'Natural act is composed by several collages based on the questions of the relation between nature and the humanity. It is basically a critical presentation referring to the fact that each of us is part of the nature. It seeks the answer whether greed, urbanisation, mechanisation and detaching from the nature is favorable or coherent for human or not.'- Merve Ozaslan
Artist analysis
Merve Ozaslan is a photographer who focuses on colleges. She collects old vintage photographs and gives them a natural touch. These colleges mainly contain a black and white picture, with a coloured landscape picture inserted somewhere in the picture. Most of the black and white images, look like they were set in the 50s or 60's. She often takes pictures of people or buildings then inserts the coloured images. She does this when merging them together. She blends them into bodies, buildings and window frames. This leaves the audience to wonder the true meaning of the juxtaposition between the two time periods. When looking at her images you get a feeling of vertigo at times. I think she used old photographs, as she wanted to tell a story through her images, as old image are more sensitive. The picture on the top left is taken of a house, with a landscape picture of the sea has been layered or inserted in at the side of the house. The first thing you see when you look at this image is the sea at the side of the house. This is because it's in colour and stands out. The contrast of the black and white and colour, makes the image more interesting and bold. The picture with the man and the little boy holding a suitcase near the train track. This image uses a long depth of field to make the image feel as though it goes on forever. As well, the man who looks to be the train guard, has an image covering his body which contains a image of a long field, which also seems to go on forever, seeing the pylons in the far distance. This could be where the young boy is heading to on the train to get away from the city. Due to him looking up at the train guard he looked worried, causing the uncertainty of whether he has missed his train or lost his mother on the way. Personally, I think that this image relates to World War II, when young children were sent to the countryside in order to be same. Due to the fact that we can't see the man's face, it makes the photo uneasy. I think most pictures would of been took on a digital camera, then either edited and layered on photoshop or she would of made the college herself, when sticking the sea image on the black and white house image. The texture to this image is very smooth, as the sea image fits perfectly to the side of the building perfectly. As well as in the other images. |
Digitally
These photos were edited on photoshop, I did this by putting the black and white image on top of the coloured one, making it so there was two layers. On the black and white layer, I added a mask and turned to the colour black on the paint tool. Using the paint tool and cut out the windows or doors where i wanted to see the landscape image.
Manually
To create these images I had to print both images off, including the picture of the building and landscape image which I wanted to use to create the final image, making sure the building image was in black and white and the landscape in colour. Once I had these painted off, I cut inside the building image like a stencil. Once I had these holes, i could position it on top of the coloured image wherever I wanted. When i was happy with the position, I could place it on the scanner, ready to be transferred to my laptop.
Conclusion
Overall, I think that the digitally formatted images worked much better. I think this because due to the manual images being scanned and transferred to my laptop, it looks like they have lost a bit of colour, for example they don't look as vibrant anymore. Although, the images done on photoshop still have all their colour, which make me like them more as they stand out. The digitally edited images are very bright even though most of the image is black and white. The black and white in the manually edited images seem to have gone a bit purple . They also loose their colour and go faded.
Development
For my development of Merve Ozaslan's work I have chosen to take pictures of weeds, which have grown out of control and grown near or around buildings. I have chosen to do this as it shows that nature is everywhere, as does Merve Ozaslan's work. Her work is the idea that when you open a door or window, nature will always be around you. As will it be around buildings.
What worked well...
- The digitally edited photos worked well as they look vibrant and colourful. The landscape in the windows and doors stands out which what i was going for, as Merve Ozaslan's work is also like this.
- I also think the development links well, as it shows people nature is all around us, wherever we go.
- I could of maybe got some photos of people, instead of just buildings to edit with.