Wednesday, 21 March 2012

Andrew Brooks


“Andrew Brooks is a photographer, a digital artist and a film maker living and working in Manchester, Islington Mill.”

 

A crucial element that Brooks tries to portray in his work is atmosphere. He wants the viewers to understand the way he was feeling when he was in that particular location. For example as we see in the picture below we notice the warmth of the sun shining down on us. It draws the audience in and makes us feel like part of the experience, so that the photograph is not just a 2D form.

 

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However what I found quite challenging about his work was that the beautiful photographs, especially the landscapes that you see are in fact made up. In photoshop these days you can produce anything, but to me a photograph represents a true, realistic, element of time, something that exists and we can go and experience.

 

Brooks has done a lot of work based on ‘Secret Cities,’ one of which was ‘Hidden Manchester,’ An important part of his work is to take photographs at all times and all places, in that way you will really discover the hidden details to a city.

 

Below is the link to his website, in particular a recommend looking into his ‘Hidden Manchester’ project.

 

http://www.andrewbrooksphotography.com/

 

...and in his words, "Get to know Manchester and embrace it."

Untitled

Hi everyone, I emailed John Davis earlier about booking another meeting with him to explore the slides available in the Visual Resource centre again. Whoever might be interested, he is free on Wednesday at 1.30pm or 4.00pm. If this doesn't suit he also mentioned that he is free almost all of Friday the 23rd of March too.
I'd quite like to go back as soon as I can so I'm going to let him know that I would be interested in meeting at 1.30pm on Wednesday so feel free to join.

Special Collections

This pop-up piece is what caught my eye at the Special Collections centre in the library. It was created by a fairly recent student at Manchester Metropolitan University. Looking back, I am quite surprised that this piece is what caught my attention almost immediately. It stood among work that was completed by extremely talented artists and designers. The fact of it being a 3D paper sculpture also raised interest as it is something that doesn’t usually interest me. However, I really admire the detail and pattern upon the surface which creates an illusion of texture.

 

Untitled

Among the work on display in the Special Collections centre in the library was sketchbooks by Peter Reddick. These were for the illustration to an edition of ‘the Return of the Native’ by Thomas Hardy. Peter Reddick’s illustrations provide atmosphere and background to the reader. His work in ‘The Return of the Native’ is viewed as being particularly fine, “dark vistas of Egdon Heath often unroll over two pages with tiny Figures struggling along the pale track ways”.  

 

His subject matter is seen as being deeply traditional cantered on an “immemorial sense of the land and of rural life”. He completed illustrations, however, in a contemporary way. He created the image by “cutting into the end grain surface of a piece of box wood, inking the surface and printing it onto paper”.  

street art

just browsing on stumbleUpon.. found some amazing street art pictures.

it seems to brings so much more humor and character to a city ;)

I find manchester to have alot of quirky street art littered around making a little less gloomy and grey...

 

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/32TjtT/nextwd.co

m/street-art-3/

3D FISH.

i was fasicinated by the technique used to created these 3d fish, the layering and patience! 

 

 

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/30ESIR/www.thisiscolossal.com/2012/01/riusuke-f...

 

watch the video!

Adam Dant

Perhaps a bit of a delayed reaction,,,

Upon Monday of last week, the 5th to be precise,, we were lucky enough to sit in on a talk by Adam Dant. A man I knew very little of before the said talk, but a man full of surprises and intrigue.

Dant is an illustrator based in Shoreditch, London. He is ""an artist of the street"" creating various reactions to the city he sees around him.

There were a few things that struck me about Dant's work,,.

Points to Discuss;; I like his maps,, I like his mind

((Donald, the French and other Investigations))

To Begin, Dant has an almost classical look to the drawings he creates, therefore upon first look[firstlove], I wasn't particularly enthralled but on a deeper investigation, deeper explanation, everything takes on a much more entertaining, much more curious appeal.

Dants Maps:; Dant has created many a map of his home borough of Shoreditch,, but what really strikes me about these maps, is not the appearance of them but of the application of them, the mind behind them. They are not just purely graphical representations of an area but there is a more personal appeal to them, a more personal insight into the character of the area, whether a truthful insight or not,,,..

As well as creating maps exploring the personal geographical nature of Shoreditch, Dant also likes to play with investigating into mapping personal collective thoughts and personalities. This can be seen in the map above of,,,

Donald Parsnips Plan of Shoreditch in Dream Format

,,,where Dant collected the dreams of people across Shoreditch in a hope to depict a collective unconscious of Shoreditch. Once again I personally was not particularly attracted to the overall effect of the image upon first inspection, but in hindsight I find the mindset and depiction to be incredible.

 

SIDE NOTE SIDE NOTE ;:;:

Who is Donald? Donald is in fact Donal Parsnip, a character created by Dant, his creative alter-ego, friend and accomplice.