Project 6
TITLE: The Bacon Series
MEDIUM: Lens based photography using the Google Pixel 2 camera
DIMENSIONS: 142.24 x 106.68 cm
DATE COMPLETED: December 2019
MEDIUM: Lens based photography using the Google Pixel 2 camera
DIMENSIONS: 142.24 x 106.68 cm
DATE COMPLETED: December 2019
Exhibition Text
Through the inspiration of Francis Bacon's "Painting" (1946), I was able to produce and shoot the photographs above inspired by Bacon's unique artistic style of gore and beauty in both fiction and real. This photograph series serves as an artistic look on gore and its unique quality of beauty.
Inspiration
I was inspired by Bacon's painting (1946), in particular his authentic style and depiction of beauty and gore in most of his pieces. I was most intrigued by the pig carcasses which appear in a lot of his paintings, surrounding this dark theme. I find beauty in all of his paintings, although some people may consider it disturbing or unconventional, however, he is able to formulate such deep emotions and communicate those feelings through color, and line, and shape on a canvas. There are various pink and red tones in the painting, which is something I wanted in my piece as well. This painting is a well known painting of Bacon's, mainly for the male figure with the umbrella, which is what intrigues many people when looking at this piece. I knew that I had wanted to use a photograph I took over the summer for my summer project, in order to begin my project using digital manipulation.
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Pre-treatment image of Francis Bacon’s Painting. 1946. Oil and pastel on linen, 6′ 5 7/8″ x 52″ (197.8 x 132.1 cm). Purchase. © 2015 Estate of Francis Bacon/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/DACS, London. Photo: The Museum of Modern Art, Department of Conservation
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Process and Planning
I had taken all of my summer photos using the Google Pixel 2 camera. The 12 megapixel rear camera offers 1080 HDR+ offering great dynamic range when shooting. This allows the photo to be balanced in exposure, making sure the lightness and darkness in the photo are adjusted properly. It also has an aperture of f/1.8 (expressed in fractions), which is on the larger spectrum of the scale (as you increase in number, you decrease the size of aperture. Aperture affects the depth, light, and overall exposure of the photograph. The smaller the fraction of aperture, the less depth is then offered in the photograph. Smaller apertures are normally on phones because these are considered "fast" lenses, it allows more light to pass through more quickly than that of a smaller aperture. A f/1.8 aperture offers adequate depth and low-light qualities, while offering decent bokeh (quality background highlights). The Google Pixel's aperture is fixed, so it does all the work for you without you having to adjust it yourself manually. It does this by controlling the camera's light sensitivity, and shutter speed.
Experimentation |
When I had initially taken my photograph, the quality was great, and I was pleased with the depth and clarity. However, the colors were dull and weren't as popping as I wanted them to be. So, I had gone to my app, called Google Photos. This is where I had stored all of my photographs. Google Photos has an editing feature available to all photographs. This includes three categories with bars that pop up on the right side of your photograph. The three categories include Light, Color, and and Pop. There is a drop-down by the light category that allows you to adjust features in the photograph by a distinct breakdown so that you can get the result or adjustment you need. I adjusted the light and warmth in the photograph in order to counteract the dullness in the original photograph, this made the juices inside the pig carcass pop, especially around the heart and in the chest cavity. I adjusted the color by upping the saturation and the warmth slightly so that the more pink and red tones would be more apparent and lively in the photograph. I then also adjusted the pop which is used to provide local contrast in the photograph. These all gave the photograph an extra something through photo editing. It made not only the colors pop more, but the depth and contrast more apparent so that the highlights can appear more lively. This shows detail on the heart and spine in the carcass and allows the light and shadows to work together to create a clear clean photograph.
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Francis Bacon was an inspiration for this series of photos. I am researching Francis Bacon for my comparative study and found that he often used gore and pigs in some of his paintings. He would look at photographs of butchered pigs and other animals for some of his paintings. Bacon was used to this, as he grew up on a farm, relatively around lots of farm animals, and was used to it, unlike those who grew up in an urban setting. I found that although some may find the photos disturbing or disgusting, there is an appreciation for some of the beauty captured in the photographs. The organs especially are my favorite photographs because of how unique each one is in shape, size, and color. My favorite photograph from this series is the one photographed at 5:21 pm. It is the inside of the pig, showing the ribs, spine, and half the heart. I was excited to photograph these photos because not a lot of photographers that are well known have done this before, partly because it is gory and disturbing to some, however I thought that it would be great inspiration from Bacon since he loved to push boundaries and paint things in a light that he saw best, no matter how gory others perceived it as, which made him a uniquely talented artist.
Compare and Contrast
Pre-treatment image of Francis Bacon’s Painting. 1946. Oil and pastel on linen, 6′ 5 7/8″ x 52″ (197.8 x 132.1 cm). Purchase. © 2015 Estate of Francis Bacon/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/DACS, London. Photo: The Museum of Modern Art, Department of Conservation
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Similarities
Differences
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Reflection
Francis Bacon liked to push the boundaries of art, and be unconventional. He painted what he knew, and he painted with feeling, emotion with every stroke of his paintbrush. I had the rare opportunity of photographing a pig carcass. Before Junior year ended, I had to choose the two artists for my comparative study, and so I chose Bacon and Picasso because they were my two favorite artists. I loved how they depicted and executed their work, full of emotion and artistic elements that were very intriguing and meaningful. I took inspiration not only from Bacon's painting but from his vision and depiction of art as well. At first I was hesitant turning in these photographs for my summer art project, however, I realized that these photographs had taken me so long to execute and edit, that they had to be included in the 100 photos, as well as this current project. Overall, I feel good with the execution of this project, however I am a slightly unhappy with the flowers because they don't look as original or realistic to the photo as I had hoped.
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