Thursday 27/2/20 - Influence and response

The purpose of this mindmap is to look at the formal elements that are used by an artist that inspires me, I chose a photographer called Wes Ellis. His work has always inspired my photography and I want to use aspects of this influence in my final project, like myself he has a certain affinity for retro and neon light based photography.

I found a small variety of work that both shows different aspects of the formal elements but also influences me. This is through a variety of reasons such as cinematography, colour and subject.

To take this further I wanted to use an influence from this mindmap and make a response. I went out and did a small shoot both as a means of practice and experimentation but also to use some of the influences. In particular I used the main photo from Wes Ellis but also the cinematography of Blade Runner and the photography by Lucas Zimmerman and Arnaud Moro.

The end result was this, it was my favourite photo of the shoot and even combined another that used a cooler tone of colour through blending. Most of the influence was a blend of the Blade Runner poster and Wes Ellis however the two other photographers had minor influences too.

This photo focused on the elements of colour, texture and tone. I focused on the contrast between blue and red, the mixture of dark and light / tonal range and the details from texture. The photo was achieved by putting my camera on a slightly longer exposure. This was my second attempt at night photography and was significantly more successful than the first, though now I also know to use a tripod and other tips to make my work better.