birds in flight - compositing on the ipad - on art and photography

Murmuration by Fiona Watson - etching

I went to the London Art Fair 2 weeks ago.

OH ( my other half) came too.


And there I found birds. Soaring and free.

OH found free whisky, and kept himself happily amused while I drooled over the birdies.


'Murmurations' by Fiona Watson and birds in flight from 'Mirando al cielo' by Rosa Basurto were the most memorable images of the day from my perspective.

works by Rosa Basurto

I found the images uplifting. Something to do with the birds.

I have a thing about murmurations.


This one is fairly extraordinary. Amoebic. Visceral.

Anyway, you get the picture.

I started wanting birds in my images.

And as I don't have any photos of flocks of birds I realised that I might need to starting cutting and sticking some in. Compositing, as it is otherwise known.

So I started playing around with my ipad using tools for cutting and sticking.

These are some that I use on my ipad.

I started with a stone.

flint stone

I added a photographic landscape

Then some texture, some lightening and finished with an imagined landscape.


Complete with birds.

flint stone composite- imagined lands 

There will be more stone images. I have a lot of stones from around the world.

But first I need to photograph lots more birds.

And teach them how to fly.............


Not to mention refining my cutting out skills.




You can keep up with my 'stone of the day' experiment here


Some of the apps that  I use are listed below;


Snapseed for a variety of lens and texture effects

Juxtaposer for superimposing images

DistressedFx   for textures

There are many out there, and many are free.

Just like the birds.

And apparently the whisky.....

Elusive

"Elusive" is currently showing at Camberwell Space in Camberwell College of Arts. Alongside this yesterday was a symposium about self publishing with "Self Publish , Be Happy". As a photographic exhibition it is interesting and enjoyable, but also elusive as the title suggests. The works are hung without titles or authors; slightly irritating as one has to use a map to work out which work belongs to who. There is also no explanatory text to describe the authors' intentions; I am sure this was deliberate, but I felt it diminished  the overall experience. The free catalogue contains an essay about three of the works, but the rest are left for the viewer to make what they will of. 

The work above by Verdi Yahooda , entitled "Romillys Tools- an incomplete set" interested me , as I had previously been looking at Susan Hiller's work in archival boxes, which was varied and fun. This work was different; the old box was left closed, and I wasn't immediately sure whether I was permitted to touch it and open the drawers. Having opened the drawer I found prints of old tools printed on plain paper, with strange haloes around them, as if the artist had had difficulty in Photoshop. I have no idea what the haloes were about, and will probably never find out. 

I had been thinking of presenting some items from the home as if they were in a museum archive, for example the contents of a make-up bag, or drawer. Seeing this work made me realise that I don't want to do this in a three dimensional format. Maybe taking photographs of items in archival boxes, or as some form of catalogue would be more appropriate, in the manner of Christian Boltanski, as seen at Chelsea last week.