Delighted to have been awarded Associate of the Royal Photographic Society following completing my BAhons in photography last year. I created a virtual exhibition using artsteps https://www.artsteps.com/view/5f2061e04f01f2024be328fe. Below you can see my book and some of my work towards the final project.
Here is the link to the book ‘Variations on a theme of Flora’ An exhibition guide by Susan Baker
https://www.blurb.co.uk/bookstore/invited/8790876/8dce3b1fd556b430399a48b1366b3ba0f45252c7
Variations of a theme of Flora Susan Baker A slide show of the exhibition images and a video of the book. Music ‘If’ by David Gates Played by Susan Baker
The virtual exhibition is found on ARTSTEPS click the next link and open in a new window.
https://www.artsteps.com/view/5f2061e04f01f2024be328fe
A Walk round my garden is a collection of videos and images with the video sound track I also add a backing track of a sound file recording of my garden.
I add here a link to the final images I am going to use presented using an iPad app folio book.
A collection of Cyanotype Photograms
The topic for my degree major project is variations on a theme of flora. I want to show lots of different ways to present flowers. I am influenced by photographers of flowers and art and science. I divide my work into six areas botanical Illustration and cyanotype photograpms, F64 and Photomontage, colour wheel, In camera multiple exposure, Ice and Water.
BOTANICAL ILLUSTRATION AND CYANOTYPE PHOTOGRAMS
My first two galleries are of wild flowers from my garden. Firstly as digitally photographed and secondly as Cyanotype Photograms.. In the photographs I wanted to capture like a botanicial illustration the different parts of the flower and also I have included the scale from my light box. In the photograpms I am influenced by Anna Atkins. Anna Atkins was the first person to print and publish a photograhically illustrated book. ‘British Algae , Cyanotype impressions, Part 1’ (Atkins,A. 1852-1854)
I collected flowers and photographed them on a light box with daylight continuous lighting. I prepared the paper with cyanotype solution and let it dry whilst I was photographing the flowers. When photographing the flower you would arrange the plant so they can be viewed from above. When creating the photogram you create the image by imagining the view from below and placing the plant down onto the paper. I exposed with UV light.
F64 AND PHOTOMONTAGE
The photographer Imogen Cunningham included many images of Magnolia and Calla lilies. Her images were often close up and sharp in focus as a member of the F64 group she used the smallest aperture and took straight photography without painterly effects. In the photo montage of a pink tiger lily you can see my interest in the botanical illustration and capturing the anatomy and the colour of the flower. I used a spider checker 24 grey card and created custom balance throughout my work. The dissected flower image shows the leaf, petal and the male and female parts of the flower.I removed three stamen and anthers so you can see the receptacle that contains the ovary and the style that supports the stigma. I have used photo montage to combine a background of the leaf of the lily, an image of the flower head and the dissected flower head.
COLOUR WHEEL
Looking at the work of Robert Mapplethorpe in his book Flora he often uses complementary and contradictory colours. For example a using a bright primary red background in his image Jack the Pulpit, makes the primary yellow colour of the flower jump out of the image. In the images of a cowslip on a blue green background. I have gone for complementary colours, the cowslip flower is yellow, the light yellow green flower leaves, the dark green leaves and a blue green background are all next to each other in the colour wheel. In my photography I use the smallest aperture f36 for the Canon 100-400 zoom lens. The other images of the tiger lily look at the way the background affects the tiger lily my favourite is the pink.
IN CAMERA MULTIPLE EXPOSURE
In this next series I am looking at in camera multiple images. I do this in two ways firstly by setting my camera canon EOSR to multiple exposure ON func/ctrl,, multi-expos ctrl Additive, no exposures 2 or more., save source images all images, continue Mult-exp continuously and it is possible to select the image for multiple exposure. I take the first image then i can see that first image in live view so i can turn round the vase or the flower, or i can change the focus from sharp to blurred. When changing the position of the flower you are seeing the flower from a different angle which is like a cubist painting or a David Hockney photo joiners image. Changing the focus and moving out of focus is something a camera can do and combining that with an image in focus creates a very different image. I am reminded of the work of the painter Gerhard Richter I saw an image of his at the national gallery in the monochrome exhibition. a painting but it looked like a blurred photograph. You see this effect in two images of the red riding hood tulip
ICE
In the next gallery you can see my work with some small daffodils they maybe cyclamineus narcissis as they are very small. I start with removing the flower head and the stlak from the foirst module. I placed the flower heads in a glass flower arranging holder and try this on different backgrounds the primary colour yellow works well against the blue. I then freeze the flowers face down in a Tupperware, I add one mm distilled water freeze it then another mm then another until I have around 10 mm. Having photographed freezing flowers before I wanted a width of ice no more than 1 cm so the light could pass through. I suspended the frozen daffodils in the ice in a clamp above my light box and illuminate with continuous daylight lighting. Lots of tea towels to capture the water. The freezing damages the cells of the plant and you can see air escaping from the plant that becomes captured in the ice.. The photographer Fleur Olby’s clematis in ice not only has the bubbles but also has the burgundy colour escaping into the ice.
WATER
Lastly this is a gallery with the interest of water. I am using the cowslip flower upside down in a jug of water held there by a clamp. Bubbles of air come out of the flowerhead. and camera captures those. I am using a cpl a polarising screw in fliter tso I can see through the glass. I also take an image on the light box with a wet flower and get reflections of the cowslip.
Proshow produce video
A mini exhibition in the garden shed
