Professor Eyeball and friends

I've spent the last couple of days slowly scanning some of my son's drawings from when he was younger (a job I've been meaning to do for quite some time). In the back of my mind I've been trying to think what to do today for this project (I'm more than aware that I'm turning into the rabbit from Wonderland and struggling to catch up with myself sometimes).

And then I realised the answer was literally staring me in the face, Why not base this week's instalment on his artwork?

After a quick trip to the local pound store to get an assortment of weapons, I headed upstairs. It's a beautiful day today so I though 'to heck with it' and opened the curtains wide to let the daylight in.
Then I began my imaginary battles with Professor Eyeball and his villainous friends...


Dark Dino

Fencer

Dark Knight

Robo Square

Robot Guard

Jaw-O-Saurus

Saw Bot

Jammy Dodger's Aunt

Professor Eyeball

The Strangeness of Self

Massive apologies for the gap in posts. I'm not sure what happened there. A one week respite that over ran by a little. Nevermind, it gave me a chance to catch up on some important DIY and continue getting the house a little more finished. I've now learnt how to make a sideboard, a kitchen unit, bathroom storage and a tooth!

In the gap between posts I heard back from another competition over at LensCulture. Taking on board the constructive advice offered to me from their last comp I gathered together some self portraits (most of which were taken for my Leica Monochrom Mondays Project and presented 'The Strangeness of Self' as a my entry for their portrait competition. I thought I'd share the pictures entered and the accompanying write up about my entry as it was very positive and I was pleased as punch to receive such nice remarks.



The Strangeness of Self

Review given (identity of reviewer is kept anonymous) 

Clayton, I find your investigations fantastic. 

I really enjoy how you are so freely exploring notions of the self. 

So far because I do not see that many photographs I can honestly tell you that all of your images are powerful and evocative. Some images do remind me of surrealism, specially 05 to Frida Kahlo and 04 to Rene Magritte somehow, but also to contemporary artist Duane Michals. I see you as developing your own unique voice within the frame of fine art photography, however there is a history of this type of photography that I suggest that you become fully familiar with. The tonality of your shots is so rich, good job using the blacks. I wonder if the stories that are alluded under each image will be included in the image, perhaps as borders or handwritten text, I wonder how important it is for the viewer to know the origin of these images, since you added them but do not mention it in your statement. Image 01, is personally one of my favorite in the series, I see a lot of play, humor but also an in-depth analysis and a disposition towards deconstruction, which I feel occupies many of your images and it is also at the core of the “strangeness of self”. 

I really hope you keep developing this work and keep participating in portfolio reviews and competitions once you have the work thoroughly finished. I see so much potential and so many avenues yet to explore.

I have added some links to support you in your photographic journey, 
Thank you for your submission and I wish you good luck in your endeavors 
Keep shooting

And for today's post I thought it only fitting that I continue with the theme of surreal portraits. 

Into the Deep

Today's plan was to make a fantasy inspired fairy picture, but that all went out the window when I started looking for some dragonfly pictures I had taken (lesson learnt, be careful how you file your elements. I still can't find the shots), and found some pics of an octopus I had taken for an article written in Black and White Photography Magazine about simple photo-manipulation.

Hey ho. I'll store the fairy idea for now and mull it over for a while. I'm sure it will surface when it's ready.


Into the Deep

Copyright: Clayton Bastiani

Model (Mermaid): Ella Rose Muse

Objectivity

I entered five competitions at the end of last year and now all the results have come in. I managed to get winning positions or honourable mentions in three of them. The two where I came nowhere were both competitions for a series of work rather than single images.

I thought the pictures worked well as a set and that they were connected well. With the Lensculture Exposures Award they kindly gave submissions a brief portfolio review. Mine came through last week and was more in depth than I had imagined it would be. The reviewer gave me some good advice which I intend to follow, pointing out how and why some of the pictures worked better together than others. At first I thought 'how can you criticise my baby?' but then I looked at my entries through their eyes and thought they were absolutely right. Why hadn't I seen what they saw? I guess because we tend to judge and criticise our own work and don't always get or take the opportunity for it to be looked at through another's eyes. We approach it through a personal standpoint and lose some of our objectivity.

This project will be a year old in July and in the back of my mind I'm trying to work out what to do with it. A book? An exhibition? More competitions? Having had a second opinion halfway through I'm now starting to contemplate the project as a mass or series of pictures rather than individual attempts each Monday. Some of the work will stay as is, others may get re-treated to bring them together a little more than they already are.

It is never an easy task to seek criticism, but a worthwhile exercise if it is constructive advice.



I have been informed that the Leica is due back to me this week so I can start working on new ideas soon. In the meantime, one more from my mini series about the life of Mr Jones...



Mr Jones was starting to feel nervous and a little hot under the collar. Maybe buying the Fifty Shades box set For Mrs Jones' birthday hadn't been such a wise idea after all.


Copyright: Clayton Bastiani

Let's Dance

It's been a busy half term and plans are afoot for taking lots of pictures over the next few days so I think I'll be keeping busy for a while longer.

In the meantime the camera's still away in Germany so a chance to play some more with my pseudonym Mr Jones...


Mrs Jones loved to dance and was surprisingly light on her feet

Copyright: Clayton Bastiani
 

 

Mr Jones

Last Tuesday I had the pleasure of joining some of the 2015 BPOTY judges, members of Black + White Photography Magazine and Vicki Painting (This year's winner) for a questions and answers session at The PrintSpace in London. The room was full of interested people asking us questions on the process of judging and choosing competition winners, as well as our opinions on various photography related topics. A daunting but valuable experience (to myself and hopefully the audience).

Black and White Photography Magazine and The PrintSpace are currently hosting a competition to win a solo show in the PrintSpace building. This is an incredible prize. Please check the following web address if you'd like to find out more.

www.bwpshowcase.com

There was nothing Mr Jones liked more than to sit in his favourite chair and read a good book.

Copyright: Clayton Bastiani

Storytelling

A lot of my commercial pictures end up being used on book covers around the world. I'm not always working to a brief so I have to guess a final use for the picture and consider how it might suit different genres of writing, whether it be adult fiction, teenage fiction, crime, non fiction etc...

Although the photograph I take represents a single moment in time it's my job to create enough information to let the viewer complete the story - this may or may not be how I personally would have continued the scene but it is always interesting to see your work applied to somebody else's imagination.

It doesn't matter what subject we choose to photograph, be it weddings, fine art, sport, the yearly school photo... as photographers we are often immersed in telling stories.




Once upon a time...

Copyright: Clayton Bastiani

Sometimes we scare ourselves

I took a few sequences when I worked with Rachelle Summers recently and hopefully over the Christmas period I'll catch up with myself.

Everything I'm doing at the moment seems to be about learning and I've noticed that although everything was constant between the two sets of images there are differences in the tones of Rachelle sitting, so I present this GIF as a work in progress. Hopefully I can work out what went wrong and I'll have learnt something new to take into future goes.




Rachelle Scares Herself

Copyright: Clayton Bastiani
Model: Rachelle Summers

The Argument

I had a wonderful shoot with the model Rachelle Summers last week and had the foresight to take a series of pics that I could work on over the Mondays running up to the Christmas break.

I'm thoroughly enjoying making pictures with very simple camera trickery techniques. In keeping with this interest we worked on a series of double exposures that would work both as individual still shots and sequential GIFs.

It can get a little complicated at times, splitting the film into two, counting each step on the first so that it matches the second. Your mind can get lost in trying to work out the logistics on some of the more complicated attempts, but I think we managed to get there in the end and I'm looking forward to bringing the remaining work together over the next weeks and seeing the final pieces.



The Argument

Copyright: Clayton Bastiani

Model: Rachelle Summers

The Soul Departs

On Friday I attended the award evening for this year's BPOTY competition. It was an honour to be included in the judging process and although my social awkwardness kicks in amongst large crowds I thoroughly enjoyed the private view. Congratulations to all the winners this year. Very well deserved.



And before you know it, we're back to Monday. (This year is going frighteningly fast).



It's good to make mistakes, so long as you learn from them. This morning I made loads of them and by having to go back and correct them I learnt lots. I'm rather enjoying making GIFs and hopefully will continue to make them. They're relatively simple, fun, and offer a way of working in sequential imagery, allowing you to convey a passage of a story.

I don't always set out to make ghostly pieces, but when playing with double exposures the paranormal becomes an excellent subject to work with.


The Soul Departs

Copyright: Clayton Bastiani

The War

I initially had a light hearted idea in mind for today, but when I was going through items to photograph I came across my collection of measuring instruments. I looked at the calipers over and over again thinking they resembled soldiers with guns and in light of last weekend's events and the general inability for our species to co-exist in peace and harmony I thought I'd drag out the lightbox and make a picture about war instead.


Influences: Loosely inspired by the work of John Heartfield.



The War

Copyright: Clayton Bastiani

The Magician - Part Two

So you get these ideas in your head and you think 'you know what? I think I'll try that next Monday'.
And then you start to try and make your idea, only your initial idea won't work and you need to try a few things before it starts to come together. Then it's on your computer and again you're not quite sure how to do it so you go forwards and backwards all afternoon working out the logistics. And the clock keeps ticking 'cos your Mum's coming round for tea and you've got to get this finished by the end of today as it's a Monday project, right? and all work needs to be finished and submitted by midnight.

You also realise by mid afternoon that you don't like cutting out hula hoops! Why did you choose a hula hoop? Crazy fool. Must put aside some time to practise cutting circles.



So anyway.

A thick strip of wood, a brave model and some guesswork at where she was once that bit was sorted and as if by magic you have...





The Magician - Part Two


Copyright: Clayton Bastiani
Model: Tigerbelle

The Ghost of Eleanor-Mae

The ghost of Eleanor-Mae
Wanders the earth
Both night and day
Her killer to haunt
Forever more
Until his death
Doth close the door





Influences:

Early spiritual photography. Check out The American Museum of Photography for some examples or check out the book. Photography and the Spirit by John Harvey (Reaktion Books, ISBN  978-1861893246).

BBC's crime drama New Tricks



The Ghost of Eleanor-Mae

Spellbound

I've always liked fantasy and science fiction films and artwork. I used to annoy my Dad every evening - he wanted to watch the news and I wanted to watch an old back and white sci fi film on the other channel.

Throughout the year I love looking through ImagineFX magazine and at Christmas I always ask for a copy of the latest Spectrum Fantastic Art Book , pouring through awesome illustrations until the holidays are over.

I wish I was better at drawing and painting (I can doodle an idea, but it comes accompanied with writing to explain what it is I've drawn). Corel recently brought out a Photoshop plugin called Particleshop and since I'm getting into fantasy photography after a little break I thought I'd give it a go on this week's Monochrom image.

Stories come into your mind when you're working on pictures like these. In this case I started to imagine a witch out gathering ingredients for her spells. 

Wisps...

Model: Helen Diaz

Copyright: Clayton Bastiani

Influences: Now the summer's ended Christmas is in the pipeline. The latest copies of Game of Thrones and Spectrum Fantastic Art and I'll be a happy man.

Never enough time

I could have done with more time today, but there's lots to do and it's got little to do with photography.

Copyright: Clayton Bastiani



The pointing finger

The frustration of too little time

Green Badgers and the Headless Man

When I was a child I belonged to the local cub scout group and as part of our activities we went camping a lot. In those times before we fell asleep we would either play space battles on the inside of the tent with our torches or frighten ourselves with ghost stories - the most popular of which were tales of the giant Green Badger (I kid you not), and the Headless Man (who seemed to only haunt the toilet block making us scare for our lives if we needed the loo in the middle of the night).






Influences:

Apart from watching R.W.Paul's 'The Motorist' I've made a little list of films and clips to look through over the next weeks:

A Page of Madness
The Cabinet of Dr Caligari
The Seventh Seal
and Nosferatu







The Headless Man

Whack-A-Mole

Ghostly Capers

The Crash

Disa-Rea-Ppearing Act

Box-Portation

The Student Becomes The Master GIF

I had some issues trying to attach a video of the sequence to The Student Becomes The Master, so I thought I would try again at making a GIF and upload that here instead.

The Student Becomes The Master

In a few weeks time my son will start studying GCSE photography. In two years time he will have more qualifications in photography than I will.

For this week's post I wanted to portray the student overtaking the master and what better way to do it then messing about in the spare room once again and pretending to be characters from Star Wars?

I really must stop taking pictures upstairs and start concentrating on decorating.

Not just yet though.

A sequence of 40 pictures taken with the Monochrom, played about with in Bridge and Silver Efex and then several hours applying glowing lightsabers to each shot using very simple Photoshop techniques. 

I've made a short video of this sequence but I am having difficulty attaching it to this blog post.

Please feel free to check it out over at YouTube...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcWyIFTQjH8

Influences:

Real Life:

A conversation with Paride, who suggested (after racking his brain about video                   production) that I should experiment and have some fun.

Converastions with Tom and Debbie about science fiction films and wanting to own lightsabers.

Being a child in the 70s, running around the playground with my mates acting out space battles and wishing our parents had been cool enough to call us Luke or Han

College trips to London and gravitating towards the MOMI (Museum of Moving Image)

Films:

George Lucas' Star Wars

Fritz Lang's Metropolis (I really need to watch this again soon)

Animators:

The Brothers Quay

Photographers:

Eadweard Muybridge

The Student Becomes The Master

Copyright: Clayton Bastiani

Seeing Double

I had two shoots booked during August and it rained both times. In a way I was secretly pleased as it meant I could spend the afternoon of each shoot experimenting up in the spare room.

The following pictures were taken with the Monochrom during my wet afternoon with Lulu Lockhart. As well as making short time-lapse/animation sequences we worked on a set of imagery where Lulu would split herself in two so I could bring them together today for this Monday Project instalment.

I like experimenting with my photography. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't but that's all part of the learning process. When it does come together the results often surpass your expectations and lead you to want to do more.



Model: Lulu Lockhart

Copyright: Clayton Bastiani



Influences:

There isn't a specific influence this week, more a general collection. I've been thinking a lot about early cinematic techniques / trickery and when we worked on the time-lapse series it was hard not to remember all the childrens' animation programmes that had been a huge part of my childhood television experience: Morph, Chorlton and The Wheelies, Camberwick Green, Trumpton and Chigley to name just a few,