i have made separate drive files for you to look through showing the various editing stakes of my book, this isnt the most secure way of presenting my work but with limited storage on my site without buying more i am limited in my choices
> Edit 1 <
WiP titles
infra forest – building on richards mosse’s title ‘infra’ this takes it to the forest, but leads to a very machinal view of the world focusing on the process rather than the mystery
they’re watching – linking to the eyes and the hashtags used in my posts, i think it work and conveys ominious vibes
watching from beyond – again with ominious vibes, but it doesnt have this noun so it makes us question who is doing the watching
Prosperity in unity – recently i had my post feautred in an acount’s IG page, these used these worlds to distribe my work and i feel its kind of fitting, but think i would want something more original and authentic to myself
Lurking leafs – use of alteration, it provides this ominious vibe while prepping the viewer to be on the look out
walking in pink – seems quite soft and kind of juxtaposes the contents of my book
forest spirits – linking to the studio ghibili movies of my childhood with these spirit ideas incorporating the forest as well
25 miles – this is to signify the distance i walked during 20.05 shoot, but i dont think think it works well
knot what you think – a play on words, i kinda like it but seems gimmicy detracting from the subject matter inside
in forest we trust – linking to the idea of a higher power, but has US connotations which isnt something i have any relations too within my work so this one is vetoed
forest trip – linking to ram dass’s phyco active substances and giving us this jurney to adventure into
judgemental eyes, i feel there arent enough eyes within my book to use this phasing
beyond the tunnel – this remind me of a cartoon show called ‘over the garden wall’ where things arent as they seem, and its just out of reach
a trip through nature – this signifies walking through nature as if it were an adventure, also hinting to ram dass, however it only refers to a single trip, where i have combined multipul rips into the narrative of my story
tripping through nature – similar to before but drop that A i feel it works better but with an uneven amount of words it could be hard to organise properly with a correct higher ache
infra forest holds a light weight typeface appearing quite fragile it and ridged with its abrupt slab serifs
using Adobe Arabic font i was able to get something close to my own hand writing, with is calligraphy style and serifs, this also looks like the type of font that would suit a childs book as it has a clear weight to it and flows better and rests nicely on the page, i could add a drop shadow to the text but i feel that ruin it.
i started by placing it where my old text was but felt there was a lot of negative head space above my text, to adjacent this i looked at the higher ache of my text and positioned my alliteration at the top while our eye filters down the page to read ‘nature’ taking our eye on a journey across the cover an in essence through the nature. there is also an eye dead centre in the page as two leafs cross horizontally and a third points it’s tip between them making a pupil foreshadowing whats to come
finally i made a smaller edit and chose to adjust the framing of the filter over layer bringing it in just slight so it the green wouldnt get lost
to edit these photos together i used indesign as i could layer two jpegs on top of each other and crop the top layer so they would blend nicely, i really like this effect it used.
> Edit 2 <
i begin my narrative with my ghibli tunnel as we delve into this world, as we turn the pages we come across the lights with black pages – his will be super awkward to print as a lot of my pages are white, but i love the idea, so many they’ll need to be separate printing runs and then bound toward. three pages of tunnel coney the length of it as i reference an idea by Jem Southam’s book ‘The Moth’ in which he uses a sequince of boats in the begin of his book to convey a similar message of time passing and the distance travelled
in these photos i also switch from my gray scale IR to my color IR. i used the B&W IR to convey an idea of limo as this is a state of inbetween before we reach our mystical world, like Richard moss did in his series’ incoming’ , i’ve also hand edited a series of photos to make them suit their scenario, like this one below where i’ve used a black briush tool in PS to feather the edges allowing for this to fit nicely without any glaring edges
we then come to the red filter wall, the only red filter image not to be edited as we step into the world of color
we then walk along this path further as it starts to transistion from this well worn pavent to this cluttered trail. both of these photos i’ve placed to the right of the page as a sense of progression moving forward
i then show this feature to show this world is alive but it resides on the left a a precursor to a foreshadowed a piece later on
distracted by this feather to skip to the a double page spread of a winter floor taken in December, they present soft and subtle colors as a posed to the darker purple previous, and turna page for a second one, this one shows an eye level image, u there are these markings on the trees that guide us through this now leaf travel, the old pavement has gone and now we are off the path, were not even on the beaten path.
at the end of this small trait we come to a Buddha tapestry in a small spiritual place connoting ideas of spiritualism, religion and mediation, on the right this is a sign of progression,
we turn the page and see this hallucinogenic foxglove, that is on the left, connoting a bad relationship as this is also poisonous and also reflects my bad habits while denoting idea of worship as we look up into the bells and sunrays – read my IG post @alex_lc_art for more insight
we then look up further from these bells into the sky to see this spiral canape (though i think my editing is slightly cut part of the image detracting from this idea a little)
this is where we start to see our first eye, or our third eye of though slightly pocking out of a tree calmly sat in the shrubbery
and the we see this magnificent art installation commission by the forest commission of a metallic bug on a bike providing life to this foreign world showing us we arent in the real world any more but this one that is alters
we see another eye peeping out of the leaves, this time larger and more inseight, this is nearing peaking when things start to pick up
now we have some of my favourite accident photos, these kaleidoscope vision double spreads that are internally spun, the trees warp in on each other, they start to create this holy imaginary, and again show this time passage of time as the middle one is the most intense and calmer either side
we then switch loacation and come to a fourth double page spread but no longer with kaleidoscope vision, its more refined and a lot calmer
we then return to this idea of spiritalism with this tree but this time without eyes to show thing are diffrent and now starting to be back to normal
along with this last double page spread of butterfly in IR to represent these eyes one last time but as a simple delicate butterfly , however it has a clip from its wing to idenifttty that cahnged has happned
we finally turn to this gore factor image that im not 100% i need, its more to represent this change after showing that things are the same, things are different this time. this is fore showed image from before, but maybe i should have removed the one from earlier and just kept this in its place ??
other images i edited, i wasnt sure how the butterfly would turn out when printing so i wanted to separate this image but realised there would be a white gutter down the middle and i disliked this a sit would brake the flow, however this means the butterflies body will be folded down the spine of my book
Alex's Photos & Thoughts 