this technique effectively and to convey the ideas that I'd trying to portray. One of my inspirations for this is the idea of augmented reality, overlaying the real world with a CGI that aids us or adds things that couldn't be there. This also stems from films like Tron and Iron Man, and how that kind of effect of a virtual environment could possibly be overlaid in the real world to give us a new sense of the spaces we are in, or for mapping or cataloguing purposes.

The way I plan to make these images is to use a flash-bulb exposure, where by using the bulb setting on my camera, I can expose the image for as long as I like. Then, by using a camera flash or external lighting, I want to show the actual world that exists, and then when everything goes dark again, paint what I want over the top of this world, generating the special effects that I want to show. Ideally for the flash part of the image, I want to capture the space as naturally as possible, so I will try to use electric light rather than the flash. I still want everything to look real, and not flat, as flash has a tendency to do.
To make sure that the light looks as natural as possible, I want to use a rather small aperture, which would then allow all of the space to be in focus.
The spaces I really want to use are the spaces I live in, and I want to show how they could possibly be enhanced using virtual realities.

I chose this idea because of a fascination with the virtual world, and how it could potentially be integrated into our society. I'm extremely enthused by the idea of the future, and I love future technology. This idea of overlaying the real world with a digital aspect stems from the ideas of holograms used as data displaying methods, as well as the Google Glasses prototypes, and how that could integrate with everyday life.
What I want to highlight in my images is how the digital environment really isn't a bad thing, and that, if done well, could become a very important tool in our everyday life.

I want to capture this concept via a series of images, showing different aspects of my life enhanced with digital technology.