BAJA'S BLOG

Just wanted to share with you guys my links...

http://deathstriker903.deviantart.com/

http://www.youtube.com/user/Baja903

Thanks and Enjoy ^_^

I have been meaning to write a reply back to you but I wanted to make sure I give a full reply and great contribution to the reply so that you could understand from my perspective of why I have chosen certain issues and certain artists and certain questions.

Without further ado allow me to begin my explanation or my reply.

I need to understand few more things to get a clearer focus, and then fully narrow down my research.

I'd like to ask from you to have a look at some of the questions that I came up with and advise me on, which one of the questions would suit better with my concept.

The title that I am aiming at the moment is Shadow Reflection...

Why Shadow Reflection?...What are you trying to explain?...

Well...as I have been trying to express what I am going through, I devised a different route into expressing and exposing the self portrait concept. The sketch below shows me standing or walking down ordinary streets of London. However if you observe my shadows, they are weird, in one way they are deformed by the amount of personalities that I inhale in myself.
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I am not the most narrative person however I would improve my skills as I progress from my mistakes. Please bare with me in trying to understand my perspective.
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Shadow Reflection
The reason why the shadows are distorted and wavy or even deformed is because each shadow reflects to each one of my behavior and feelings or even personalities. For this instance in the sketch I have drawn myself walking away from the portrait and allowing more space on the photo for the shadows to take effect. I may not see all of them, but I surely know they exist, maybe in my realm.

How I would approach to accomplish this portrait?...

I am a Photographer, not a Professional but I have a good experience with photography and I would be using my own equipments in order to capture high quality photo with a twist and manipulation edited using photoshop to illustrate my self-portrait. I hope this post has made your mind a bit clearer about my idea.

Essay Questions
As for the essay questions I have been doing a little brainstorming to compromise all of the information together to come up with a great deal of title or question.

Below I'd like to include my draft notes that I had kept to form my essay question: (in random order)

...............................................................................................................................................
Is self portrait really a self portrait?

Person viewing the self portrait will project/associate their own life experiences on the image, creating a unique identification of the self portrait.

The power is in the viewers hands

The power shift from the person being painted to the artist to the viewer is the self portrait really a portrait of me when it will be judged by others based on their own initiative?

Can a Psychology be a part of portrait?

What is the power of the portrait?

Psychology vs Portrait

Self reflection
Reflection of personalities
Distortion
Artists perception
Artists control
Ozy Mandis

How the power moves from one to another, Who really has the power ... ?
The power is in the viewers hands ?

The power shifted from the sitter to the artist and to the viewer, is the self portrait really a portrait, when it will be judged by others based on their own initiative/experiences.

The power of a portrait?
.....................................................................................................................................

The note is a mess but I have been trying to narrow down the questions that reflects to my self-portrait concept.

With the combination of all the notes that I had written down, I can think of this question:

The invasion of Photography with the reflection of psychology in portrait

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To explain the question further:
I would talk about how the psychology is played out within a photography and how much it can affect the audiences/viewers.

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One of the artist or photographer who did similar concept with shadows is William.M Gatesman and here is his link. http://wmgphoto.com/thumbnails-1.html

The above image is exactly the type of feeling that I want to portray but with a different twist that would hopefully make the viewers feel uneasy. My intention is not to make the audience feel uneasy but I am only doing this concept because it is a self-portrait project.

I'd like to pursue this concept and the structure of the essay could consist:

• Small introduction about the importance of portrait
• Exposing the nature of photography with the reflection of psychology through portraiture
• Conclusion
  

I should have been in the grip of this project already by this time. However I have been jumping from one idea to another, perhaps I haven't shown and proved the research in this blog because it was all done withing my mind. However I feel this is the right path that I am taking and therefore I am blogging it. I would explore more in depth about this research. The title for this concept could be 'Revealing Secret Identity' this doesn't concern with gender changing or anything but just trying to see through a portrait.

Tutor Phil's last presentation was about Death within a Portrait and I found it very touching also very disturbing to see a dead person photographed in style. Especially the baby portraits was the ones that I couldn't dare to see but I forced myself.

At the time when Phil showed one photographer who used the Photography to reveal the dead persons spirits within his portrait, I didn't consider too much of the idea. However as I started to think more about narrowing down what I truly wanted to show through my portrait was that I have another me within myself who wishes to be free and WILD. I feel I am concealing that version of myself inside of me. Below I have drawn a sketch of my idea and roughly edited a picture of myself to try and clear the idea.
The Concept
The Prototype 1
The Prototype 2
As you can see from the above images that I am remaining calm and happy but is this really what I want to show?...What kind of person is the one inside of me?...Better than me?...Worse than me?...Is it the real me?...

So many questions...

Truthfully, this is how I feel everyday, there is part of me that I want to be extremely wild and bad person but part of me that is stronger and better who knows what is right and wrong is concealing. Sometimes I feel weak and I feel it has taken over me. I guess everyone feels the same, but how exactly?

CONCEPT NUMBER 2

My second idea is similar to the previous post of Research Photos - Image 5 - Dreams by Gosia Janik. I was thinking of using the typography style of how the words are coming out of the subjects hand. However this time, it would reflect on what I am feeling and going through. The words could include:...betrayal...injustice...heartbreak...sorrow...hatred... etc. I could go on...

The subject in the portrait (myself)...would be walking somewhere in the street but not in an ordinary street. Somewhere ghetto with graffiti involved, to help guide the feeling that I am trying to send out to my audiences. The typography could start to drop from his pockets, or his trousers. Of course the typography would be styled and wouldn't look plain and boring. See below for a sketch and rough photo editing to help guide the idea.

The Concept
PROTOTYPE

Reference
http://mocoloco.com/art/upload/2008/05/donovan_whitechapelrd.jpg

















Screenshots

Okay, so I have been thinking quite a bit to come up with a wise question instead of just ordinary ones, however I would still include certain questions that I feel needs to be considered instead of left out. The following are my questions:

What purpose serves a portrait if it cannot show the real inner self of the subject, such as a human?

Can an identity really be discovered through portraiture?

Then I came up with this question where I feel it is the right one, however a little support towards this question would be much appreciated.

The fundamentals of secret identity through portraiture

The reason being for the above question is to expose what the person in the picture is hiding from the camera or from the reality.

Feedback is most welcome. Thank You

I went on to look up on different artists and photographers but mostly photographers, to try and find some influences. Below are couple of photos that I found from DeviantArt and FlickR. I hope to use one of these photos to be part of my influences and help me guide through my project to finalize.

IMAGE 1 - THE KEY OF THE HAPPINESS by PABLO BARRA
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kitaro_san/459299691/in/pool-me_-_only_the_best_self_portraits

"How different everthing would be if we could erase the mistakes of our personality such as pride and prejudice"

This picture captured my interest because of the effects being used. When you look at this image without having to read the title of the picture and the caption provided by artist, you would have thought that the person in the photo is trying to erase himself from the reality or at least wishing that he could. The written words in the photo I think includes: suicidal and other disturbing words, however everything is written in Spanish. So it doesn't resemble anything about suicidal.

IMAGE 2 - NOT SO MUCH... by HERPIPEDREAMhttp://www.flickr.com/photos/benjaminasher/3065924614/in/pool-me_-_only_the_best_self_portraits

" ... "

This portrait feels to me it has a strong dynamic and feel. The subject is furious and wants to reveal something but at the same time very unhappy and angry that it could take a lot more courage than he thought it would. I liked this photo because of its dynamic feel.

IMAGE 3 - JANUARY by FREYJA
http://www.flickr.com/photos/elsombrerodepensar/3313746841/in/pool-me_-_only_the_best_self_portraits

"Manipulation"

I really liked this portrait because of its manipulative feel to it, we are all in some sense manipulated somehow. We may not realize the truth but unconsciously we are manipulated mostly by the media. The media uses psychology games with their audiences and sends out messages that we may not realize but our brain would suck in all the information that we see, hear and feel but all this process is done unconsciously and we end up reacting to the message. For example, when you are in a cinema and watching a movie, throughout the scenes your eyes would see a logo of Coca Cola or any kind of refreshments somewhere in the scene and unconsciously you are being manipulated and then you start to feel very thirsty and then you end up buying a certain drink. But you might have thought that you are just being thirsty but you don't realize is that you are being manipulated by the media. There are tons of ways for psychologists to control us. Media is a very strong industry. Despite all the manipulation, we LOVE media.

IMAGE 4 - UNDERCOVER - by Death and Gravity
http://www.flickr.com/photos/deathandgravity/3215185604/in/pool-me_-_only_the_best_self_portraits

This portrait may not tell you a lot about its concept however from my point of view this portrait is quite strong and effective photo. Reason being, we can't see the person's eye or the full face but we can only judge this photo by his appearance. His appearance shows us that this person could be a homeless person, or a person who has lost his soul but at the same time, he is kinda smiling, which suggests us that he may not be homeless but someone who is pretending to be someone who is not, which could explain his reason for the title "Undercover".

IMAGE 5 - DREAMS - by Gosia Janik
http://www.flickr.com/photos/gosiajanik/3515499165/

For this concept of portrait I liked the idea of the typography being floating up in the air. This gave me the idea of releasing information from the subject, whilst the subject is unaware. I would definitely do a rough concept with this idea and post it up soon.

IMAGE 6 - SNAKES INSTEAD OF ARMS by MICHEL OMAR
http://tasteofomi.deviantart.com/art/Snakes-instead-of-arms-113842545

I really liked this portrait, everything is written in Spanish but the idea of things being written on his back and he is trying to capture those words and perhaps erase them from his back. His back could be the representation of his sins.

IMAGE 7 - I WANT TO LIVE IN THE WOODS by Kennedy Garrett
http://www.flickr.com/photos/turn_your_swag_on/3878553563/in/pool-me_-_only_the_best_self_portraits

This picture portrays the subject being locked in their room and probably hiding from the reality.


IMAGE 8 - by Big Daddy K
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bigdaddyk/3794442592/in/pool-me_-_only_the_best_self_portraits

I think this would be my favorite portrait, this photo shows a lot about the subjects life. There is so much emotion and story exposed on his face. However I have seen better portrait in similar context and this photo doesn't even touch that portrait.

OK, its Tuesday and I haven't had time to sit on the computers and deal with the Maya tutorials. Perhaps I would come in on Thursday morning and use the computers in Lower4th Floor with the help of Emily. So expect this post of Maya to be updated on Thursday evening...

to be continued...

The second drawing session was very interesting and quite tougher than the previous lesson. I found it very hard to measure by pencil and translate the measurement on the paper. I just couldn't understand until at the end of the session, when we walked around the room to observe one another's drawings. Then I came to realize how I should have drawn. Perhaps I would definitely try the technique during my free time. Below are the two drawings...


will be updated soon...

Self Portrait Influenced by Aziz+Cucher

Self Portrait Influence

Two weeks closer to the deadline to hand in a final piece of work. The self-portrait influence includes works of other artists and their methods applying on my own self-portrait. Such as I would choose a certain artist that interests me the most and I could use his/her drawing methods to create a self-portrait. From the previous post I have talked about different artists that I found most interesting.

Aziz+Cucher

I chose Aziz+Cucher because of their silent artwork. When you look at their work it is hard to concentrate, it gives you a chill down your spine. Your mind is finding it hard to decide whether to look at it with amazement or just ignore the image because of the fact it looks strange and terrifying.

When you fully concentrate and try to understand their work you start to realise their concept and the meaning behind their artwork hence why I have chosen Aziz + Cucher.

Mathieu Bernard Reymond

Self-portrait influenced by Mathieu Bernard Reymond

Mathieu's works are portraits of people within an empty field or within an open wide space. His concepts stay in focus and attracts the audience into the portrait by placing an object within an empty field. His portraits usually tell a story about the whole image including the subjects involved within the canvas.

I chose Mathieu because of his creative thinking and the ability to tell a story through different perspective.

Crits and Comments are Most Welcome ^^

Finally my sister's birthday party finished and having some time for myself. Happy Birthday sister, I Love you so much ^_^

In this post I'd like to talk about the artists that attracted me, many of the reasons for the specific chosen artists is because of their dark nature of thinking. The following artists captured my interest:

• Daniel Lee
• Egon Schiele
• Aziz+Cucher
• Chris Dorley-Brown
• Levi Van Veluw

The Picture of Dorian Gray