This following statement is in regards to my Tree Project.
My graduating work contains factors of both surrealism and landscape. I am aiming to bring a different element to landscape. Through research and explorations, I've come to do this through animal and human additions to dead trees that bring out fantastical and almost absurd feelings. I used images I could already see in the tree’s form, choosing dead trees that triggered my imagination.
My idea to bring these new elements to dead trees was inspired by Jerry Uelsmann. He’s been greatly influential on me and I really enjoy his work. He makes surrealist montages using multiple exposure prints, cut negatives and imagination all in the darkroom. While he compiles his works in a darkroom from multiple negatives, rather than using digital files and Photoshop, our methods of shooting are quite similar. We both go out and shoot without a clear idea of how the end image will come out, and just shooting what we feel looks good, and compiling it only once we've done all of our shooting and have, in his case developed the film, in my case uploaded the images to my laptop.
This method of shooting without prior planning also led me to look into Surrealist Automatism, which also connected with the surrealist feel of my final images. The ideas of free thought and not letting yourself plan an image, just going with what your subconscious tells you is right, which are definite points there that I can relate to from my shooting practice.
This work has been made through entirely digital means, I shot all my dead tree images in digital, and combined my images through Photoshop. I harvested my other images for my compilations online from stock images. It has been a good opportunity to further my skills in using Photoshop.
I've also become more adept at sourcing the trees for my shoots, learning to constantly keep my eye out for any tree that could have potential in my work.
I have spent a lot of time thinking through things that I could add to my work, considering a lot of elements for my hanging. I've explored the idea of adding text poetry with my work in hanging, which is an idea that lingered from the original form of the work, and from the I've also looked at including a sound piece, but it wasn't quite what I was looking for. However, I also explored the idea of printing on something other than paper, I printed on canvas and decided I liked the look of it, as something different, something to bring my work off the wall and give it a texture. I also did a number of size tests before settling on the larger size for my work.
