Project proposal

Proposal For my final idea I am planning to create a series of multiple exposure images that will show my representation of lucid dreaming. Lucid dreaming is when a person knows that they are dreaming I will take most of the original images using disposable cameras and the portraits using a digital camera.


 I am doing this as I love the nostalgia feel that disposable cameras give their images as it reminds me of looking through old family albums which is something I find enjoyable and want to incorporate in to a project. Also, dreams are quite similar to memories as most of them you can't remember forever but you can capture the moment with a camera. This will be similar to me showing the dream in a picture so that you can remember it. I am taking the portraits using digital as I have not experimented with the disposable depth of focus a lot so I don't want my portraits to end up blurred or out of focus.


I will then turn my images in to multiple exposures by scanning the negatives, uploading the digital images and using Photoshop to put them together as I feel multiple exposure will be the best way to visually show the subconscious sights that can be seen during lucid dreaming as whilst  am lucid dreaming I often see my bedroom as though my eyes are open even though they are shut and my dreams often look like they are projected in to my bedroom. I am creating my multiple exposures so my explanations don't paint a different idea in peoples heads. I plan on using two or three images for each multiple exposure. One a portrait of a person with their eyes closed, one a scene (e.g. A busy crowd, a supermarket aisle, a park, a family dinner) and the third a picture of a bedroom scene. The scene that isn't the bedroom will represent the dream and the portrait will represent the person the sleeping. The bedroom scene will help narrate that it is dreaming you are visualising as this is where most people sleep.

The way I plan on presenting my final images is on a projector. I would like this as I could have a slideshow of my images that keeps on moving so people will be attracted to the moving images rather than printed images on a wall. The projector will also project them as a large format on to a wall whereas if I printed them, due to costs, they would be quite small and less eye catching than if they were projected. As well as having my final images projected I thought it would be a fun idea to have all of my original scans printed out (not cropped, with the scanner in the background for added effect) and placed unorderly on a table beside the projector as this would be interactive for the audience to look through the original images and to think about which ones have been put together to create the multiple exposures. I could also print my scans on to transparencies so that the audience could put the images together so that they look like multiple exposures whilst together. I would do this as my favourite part about visiting galleries is the interactivity, for example, at the Photographers Gallery in London, they had red buttons on projectors at an exhibition. You got to press the button to change the image that was projected which made me more likely to view the images and enjoy the exhibition as a whole. Also, At the Format Photography Festival, I went to an exhibition in Derby in which they had a blank wall acting as a canvas; people would then send their images via Twitter which was then printed out of images on sticker paper. This was then left to the public to choose an images and stick it on the wall wherever you liked which made it fun to view the images. The more interactive an exhibition is, the more enjoyable the experience the audience will have and the more likely they are to enjoy looking at your work which is what you want to gain recognition.


The alternative option that I have thought about of how to present my work is printing out my multiple exposures at around an A3 size for mounting on the wall and then having my printed out scans underneath as I would if I had them projected. I feel having them projected is definitely what I want to do the most but if certain circumstances stop me from doing this then I shall print them out and mount them on the wall above a table with all of my scans on.

This project will challenge me as I am not confident with film photography or editing in Photoshop so I will get to experiment with the two and learn more. I am also going to try and create colourful filters and light streaks to add to my final images to make them look more dream-like so I will have to learn that along the way.

Creating light streaks

http://www.photoshopessentials.com/photo-effects/light-streaks/

I followed this Photoshop tutorial to create a light streak over an image:

After following this tutorial I made a decision that I was no longer going to add light streaks as I didn't have the skill to create better ones and wouldn't be able to practise in the time that I had left.

I also thought that the light streaks I could make would look a little odd if I added them in to my final work.