5th may 2014
These images were taking on some ruins in Ipswich town centre. The old church ruins make for a really interesting backdrop for my ballerinas and the arches allow me to centre my images completely positioning the three dancers and the balloons perfectly within the arch. The models look far more doll like especially in the natural positions it is hard to tell if they are 1 image taken at the same time or three separate images put together as they are all looking in their own directions.
5th may 2014
In these images I was experimenting with not seeing the models face (not having them look at the camera) I also added wellie boots into one of the images as the strange object. Ballet dancers in wellie boots.
5th may 2014
As you can see in the images I have been experimenting with different types of masks. I like the black lace masks as I feel they fit more in the theme with the ballet dancers whilst still adding a sense of uncanny. I also wanted to introduce more random props which in my earlier photos I was doing later using Photoshop and greenscreen ability’s. I am now adding them into the actual picture like I have done with the balloons. At the moment I am again unsure of whether I want to keep the images in black and white colour or part colour so I have taking pictures in both settings to keep my options open at this stage.
5th May 2014
After seeing the last set of images turn out so well I wanted to try taking some photos myself. I was able to get hold of 3 lots of ballet uniform, 3 willing models and some masks. I thought of a list of places that would suit my uncanny theme whilst also maintaining the interesting background I was hoping for. I took the models first to the Forrest then to some old ruins in the centre of Ipswich. I thought these places were both interesting as well as not somewhere you would find ballerinas. The ballerinas in the Forrest idea I got from the Collingwood fairies linking back to research in my project proposal right at the beginning of the project.
I took these images in a mix of black and white settings which I changed on the camera and normal colour as well as a mixture of natural and posed positions so I had a good range to look over when editing. Before when I have taking images with only one colour left in I have done it using the colour select function on the camera itself however I did want to move away from this and try and do all the editing on Photoshop. Personally having looked back over some of the images and comparing both ways of doing it I do think each way has its own benefits. Using Photoshop there is too many ways of doing one thing and not all give you the same effect. I think in the future if I want to keep only one colour in the whole photo its best to do that on the camera as you are taking the image. This is a scary thing to do for most artists as there is no undo button. You have to look at the image and take it on the spot, if you want a colour changed after only having the one colour images there is no way of getting the natural colour back. This is why at this stage where I am still unsure of where I’m going with these images I have taken a selection of coloured and black and white images.
25th April 2014
These last two images are two of my favourites the poses are more natural the camera is positioned in the right place there are no cut off limbs. If anything I think the last image could be cropped a little on the left but overall really beautiful pictures to look at defiantly more what I was hoping for.
However the images are still not uncanny enough I want to look more into masks and facepaint to make the ballet dancers look more like dolls than they do at the moment to make them less familiar and uncanny. If I can do this well people should question whether the models are inanimate or animate which will make them feel uneasy and I will have successfully mastered the uncanny.
