This series of shots is a classic work of present-day art. According to an art blog, it is a vanitas. It's particularly was showing subtle changes during the time process. Some quotations showed obviously, like skulls, rotting fruits, etc. The precision of Sam Taylor Wood's work is the objects showed their beauty at the beginning, they decayed by themselves. At last, there was just dust. The most interesting thing in these pictures is a cheap contemporary object, it does not seem decay.
I took a series of shots of roses and record the decay process for the experiment. It stepped in another direction. It does not seem to decay in dust, but drying out. The rose does not lose its beauty, the colours stay, but darker. Its shape changed.
'Roses', Evelyn(2019)
I created those pictures with a camera(SONY). At first, I placed this rose on a white paper.
Photographed by Evelyn(2018)
I found it was not the outcome that I wanted. I would like to create a stronger contrast between the rose and the background. Therefore, I decided to use a black paper as a background for the rest of the photos.
I used photoshop to edit this picture and created a darker background.
For other stages of this rose, I edited them in similar colours.
For the fourth pictures, I made it in a cold colour tone particularly. It is because I wanted to show the feature of dried rose. I thought a colder colour can show the atmosphere of death effectively.
Although this series of roses had very nice quality, I think it was not good enough that I did not shoot them at the same angle. I think it may confuse viewers whether it is sequential images. Also, I found it close-shot is a useful way to show the beautiful shapes and patterns of the petals. I am going to make an experiment with this method.
The second section is quite interesting. There are four pictures in this series. Their backgrounds were a Black and White interval, but it does not look strange. I took the first photo on a white paper. However, I did not take it vertically, so I need to crop the extra colour in the background.
Photographed by Evelyn(2018)
It is a nice picture with a bunch of sunshine. But it breaks the coherence of this series. For example, it looks different from the third stage of the rose. Although I took it at the same angle, it was much different, I did not satisfied with this outcome.
Photographed by Evelyn(2018)
The light was from the top of the rose in the fourth stage, and it was an even distribution. In order to link with this picture, I made a stronger contrast in the second photo. It looks much better but not good enough because the light came from the left.
Photographed by Evelyn(2018)
Secondly, I wanted to step in another direction so that I just used the main idea from Sam Taylor Wooed's work, 'still life', in my personal work.
Initial thinking:
For my experiment, I will put a fried egg on a plate. A plate is a contemporary object. I will let two people with different eating habits to eat it. Then I will find out they might use different ways to slice it and how did they finish it. One of them might just eat the yolk, but another one has egg whites. It is not about decaying, but I can see the reduction of food on the plate. Since I observe the whole process, I think it links to the topic, dietary choosiness which is amusing.
Working process:
I cropped every picture I took to make sure they are in the centre. Also, I edited the contrast proportions, let them end up with the same tone.
This series of shots created by iPhone 6S. I also edited these pictures with this mobile phone. The most interesting thing is I shot the photos with a live effect that allowed me to select the best phone afterwards.
Eggs, Photographed by Evelyn(2019)
I made two series of shots of two different fried eggs. According to the first group of pictures, it shows that I like to eat the medium-rare one-sided fried egg. I often eat the edge of the egg first, then separate the yolk and the egg whites. Besides, I always use a fork and a knife. However, my brother has a different eating habit. He likes using a spoon to eat. He always mixes the yolk and the egg whites together. And he slices the egg by opportunity.
In this individual photo-shoot, I find it is a particular method to record daily. It is also fascinating to see the reductions of the eggs during the eating process. Everyone has their unique eating habit. Especially I found out that my brother used a spoon, but I used a fork and knife.
This is my final version, I was quite happy with the outcome but still think there are some improvements I may do for the next work. First of all, I was not satisfied with the position of the bowl. I should take the photographs at the same height to make sure the bowl has the same proportion in each picture. Secondly, the quality of these pictures was not good enough. I took this series in the afternoon, I did not realize that the sun was going down and the light changed direction. It made the light effect of some shoots were different. For a better outcome, I should decide to photograph them at noon or in a photography studio.
References: I like this Art, Contemporary Art Blog, Sam Taylor-Wood, Friday 23 October 2009
Good process here with some good technical detail - well done
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