Towards end of my foundation course I created a series of experimental collages made from a collection of photographs from crime books and flowers from landscape books and magazines. I initially found an interest in the crime books because of the wide range of black and white portrait photographs/ headshots there were and thought they would be interesting to manipulate and collage with. I found keeping to the same range of colours and subjects (people and flowers) created an interesting flow and style, almost creating a series- connecting them all. I think I subconsciously found inspiration from John Stezaker- I found combining the simple images of flowers and overlaying them and incorporating them into portrait photographs really interesting and its simplicity quite effective.

I decided to continue to use the crime book as a source for photographs as I found an interest in the mug shots of the people and their intense glares. I took inspiration from Douglas Gordon’s work by using the simple action of splitting or removing the eyes of the mug shots. I found the subjects became very inhumane looking, quite monstrous. This then intrigued me to go the opposite way- and focus on just the eyes of the criminal mug shots. I created a series of simple black and white shadow drawings of the eyes and then created a continuous line drawings and projected them onto the walls of the studio using a light projector. I found this experimentation of different ways of displaying simple drawings useful and interesting as I was able to manipulate the size, density of colour and shape of the drawing easily. I therefore enjoyed this technique of light projection and will use it again for future projects.

Used these drawings on acetate to put under the light projector