Cool poster I found in my attic...

I have no idea where this came from. My Mum doesn't remember buying it or anything. It's pretty nice though. Says the artist is unknown which is a shame 'cause I'd like to know! It reads at the bottom:

"Originally issued in 1908, and reproduced from London Transport's Historic Poster Archives in 1983 by Charterhouse Printing, London"

Obviously it was made as an advertisement for this place - Golders Green the place of delightful prospects. You can barely make out the small poem printed on a scroll just underneath the woman and child but I managed to look up the author - William Cowper - on the internet and here's what it says:

'Tis pleasant, through the loopholes of retreat

To peep at such a world; to see the stir

Of the great Babel, and not feel the crowd;

To hear the roar she sends through all her gates

At a safe distance, where the dying sound
Falls a soft murmur on the uninjur'd ear.

A rather pleasant and relevant piece of writing considering how peaceful looking the area in the poster is portrayed by the artist. 

We have the text along the top appearing on another scroll. After researching briefly the history of the London Underground logo I found this similar looking image of the logo made since this poster was released:

In comparison with the more modern, up to date version of the logo I notice they ditched the larger U and D which is disappointing. I like thinking that the letters in between the U and D symbolise the journey that one would make from their current location (the letter U) to their destination (the letter D).

After no success looking for more info on the poster, like how it was made etc. I'm left wondering whether the artist used paint primarily? Looks as if watercolour was used, definitely pencil anyway. 

Over all I think Golders Green looks like a very nice place to visit. So you could say the poster has done it's job. That's advertising for you!

Photography experiments

I've been looking through some of the photographs I've taken over the last week and tried to fuse them together. Finding 2 photographs that blend together is tough. I'm not necessarily looking for two images with similar subject matter - but images that compositionally work together. 

Here is an example:

Because of the empty space on the left hand side of the photograph, this makes it perfect to combine with an image with perhaps an empty space on it's right hand side. 

Much like this one underneath:

As I said I'm not bothered about the two photographs being explicitly related. All I'm looking for are two images that would blend together and become connected like 2 pieces of a jigsaw (kind of).

In this case I felt there was enough free space to work with in both photographs. So I got to work bringing them together and manipulating things like colour, brightness, contrast etc. 

In the end I came out with 2 final images. Here they are below:

At this point I can't decide which one I prefer! But pleased at the result. I think the black and white version has more fuzz and blur ('noise' I think they call it?) in the background, which make the colour image more appealing.

For the black and white image I chose to crop out the wall on the right hand side. I feel it took away from the main subjects of the image. Saying that I don't mind it being in the colour version.

I guess if I was pushing to relate the two images I've combined, I could maybe make the point of saying the photograph of the person (Alice) pointing the camera towards the ground, is opposing the perspective in which the other image was taken (pointing upwards, from the ground). 

Nonetheless I enjoy fusing images together and will continue playing around with my photographs and posting the results!

Un-edited Photographs from College

Niall gave us each a camera on Wednesday and asked us to take a few photographs in and around the college and it's grounds. I enjoyed wandering about, constantly observing and on the look out for things I could capture. Here are a few of the images I took.

Some amazing advertising

I found this on Pinterest last night when I was researching examples of conceptual text in commercial typography. 

It took me a second to realise what they were trying to communicate. But when it came to me I was amazed, and also deeply dissapointed I never came up with it myself...haha. Nonetheless it's a very clever use of type that combines deep sleep and the awakening effect that 'Nescafe' apparently has on people.

Symptom of a potential typo-maniac? Maybe...

So I was flicking aimlessly through my Facebook news feed earlier and couldn't help but notice this picture below... It was the most annoyed I've felt in a while, it irritated me so much that I just stared at it for a good 5 minutes. The absolute nerve someone had to post this without thinking of others!

...so is it just me that thinks the 'u' in 'Shut' looks a LOT like and upside down 'n'? Surely I can't be the only one! It's grammatical errors like this that make me question peoples judgement, NOT their political standpoint...

Experimenting with my printer/scanner/copier

I looked to my side and saw a photo of my Dad and I form when I was 1 (I think). Then I started to draw lines and I began writing random sentences along them. Anything that came into my head. I then used the word that Niall gave us on a bit of scrap paper for our group exercise on Thursday and scanned it into the copier. This led to a number of different outcomes. I messed about with magnification and scale whilst scanning and copying. There was no particular logic or plan - I just made it up as I went along. Whatever I thought looked 'good' or 'right' was included in the print out. Although this process was completely random and created partly out of boredom... I enjoyed myself! I can imagine people looking at it and taking away deep, emotional messages, interpreting outlandish symbolism etcetera, etcetera. Maybe that's how some historic, famous pieces were once created... who knows! 

Anyway, I loved playing about with the printer/scanner/copier - moving paper around, moving from colour to black and white, enlarging images and magnifying certain parts of images. It has proved an enjoyable and creative outlet and I will most likely continue experimenting with the process.

Generation: 25 years of contemporary art in Scotland

I, along with 3 friends were fortunate enough to visit Auschwitz last month during our holiday in Poland. We were in Krakow for 3 days and had booked our visit to the camp for the last day, in hindsight this was a sensible idea since the visit was like nothing I have experienced. I still struggle to put into words how it made me feel and think.

Once I arrived back in Scotland I visited the National Gallery in Edinburgh with my mum and sister. We were waiting on my brother who had been visiting friends, so we thought we'd pop into the Gallery for a wee nose! We weren't in there very long, but I moved from room to room taking in as much as I could. I didn't have my notebook with me to take down details of the artists and their work so I had to rely on memory alone. The one artist that stuck out for me was Christine Borland. 'L'Homme Double' is made up of 6 clay portrait busts. Borland contacted 6 sculptors and instructed them to create these busts based on the Nazi war criminal Josef Mengel. They were all given the same information - 2 grainy photographs of the man and a selection of quotes and statements made by survivors of the Auschwitz death camp. The quotes were mostly attempts at describing Mengels physical appearance. 

The psychological aspect of the work astounds me. Borland has conveyed the uncertainty of this mans identity using actual memories from the people who witnessed him first hand. I love the individuality of each bust, how the perspective of each chosen sculptor is combined with the recollections of Auschwitz survivors.

Yesterday, I revisited the Gallery with my friend Flora and took 2 to 3 hours exploring the exhibit. David Shrigley was another artist who stuck out for me. His work that was on display was very impressive. Various selections of woodcut prints and a collection of ceramic/clay boots of all different shapes and sizes.

As we entered the gift shop I picked up one of his books and found myself laughing hysterically. I wasn't expecting a book like this from the work I had already seen from Shrigley - but I was pleasantly surprised! 

I enjoyed these visits to the gallery and have taken on many things from each artist and their work. I continue to be inspired by doing things like this and I love discovering people who's work I can take things from.

Playing about with beach photos

Spent about half an hour on fusing these 2 pictures together. Using the editing app 'Afterlight' on my iPhone I was able to layer the 2 photographs (that were taken on my camera which I synched onto my phone using iTunes) and adjust contrast, saturation, composition, exposure etc. 

Neither of the photographs of my brother and sister were posed or set up in any way. Pretty happy I was able to achieve this with my iPhone, I suppose I have little faith in it when it comes to creative activites but this proves me otherwise! I'll continue to explore the features of 'Afterlight' and other such apps, and update my blog on my findings.

Holiday!

Up at Nairn for our annual family holiday. My granny, mum, sister, brother and I are having a ball already in the very warm weather!

Took a stroll on the beach just now and feeling the benefits of having my digital camera with me. I took over 500 pictures whilst at T in the Park last weekend and so am in the habit of capturing the environment and people surrounding me. I've always loved taking photographs, even when I was younger when it would be with my mums camera. And ever since I got my own a few years back, I've discovered how creative you can get just by observing and getting yourself in the right position to capture a collection of shapes, colours and figures around you.

Here are a few from earlier that I guess fall more into the category of 'artsy' rather than just 'observational'.

Testing the app 'Cinamatic'

Two weeks ago a man had an incident whilst out on his bicycle. He suffered a fall because of a bad heart. This meant that the local ambulance team were forced to close off the road and call in the air ambulance.

I decided to capitalise on this tragic event and take a walk down the road across from my street and take some videos of the helicopter. Of course I felt a little bad for the guy getting stretchered into the helicopter and all but - I had to try this app out right? He was fine any way, plus they were in no rush whatsoever! I was waiting for the damn thing to take off for more than half an hour... Eventually he made it to Edinburgh where I'm sure he made a full recovery!

The audio on this tester video cuts out after each individual clip but in the future I'll edit the sound out, or at least make it less obvious to people watching.

The filter choice irritated me and I settled for the default, grainy, cheesy retro look. It worked okay, but as I said I'm gonna keep my eye out for opportunities regarding subjects to film.