Matt Wisniewski Analysis

Wisniewski has created a particularly successful iteration by overlaying portraits with organic patterns—from flowers to jagged peaks to a Rorschach blot. He came to the combination through experimentation. “It just sort of clicked,” he says. “Natural elements tend to be a little simpler and fit together a bit more obviously with the portraits than urban elements.”

I really like the way Matt experiments with a range of different materials and the images I've chosen obscure the subjects face which i also really like.

He mentions in one of his interviews that he takes his portrait pictures first and then experiments with different textures and finds a texture that co responds with the portrait.I like this because its like he is reading there personality from the inside and trying to convey that on the outside.

The first picture is of a chic looking kind of girl i can tell this by the leather top and the quiff in her hair and Matt has tried to convey this by collaging her with coral over her hair and part of her face this could indicate that she's a kind of hard girl strict and not sensitive.

I like the second picture the best because of the contrast of the black and white to colour i love this kind of idea, The fact that Matt has used blue and hints of yellow paint suggest peace and tranquillity so maybe this person is a really peaceful one and humble.

These two pieces would effectively look really cool together because of the way they are set up the woman figure is turned different way to the male. The fact that the connotations of the woman are not sensitive and quite hard and the male is calm and peaceful immediately creates a binary opposition between the two.

Overal i think these pieces are composed really well and link in perfectly to the exam theme 'Covert and Obscured".

My Ideas for the theme

For my theme I've come up with 4 different but closely related ideas
my first inner theme will be Contemporary Hidden identities this will include me hiding the identities of my subjects with maybe newspapers over there faces or distorting them somehow using inspiration from Frederique Daubal who cut out magazines and placed them over his subjects.

My second idea for my film will be a Costumes satirical hidden identity theme where ill be quite exaggerated and put makeup on my subjects maybe go for the superheros theme, inspiration will be from Cindy Sherman she poses in a range of self portrait pictures dressed up as different people.

My third idea is to use my spy pen and take quite sneaking voyeuristic pictures of people or if not successful i will still take pictures of people with my SLR camera maybe on a busy street in London.

My fourth and final idea is to do some mixed media pieces in the style of Matt Wisniewski such as below. I think these pieces will look really good with the contrast of black and white to colour opt if i decide to take them digitally it could work quite well aswell.

Candid Photography (Digital)

Candid photography referes to taking a picture of your chosen subject without there knowledge, this is most commonly done. It links into the theme because to take a picture of someone without them knowing you would probably have to hide the device you are taking there picture with. Which links well with covert.

This is a photography taken by the artist Jason Martini its a candid shot and i think it was taken with a film SLR. From the position of where the photograph is taken it looks as though he took this whilst crossing the road and to capture a portrait picture as still as this his camera must have been on a fast shutter speed setting.The setting of this picture looks like it was set in america because of the iconic skyscrapers and streetlights. The black and white colo makes this photograph look as thought it was set in the past with the little snippet of the car on the right side this adds to my theory.

To take this picture i sat down and pretended to eat my lunch whilst being on my phone and i quickly took this. The blurring on this woman shows how fast she was walking its a good effect to convey movement. 

Taking Candid photography is quite fun and tricky but it could also be risky if i did it in a urban area some people might catch me taking a picture and be slightly alarmed and maybe aggressive but overall i ha no problems in doing it and i enjoyed it.

Shadows

Another idea for the theme could be shadows,Shadows obscure the identity of a person as much as masks and costumes do. But not only the identity of the person is obscured also the complicated shapes and details of that person.

This photograph is a print made by Lukas Vasilikos the piece is called 'Shadows'.
I really like the way he has composed this piece with a load of people walking down a street and there shadows being shown.The way he has shown the actual person and the shadow could contradict my theory on how shadows obscure a persons identity, but the people shown are blacked out this could also create a good theme responding to the exam theme. I don't think this piece was unedited i think most of the shadows in fact most are edited in using photoshop, this is done well but it then lacks realism which is what i really want to convey.

This is my attempt of trying to do the shadow technique. I found this really difficult to achieve because you can't use a flash camera because of course the image won't show and you can't use a particular normal camera because it will come out too dark. So to achieve this outcome i had to set up a desk lamp on a table opposite a wall, it was then really easy to capture. I took this photograph from profile because  i wanted to get some detail in the piece detail meaning some eyelashes and lips and facial features i wouldn't have achieved if the picture was just from the front.

This is another picture i took, The big ben is completely blacked out. This was actually taken with flash on i think this is why the building is so dark. I like the detail in this print as being the opposite to my first print the fact that it was taken in daylight makes it more effective. The strongest bit in this photograph i think is the clouds they really work with the context of the photograph.

Overall i found that to capture shadows is going to be very difficult especially if i was doing it with a SLR film camera and taking Candid shots, its much easier just to take the pictures and then edit the shadows into it. 

Moodboard

This is my mood board of ideas which i could do for my final outcome. Most of these pictures are from artists included in the exam. These images are from the artists:
Sally Mann
Wes Naman
Danny O Connor
Lucas Simoes
Natalia Pereira
I really like the idea of obscuring a persons identity or distorting it.The Artistes that do this well are My own researched artists which are Natalia Pereira, Lucas Simoes and Danny O Connor.
The image with the string tied around the models face is really strong it hints distortion as well as discomfort i think this particu;ar image would include a lot of health and safety precautions.

Covert and Obsured Exam Theme

This is my mind map of potential ideas responding to the title "Covert and Obscured'