Daniel Mcgrath
Brooks Salzwedel
Brooks Salzwedel
Brooks Salzwedel was born in Long Beach, Canada, in 1978. He earned his BFA from the Art Centre College of Design in Pasedena. He takes much of his information from his time participating in artist residence in places including Denali National Park and White River National Forest.
Formal Elements and Concept
His work is made up of a combination of man-made structures and natural things like trees and flowers. The foreground and the background are often separated by fog, making the background distorted and hard to see, and quite often the part of the image that is distorted is the part of the image that involves the man made structures, given them a sort of forgotten feeling. This forgotten feeling is something that the artist often explores, and this feeling is emphasized with the ghostly color pallet of black and grey, which give the impression that the picture is simply a shadow. The texture of the picture is very thick and slightly smudged, which further emphasizes the forgotten and abandoned message behind the work because it suggests that even the picture itself has been abandoned, but it also creates a memory-like effect due to the distortion. This memory like effect further conveys the idea of being abandoned or forgotten. The shapes in these photographs are both very fluid and rigid, due to the combination of human constructions and the natural things in the picture. This contrast of shapes highlights how out of place- or rather IN place, the decaying man made objects are in the natural world. The reason they appear in place is again due to the fact that they have been blurred into the natural background- the contrast in shape simply highlights the fact that they are clearly different and very separate things, but the texture tells us that, due to time, they are now one in the same. The patterns in the shapes are very complex, being made up of the shapes of branches and leaves, but also the complex crisscross of ladder rungs, and this similarity highlights how connected nature and man made structures have become. The lines in this piece seem to disappear into the outer areas of the frame, memetic of how memories can disappear and fade into obscurity.
On Reflection
I really like his work; it is interesting and I really do like how color has been used sparingly, which is something I will try and use in my work. I think the fact that the pictures are made up of ghostly shapes and lines gives them a memory-like feel, which contributes to the ideas of abandonment that the work tries to convey. In my work I will try to replicate the same ghostly effect, and possibly include a little color but use it sparingly as the artist did. What I am going to do is to try and capture a man made object, and obscure it in some way with a natural object or organism. For my first development I am planning on using photoshop, for my second development I plan on using paint and for my third development I plan on using tracing paper.
Photoshoot Plan
Photoshoot plan Annotations
This is my photoshoot plan for Brooks Salzwedel. For the design, I tried to produce a similar effect that his work produced. I used a similar colour scheme of greys and blacks and did my best to include complex lines and shapes as seen in the grass. A few of the artists pictures are of objects with things like grass obscuring them, like the grass got in the way of the camera. I tried to make it look like something like that happened. As for the information on the plan, I tried to keep it relatively vague so I could change my mind mid-photoshoot without violating the plan itself.
Contact Sheet
Contact Sheet Annotations
This is my Brooks Salzwedel contact sheet. I did my best to take a variety of photographs from a variety of distances, so that I could develop my style and experiment without having to take another photoshoot. As for the contact sheet itself, I circled the 'best' image out of three or four images of the same object; what this means is that, out of all the images of the same bin, I circled the one that was in the best focus.
Initial Developments
First Development annotations
These are my first developments for Brooks Salzwedel. I tried to take photographs of human creations obscured by plant life, and I created this by either layering over trees and plants over human constructions, drawing trees over human constructions or fading the human constructions to create a fog affect. I think the photos where objects were faded were the most successful, but only in some cases. I quite like how these edits turned out, but if I were to do them again I would try to be more careful making the layer masks and try to make sure branches are not blurred as well.
Highlighting Success
Highlighting Success
These are my most successful first developments. I think that they resemble Brooks Salzwedels work the most, containing a human construction obscured by nature as well as the fog effect. If I were to do them again I would try to be more careful and slow in the editing, trying to make sure that branches that obscure the object are not effected by the fog in the same way.
Second Developments
Second Development Annotations
These are my second developments for Brooks Salzwedel. These were physical edits that I made by printing branches and trees onto tracing paper and placing it on top of a black and white picture of some kind of human construction. Before printing everything out I created a photoshop document which I used to line up the two layers of the pictures, and to see how they would look layered over one another without having to waste paper or ink. I did my best to frame the objects in the background in interesting ways, for example in DSC_0222, where the statues face is enclosed between two branches. If I were to do them again I would consider adding more layers of tracing paper.
Highlighting Success
Highlighting Success Annotations
These were my most successful second developments. The thing that sets these pictures apart from the other ones is the the framing. I tried especially hard to do interesting things with the way the pictures are arranged. In the first photograph in the gallery I arranged it so that the statues face could be seen through the trees clearly. In the second image I arranged the trees so that the trees shape compliment the curve of the horns on the top of the sculpture. If I were to do them again I would adjust the positioning of the trees in the second image so they complimented the shape a little better, but I would also try to take better photographs of the finished products because they do look a little grainy.
Documentation
These are JPGs of the layers that I used when arranging the images. The images of foliage were the foreground and the backgrounds were the statues, cranes and buildings.
Second Developments Contact Sheet
Contact Sheet Annotations
This is the contact sheet for the photoshoot I took for my second developments. I took this photoshoot in my local park and around where I live, as well as in and around Holland Park. I tried to take two kinds of photographs; ones of objects and buildings made by humans and the other plants and trees. I would then layer them over one another. There were some photographs which I felt would be really useful (I thought the circled images where interesting in their own right and so would prove very useful when it came to editing) and some which I felt were simply out of place (like the two images that are crossed out). I found that selecting the images I would use would be a trial and error process, so I did not rule out too many pictures which is why there are not many crossed pictures. The same is also true for why there are not many circled images; I would find out which worked and which did not.
Third developments
Second Developments Annotations
These are my third developments for the artist Brooks Salzwedel. I made them by printing out images of human constructions on paper that was able to be reliably painted on without it being destroyed. After printing the images I used charcoal to draw trees and grass over the pictures; I think that these images were very successful. I think that in almost every case the tree's branch-patterns were successful, and I think I used just the right amount of charcoal. If I were to do them again I would try to draw more individual twigs to add depth to the trees and make them more realistic. I also think that it would have been better if I had drawn more trees in general. I do really like what I have made, and I think they convey ideas of abandonment rather well.
Highlighting Success
Highlighting Success Annotations
These are my most successful third developments. What sets them apart from the other images is the fact that I tried to do more interesting things with the way the trees were arranged. I experimented with where the trees grew from, like in the second image where they grow from the points in the centre of the image and in the third one where they grew from both behind the building and from in front of it. If I were to do these pictures again, I would try to add, as previously mentioned, more branches and twigs. However I do think that these pictures were very successful and I really like how they convey the idea of abandonment and being consumed by nature.
AO4
This is my AO4 for Brooks Salzwedel. I began the AO4 process by making some further edits of previous edits; these edits were supposed to be floating and had to convey the same 'fog' effect that Brooks Salzwedel's work had previously. These pictures would be later transferred onto wood.
I am fond of these further edits; I think that they were successful. I feel like I successfully conveyed the idea of objects being 'consumed by nature'. The fact that the lampposts 'pop up' from behind the trees almost suggests that they are waiting; Waiting for nature to consume the viewer. Adjustments to opacity creates a fog effect that also further conveys the idea of being 'smothered; by nature; consumed like everything else. The fact that the pictures are very 'dark' also conveys an idea of fear; inspiring the viewer to somehow fear
the consumption of nature. This amplifies the emotion behind the picture. The fluid lines and shapes carries obvious associations with nature, thus strengthening the connection.
The monotone nature of the picture could convey the simplicity of the situation; nature will consume all, and no amount of preparation or power can resist that.
Wood Carving
Wood Transfers Annotations
These are pieces of wood that has had the images transferred onto them. I used Mod Podge glue to attach the image, face down, onto the piece of wood. I left this for 24 hours before wetting the wood and gently rubbing the paper off. This revealed the image on the wood. When making the picture there were instances where I rubbed to hard and the imprint on the wood itself rubbed off; I don't think that this is much of a problem. If anything it adds to the piece. It suggests that nature has overcome the piece itself. The elements of the real world has overcome the picture itself, damaging the picture and consuming it.
Highlighting Success
Highlighting Success
These are my most successful wood transfers either due to the quality of the picture or due to the success of the wood transfer. These pictures were the least damaged when they were transferred to the wood; the other picture contained noticeably more holes in the picture which, while adding in some way conceptually, did subtract from the images success. I think that these images have a good amount of holes in them. As for the images themselves, I think that they are the most visually appealing and interesting. In the other pictures the composition was rather simplistic; they only had one 'human-made' part of the image in either the centre or left third of the image. These other two edits have multiple instances of things like lamp-posts arranged in many different places. This 'oddity' further connects the images to the idea of things being overcome by nature. One could make the connection that the odd composition of things like lamp-posts represents the 'chaos' of nature overcoming the 'order' of the world of human constructions.