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UltravioletPhotography

BEYOND project


Jim Lloyd

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Andy Perrin
I love the photos in the first part, especially the lichen on the wall! (I know, big surprise coming from me.) The video was nice for a bit but I confess I had to turn the sound off after a while. It went on for a really long time and started to hurt my ears.
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Thanks Andy

 

Good to get all types of feedback - the sound was a bit of an afterthought and (though I never learn!) usually this way of doing things doesn't work! I think part of my problem with sound and image is that it is difficult to have all the correct gear to do this properly in the same place and the same time - and (for me anyway) sound recording and image taking seems to require a different mindset.

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Andy Perrin

Is there audio at that site? I read the text about the Aeolian harp, but I don't hear anything.

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The audio on the movie would have been okay if kept to under 30 sec or so, but past that time it went over some kind of pain threshold. Other people's milage may vary?

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Yes there is audio .. it's quiet to start, but you should hear it ok after a few seconds. Depending on your browser you should be able to right click and get controls which allow you to advance to other parts.

 

Or here is a link to a shorter version that you might hear better?

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Andy Perrin

Yeah, the audio isn't playing for me on the first one but I can hear the second one! That's pretty cool.

 

ETA: I got the first one going. Safari disables auto-play.

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Jim, hi!! I thought maybe we had lost you by piling too much info on you!! :)

 

I visited the website, but for some reason Beyond would not load. Not to worry, I will try again later.

 

It is so nice to see someone working in "portfolio" mode -- a presentation of a coherent set of images. I need to try to do more of that myself - and be more diligent about it. I have rather too many half-completed series. :wacko: I wonder if having a website like you do might help with organization & presentation of series and portfolios and groups?

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Hi Andrea

 

No you haven't lost me! - just trying to assimilate all the new information !

 

I have something of an obsession that I am only happy with images when I have put them in a series. Usually using photobooks - I am interested in how the meaning of one image can change when paired with another.

 

Not sure why you can't see the images on-line. Here is a link to the pdf file https://1drv.ms/b/s!AuwFtHzw2ExNmjMwxP9IWgDLs367

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  • 4 weeks later...
Have we discussed the UV/Vis/IR composition of sunlight? And that when you shoot or film filterless you are recording mostly IR and some Vis?
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Hi Jim --

 

Shooting filterless you have actually recorded mostly IR. :D

While interesting to see the filterless light in a video, the vid itself was a tad long. I was wondering if some kind of time-lapse UV or IR video of a sunrise or sunset might be more interesting? I haven't seen anyone working in UV/IR do that yet. Of course, I could try it myself. :D But there's always so much to do otherwise that I never quite get around to vids or time-lapses. A friend of mine got into that time-lapse thing and has made some wonderful time-lapse videos of clouds over the desert and mountains and similiar. I have no idea what software he used for the time-lapse work, so I should email him and find out.

Well, just rambling here....

Looking forward to seeing how your work progresses. When do your PhD classes and studio work begin?

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Thanks for your comments Andrea

 

Actually I think it’s too fast and short. Have a look at the work of James Benning.

 

Set aside 30 mins, relax and watch This for example

 

My MFA show piece was 90 mins long and showed a single camera position from day to night in woodland. I resisted suggestions from some tutors to do time lapse and I got a good mark in the end.

 

I don’t think anyone watched all of it, but someone did for 50 mins.

 

It’s a tricky subject though and raises questions about what the artist can ask of the viewer.

 

My studies start officially at the end of September, but there are very few formal classes. Mostly self driven with occasional supervision meetings . So no reason for me not to start now ...

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It’s a tricky subject though and raises questions about what the artist can ask of the viewer.

Yes, this is an important point. And I do understand the ideas you are working with about immersing the viewer in an alternate forest experience with sound. But the problem is *me*. I cannot watch videos online without experiencing an almost anxiety-like state wondering when they will end! I have no patience for online videos. Perhaps if such a video were presented in a viewing room (mini-theater) in a gallery setting I would feel differently because.....(must think why I think I might be more open to videos in such a setting).

 

As a viewer I hasten to add that I can stare at an online still photograph for long, long periods of time while my eyes roam around it and I think about all kinds of photo-y things. Thus, if nothing else for me, your video made me think about this still over video preference of mine. B)

 

And I'm thinking about slow-viewing and fast-viewing. The television advertisers have speeded up the bombardment of images in advertising to such a pace that we only get nano-glimpses of information (assuming we are paying attention at all) ((assuming an advertisement offers information at all)). So how does an artist draw such a viewer back into slow-viewing? Good question!! Do you give me something initially in a video to draw me into it? That would seem a cheap trick perhaps! So I suppose you have to ask the viewer to take a slow-viewing experience on trust. But that is still a hard sell for the likes of impatient me.

 

Had fun thinking about this all even tho maybe not well articulated.


 

The "It's A Small World" category: James Benning and I both got our master's degrees in Mathematics at the same university. He was a few years ahead of me, but I'm thinking we both had some of the same profs.

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Thanks for your thoughts Andrea - you raise some very interesting ideas

 

It's a big area of debate - the extent to which the artist should think about the viewer.

 

For my masters show I spent several weeks full time building the environment for the viewer - far longer than taking or editing the film itself. This involved constructing a large screen, dividing room up and painting wall and floor black and sourcing suitable comfortable seating. Also the viewer was told in advance how long the video was and the title of the show "I know when I had looked for a long time I had only begun to see" made clear that time was an important element. Also before the main film there was another film that was faster paced and had a narrative which talked about our experience of time. (see here for installation shots).

 

Excuse my indulgence here as this is drifting away from UV photography.

 

Regarding impatience - I know what you mean, I do get annoyed myself by some artists expecting a lot of the viewer, so I think I am a bit hypocritical , there have been times with artists I respect that I have given them time - I have found that there is a kind of pain barrier at around 2 minutes and once through this you move into a kind of different experience of time - I am thinking particularity of sound artists making very slow works.

 

Back to my own work here I think the problem is that I am not really that clear in my own mind with it what I am trying to do. As I said it's work in progress and discussing it here helps with that progress - so thanks for the opportunity.

 

I am rambling a bit . sorry ...

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  • 2 weeks later...

Having looked at the installation shots of the project, I think that the idea of a special video installation created by the videographer would indeed draw me in and persuade me to be a bit patient in viewing a video. :)

 

And thinking back to former museum and art show visits, I do remember looking at a vid or two. So perhaps I'm not an utter philistine when it comes to videos. :lol:

 

I've just been reading that the brain gives up after about 10 minutes, so perhaps every 10 minutes a video needs to "refresh" the viewer's attention with some kind of brain hook. Hmmmmm......perhaps a subliminal flash of a photo of a cute fluffy kitten?

 

 

...Just joking about the kitten as a brain hook.

But the 10 minute thing is from Brain Rules by John Medina.

 

 

 

[[The link is FYI. We are not monetized and get nothing from Amazon - or anyplace else.]]

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  • 3 weeks later...
Jim Lloyd

Just been in the back of my mind for a while to say ... of course that the sound is a vital part of the installation and for the show I probably spent at least as much effort on the sound recording - listen here as part of a video clip or here for the full sound track - use good headphones ideally

 

I know drifting away from the topic a bit ...

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Andrea B.

I do love listening to birds. I was trying to decide if I had a sense that I was listening to British bird sound and was it different from here in my area.

 

Forgive me for a techie digression, but I was impressed by how well the details are rendered in the low light. What were you using for the camera in that one?

 

I know so very little about either video or audio recording. I think I might be reluctant to delve into any of that for fear that I would open up a whole new time-consuming area of exploration.

 

Jim, I wish I could find a link to this story I saw on TV about a new church (or similar) where the religious imagery was made with video. The particular imagery shown was about martyrs. Well, ok, perhaps a little grim to see videos of martyrs however artistically done (and they were). But the point is that we are now in this era where we can use video/audio in conjunction with older arts to enhance our surroundings or to illustrate ideas in a place of worship or to provide whatever wherever. And it is beginning to be done. Although outside of museums and galleries, I have not really encountered this yet. While listening to the bird sounds and looking at the forest, I envisioned a wall in one's home which would display such a vid/aud. And not like a TV wall. But something more subtle. I had the thought like, geez I'm stressed by having to answer so many forum questions, I think I'm going to go turn on the bird forest and zone out for awhile. Zone out in the sense of immersing myself in nature or something like that. Granted, actually doing this by going outdoors to the forest at sunset is ideal, but how often do we get to do that?

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Jim Lloyd

Hi Andrea

 

The camera was Nikon D610 with Sigma 35mm f/1.4 DG "art" lens see here

 

I choose to go down the route of dSLR rather than dedicated video, partly to have a shorter learning curve and to so I could use my investment for still photography as well.

 

I took quite a lot of experimentation to get the right balance of focus, aperture,asa and frame time. I turned off the auto-exposure otherwise the camera tries to compensate for it going dark which destroys the effect. The D610 records up to 20 mins at a time of full HD video at 25 fps. For this I had to wait by the camera and manually restart 5 times to get my 90 minutes of recording. The sound was recorded using microphones positioned nearby - 2 x small omni-directional place about 7 inches apart and Zoom f4 recorder. The different video clips and the sound were combined using Adobe Premiere Pro with some small brightness / contrast and colour adjustments.

 

Very interesting your comments about the church etc - Busy now, but will comment later ...

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Jim Lloyd

Ha, maybe now i am getting my message across :)

 

In this show I hoped that people would be able to zone out - or start to think about time in a different way. There was a soft sofa to sit on which was close to the screen which was around 4m wide in otherwise dark surroundings.. But also I hoped to raise that very issue about the difference between the world and a representation of the world.

 

You make a very important point about something like a TV wall - but not. That is I think what you are getting at is something which is a more immersive experience.

 

This is something that is fundamental to what I am hoping to do in my PhD. This reference probably gets to the heart of it, although it might be a bit difficult to follow. When thinking of bee or bird vision, I want to try and express somehow they way they are wrapped up in their perceptual world - which doesn't come across when looking a still photographs as these are objects abstracted from our world, rather than something that we are intimately and dynamically bound up with.

 

Hopefully over time I will be able to express this more clearly ...

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My favourite noise reduction program NeatImage is very competently reducing noise, but not image details, when it is correctly configured.

They also have a similar program,that looks promising, for noise reduction of Video-files.

https://www.neatvideo.com/home

This might be interesting to test on pure UV-videos.

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  • 1 month later...

Extensive update to my website here - has link to book of flower images in visible and UV

 

As a general comment when I am talking about art I think more in terms of a definition paraphrased from Tim Ingold (I recommend you look him up and read some of his books):

 

"art is a speculative enquiry into the nature and possibilities of being human"

 

Rather than in the sense of aesthetics - although the two meanings are related.

 

There isn't one meaning of art so there is not much to be gained from trying to define it, I am just saying this to give an idea of the way I am thinking of it at the moment - more to do with raising questions ... and just because I am trying to think of it that way does not been I think I am being successful in that way yet

 

I am working on other stuff and will let you know when its completed.

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