Out of Darkness

Main Editorial Image.

Looking back on previous project's always helps me when starting fresh. I find ordering my ideas and showing logical progression through development to be especially difficult now that there's so much pressure to produce a larger body of work. Before Christmas I successfully completed and exhibited the editorial project I'd struggled with. The final outcome of the piece had been turned on it's head after half a dozen mishaps, the plan never quite goes to plan, but resulted in a more organic piece and experimental development shown throughout my sketches and minds-eye.

The final piece for the main illustration 'Out of Darkness' was created using an old projector, as shown in the photograph above and my drawings translated onto acetate. I deliberately sought out a projector that didn't quite work as it should, so I knew the focus would be temperamental and the projection very rough, to create an effect similar to an old cinema screening. The tall figure is based around the character Nosferatu, I had to use various different resources to get the pose of each figure in proportion and taking inspiration from black and white films (where shadow and chiaroscuro were two important factors to create atmosphere) seemed appropriate to the whole aura of this piece.

Wall of fame.

I wasn't entirely sure how an editorial would look on the wall, especially since lack of time meant I had to photocopy my design's on print-out newspaper copies and hash them together as professionally as possible. However, even though nothing was framed or arranged artistically, the wall was significantly more interesting to look at than my midterm exhibition as the variety of work held up individually and collectively.

Photoshop hell.

Not only did the editorial push me to mess-up my sketchbooks and work in a overly logical manner, time-keep and recover faster when things when belly up but I had to constantly challenge myself technologically. Since I've only ever used photoshop when absolutely necessary it takes me triple the time to process information when editing elements together. I wanted to create an alternative piece out of photographic material (self-taken) using a cut-up method, William S. Burroughs inspired. I decided on the background as a corridor, a developmental synergy involving a handful of designs so I bought a cheap disposable camera and hung around the ground floor of the college waiting until it was dark and empty enough for me to take twenty seven photographs of the same corridor without looking like a total weirdo. After developing two sets of the practically the same photograph it took me the best part of eight hours cutting them up and arranging them into something that resembled the original corridor. the visual disjointedness of the composition represents the view of a corridor through the eyes of a terrified child, or victim in this case. The challenge I had lured myself into was then to edit two different types of photographic material, both dark in contrast and conflicting shapewise, together.

I think I did alright.