Final Alphabet

This is my final response to the alphabet task. It is inspired by flicker and Karl Blossfelt, by thinking about the different angles and shapes that I can find and thinking creatively to find the letters I needed in day to day objects.
I think my attempt at this task was successful as you can see each letter clearly, and over all you can see the pattern of the alphabet.

Contact sheet

Contact sheet of the initial shots I took for the Alphabet project It still needs to be cropped and turned monochrome. I will do this to create a contrast for the letter and to use influence from my artist.

This is my contact sheet after most of the edits, as you can see how I have cropped them and how i have changed the colour to a monochrome setting. I think that the edits have improved the picture and has had the effect of distinguishing the letters from the background. This shows that my artists influence has benefited me in my work.

Edits

I first used Camera Raw, but i had to access t though photoshop. I also was unable to crop in camera raw so i had to use the inbuilt crop feture in photoshop.

In raw I changed the saturation to -100 to make it black and white. I could have used the grey scale tool in photoshop. This was the product of doing so (on left)

I then went tondo levels which can be accessed though many ways, but I used the bottom right tab.

This is how I edited the greyscale, as you drag the different arrows it changes how many pixels are black and how much is white, This will link it to my artist

After

Before

This is 'A',one of my edits showing a before and after. The picture was first taken on a aperture of f/14 and shutter speed of 1/500 with an ISO of 400.
This picture needed to be changed to monochrome, cropped and rotated. It shows that I could have given myself less work in photoshop as for a lot of my pictures i could have orientated the camera in a different way to gain the same result as photoshop has, which is something to think about for the remaining letters at this stage. I think that editing the pictures to suite the style of Blossfel

Before

After

 This is 'M', and in this is taken from the shadow of my letter N. I took it at f/9.0 and a shutter speed go 1/160 as it was a very light picture as it was a shadow surrounded by sun.
In this one I have also edited to the style of Blossfelt which is in monochrome and I have cropped it so the letter fits the picture, which makes you focus on the letter.

Flicker

Alphabet scavenger hunt by Luke Healy Nov 19 2009
 Alphabet by umagala, June 23, 2007

Flicker is an online global community where people post and store there pictures for others to see an appreciate.

I looked up Alphabet into the search bar to find others peoples work which is similar to what I am producing. What i found gave me ideas on what to look for when taking my own.

The first one was a challenge to see if you could find the alphabet in an hour which gives it a rushed look but he found all of them. This like the next one gives ideas on what type of thing I'm looking for. Having to be creative about where and what I find.

This second one has a theme of nature. This  ties the pictures together to create a nice flow between each picture and the colours are very similar to they all look like one price of work that's able to flow from picture to picture. Although when it comes to my work finding all the letters with the same theme is hard due to not having enough time to find all the letters.

Flicker has shown me that I have to look at objects creatively to find all 26 letters of the alphabet.

Karl Blossfelt

Karl Blossfelt, from Art Forms In Nature, 1928

He is a German sculptor that became a photographer that takes black and white pictures of a portrait style of objects. He takes a cropped picture of objects not showing the whole picture. The shapes of the picture are mostly natural but due to the monochrome effect it makes it look a lot like metal like look.He did it monochrome at the time as that was the only way you could take pictures. This makes you think about how he was a model maker and how his pictures reflect that. The texture of the objects are very detailed and it makes a real focus on that.
He published his work in a book called Art Forms In Nature, 1928 . This was done with a camera of his won design that let him magnify the picture 30 times. His work wasn't viewed as art due to it originally thought as scientific analysis and to help in using nature in sculpting. His work was later though of as art.

His work is abstract in nature due to how detailed the pictures are of such small things that we see in the world. It shows parts of the plant you would never expect to see. 

Karl Blossfelt, from Art Forms In Nature, 1928

I think that the look of the plant makes it look a lot like a hand rail or an abstract garden feature. This makes it look unreal in some ways. Particularly this is not the whole plant, it is only a part of it.
The way he takes the picture gives it a only part of the whole picture feel due to how he selects only part of the object.

Although the monochrome makes the picture feel dead, as its of plants. When a plant has a loss in colour it is normally to represents it isn't living.

The way in which i will use his work to influence me is to crop the pictures to suit my needs for finding the alphabet. I will do this in raw editing and will possibly make mine black and white which will show the contrast and define the letter which i am trying to portray.
 Further more I will be trying to use his idea of finding small shapes to relate to my prodject from a bigger picture. Which is how I will find the letters, flicker will help with this too.