Studio Brief 2: Printed Pictures
Further Conceptual Development and Refined Roughs

Keeping in mind what I did and didn't like about my initial ideas/roughs, I decided that the main focus of my image making at the moment would be to achieve a still/silent feel to may final images so as to best convey the subdued surreal that is at core of my project.

Therefore I thought it would be necessary to create a series of much more refined and developed roughs so as to better grasp how composition, particular lighting, cropping and the balance between individual compositional elements can be used to achieve this.

I think that all of the images I have included here have the right balance of surreal and mundane resulting in ambiguous yet clearly content driven images. I am also relatively pleased with the compositonal balance that is present through out them however I do feel that some are less effective than others bother visually and conceptually.

Although they aren't off balance, I think the image of the little man with a large shadow stretching out in front of him as well as the giraffe at the crossing make use of too much negative/white space resulting in images that don't quite have the subdued and melancholic feel which I am trying to create. Furthermore I think the inclusion of multiple people within a crowd immediately makes the giraffe one feel out of place with the others as it doesn't have the still quality to it or over all silence and loneliness that I feel is present in the others.

The two strongest in my opinion are the one depicting I unicorn skull and the one of I woman lying down with a series of little people gathered around her. This is because they are overly dark images creating a moody and subdued feel yet both use bold/distinct areas of negative space/white to highlight the images focal points as well as giving them a dramatic aesthetic within out taking away from the desired stillness of the images.

Furthermore conceptually they both borrow from Murakami's work (unicorn skull:Hard Boiled Wonderland, Little People:1Q84) with out specifically depicting any sense or occurrences within them. They also effectively include out of place and highly unusual visual devices combined with an overly mundane scene to give them the offset and surreal quality that I am going for.

However I don't think that the one of the woman lying down works as well in a set with the others as the inclusion of the little people gives it a focus on character design which I think I'd have to carry through to the others. Although I have included figures within a lot of the images a more specific focus on character design, which I think this image arguably has, isn't want I want my project to be focused on.