Another set of photos I made for my Coursera course! It seems all I do is post about my photography endeavours, but I do more than that! I promise!
For now though, just a few more photographs.
The task was to create a photograph in which the effect of a flash or strobe light was clearly “central to the creative or documentary content”, that included well balanced visual elements and that showed a composition based on “one or more of the pictorial structures for organisation of visual elements, such as Symmetry, Asymmetry, the Golden Mean, Pattern, Perspective”
I decided to build on my earlier experiments with blurred action where I followed similar procedures but with a flashlight. I was also thinking about Marcel Duchamp’s Nude Decending a Staircase No. 2 and early photographs depicting movement. I love Futurism and these experiments in photography.
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Looking at these works reminded my of the work of Francis Bacon and the images he collected and how he distorted his figures and I wondered how far I could push these ideas of motion, stop action, and distortion in my own photographs.
A box with photographs and magazine clippings in Francis Bacon’s studio https://www.artandobject.com/articles/skeletons-francis-bacons-studio
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I darkened my bedroom and set up my camera on a tripod. I had found an old hot-shoe flash, which I set off manually as I moved through the room. Initially I set my camera as follows: ISO 80, F/22, which resulted in a 30 second shutter speed. I used the FUJIFILM app on my phone to release the shutter. The photograph above is the best from the first set.
I felt the images were slightly too dark, so I changed my ISO to 500. I also tried to create a sense of more space by moving farther and closer to the camera. I’m quite pleased with the final image, but next time I will make sure to hold the flash so it faces away from the camera. The bright points of the flash distract the eye from the rest of the image.
Where the Art is 
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