For this exercise, I was to do the route again. This time I was to use a camera to capture aspects of the route. This is what I captured:
I actually took a slightly different route to the same destination. Based on my initial sketched I wanted more variety, particularly in buildings and settings. What I found interesting was that I was far more adventurous with using the camera's viewpoint, capturing textures, zoomed-in details and trying angles that I had not considered whilst walking with my sketchbook.
The different weather, route and perspectives all added to a much more holistic appreciation for the journey. When I returned to my desk, I added some of the photos to my sketchbook. I grouped them based on areas that I felt represented my natural foci. I actually started by remembering work I did in Key Steps in Illustration regarding making diagrammatic maps and decided I wanted to show the different routes I took. I experimented with combining that with some of the collaging work I had done previously.
Some of this experiment was successful, I particularly enjoy the arch to draw attention to the park. I feel some other elements like the road sign are too big and obscure the detail of the map itself. If I were to do this again I'd look to reduce the size, or maybe cut out the sign itself.
I think the photos are sometimes compositionally more successful than the quick sketches that I made. But they are also clinical; dead. They are quick and easy to take, but there is less risk in a bad photo, you can just take another. The time taken to sketch something does something because of the time it takes. You can't be there forever, and you can't lose the moment. So one has to make choices about what to convey. At the moment, looking at my sketch of the petrol station, I think that a lot of my choices are subconscious. I wonder what I could do to make more conscious decisions?
The benefit of the ease of taking photos is the ability to record a lot of detail cheaply and quickly. As I came to realise that not all reportage is in the moment, this opened up more possibilities for me. As one starts to develop sketches back at the studio into something more finished, photos allow you to notice small details, textures and visual information.
The luxury one has, then, is to choose what to incorporate. Or I suppose (more importantly) what to leave out. It also allows one some artistic licence to incorporate pieces of key visual information that are not perhaps 100% accurate but are essential in conveying the sense of place to the viewer. Having used them as collage, they can also be used selectively to add to one's visual vocabulary.
A number of the photos made me curious about how I might have sketched them en plein air. I was due to delve a little more into some research exercises to I decided to see how I could explore this as part of my research.
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