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Zine Cover First Draft + Reflection

29th March

I designed my zine cover on the 26th March and was fairly happy with it the moment I’d finished. However, upon coming home and reflecting upon the work I’d done I became more and more dissatisfied with the work I’d produced. Keeping in mind it was a draft I think I’m ready to make the necessary changes to the document, but will note some issues I have with the cover as it is.

looks a bit too clean/clinical with not enough ‘art’ to compensate

initially I wanted a cover with the colour red on it, but I got ahead of myself and went with a too-literal design

back and front covers are identical

the gradient is too clean and mirrors the font too well

The red star below is GRB 090423, which is a gamma-ray explosion.

On April 23, 2009 at 07:55:19 UTC the Swift satellite detected a burst that lasted about 10 seconds and was located in the direction of the constellation Leo. The Swift UVOT Photometric System took a 150-second exposure of the field. To this day it remains the oldest object in the universe, it has a red shift of 8.2. I can eyedrop the colour in this image and use the same colour code in my zine cover to make it link directly to the source.

Once I’d done that, my zine cover looked like this. I realised it reminded me of the extremely dark tones in sunsets, so I figured I should modify this to make it more sunset-like whilst still maintaining the crucial red tone in the middle.

 ended up not liking this at all for some reason, so I thought if I experimented with the gradient itself rather than the colour which is usually my main issue, I could solve my issue. With the solid one line gradient my main issue was that the gradient was too clean and felt quite artificial (not in a graphic-design-purposeful way). So I opened a new document and changed the gradients from solid to transparent, and added different colours coming from different directions to layer over the top. 

After zooming in the gradient looks so much more natural, so I think I will experiment with tone and colour to work with my theme.

To get to this point, I created a new document and layered about twenty different colours, and tones, and opacities over each other to create a much richer gradient effect, and I added a noise filter on top as I just really liked the texture this gave. This took several tries of erasing the entire page and starting again as there was a lot of trial and error involved. I zoomed in quite far after because as you can see on the left the orange is too bright, so cropping captured the more natural blending between them rather than the brightest points.

This is the gradient I ended up using.

Now this is the second draft of my zine cover. I kept the stars from the first draft as I really liked the effect and they pair well with the noise grain of the colour gradient. I made the small black circle the focus of the cover and added a white gradient to resemble the moon. I removed the spine as I don’t think I will have enough pages. Instead, the large moon has been moved to the centre of the landscape page (initially the entire thing was on the front cover) as this connects the front and back cover, so if you open the zine all the way the whole moon will be revealed. I modified the initial font, making it white and stretch from the top to bottom on the right hand side. I tilted the font slightly as I felt it mirrored the gradient well and makes it more interesting visually. I ended up ignoring my idea to change the colour to red as the colour was just too bold and didn’t work with the softer gradient I had in mind.

2nd April

I’ve been thinking about the font and typography a lot after making that bold move with the white typeface which is borderline obnoxious. I came to the conclusion that I don’t actually need to have any writing on the cover. It’s not like I’m selling my zine or am distributing it to a large audience since it’s such a personal project.

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Zine Cover Designing + Initial Ideas

There is an artist on social media whose work I greatly admire, who does BTS fanart. Her username on instagram and Tumblr is @peacheschild. Her style is just amazing, I’ve been drawn to it for nearly two years. A prominent feature in her work is gradient tones with a noise texture over the top which really gives such a strong atmosphere to the images. Because the progression and development of my ideas is making me feel like I’m working towards a gradient background for my zine cover (initially inspired by sunsets and sky tones), I would like to implement this noisy/grain texture.

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20th March

I took some quick photos of some star-shaped glitter I have and shone a torch over the glitter in different directions to see how the light would reflect off the reflective surface, as I have an idea in my mind of photographing holographic glitter on my sister’s face as this would bridge the concept of light reacting with colour.

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Gradient Blurs in graphics/photography

Gradient Blurs in graphic design/photography

I came across the work of Eric Cahan whilst looking at gradient blurs on pinterest. I’ve been thinking about the shape of circles in science and how it’s always the most basic structure chemistry falls into, and how it could be used as a motif in my art.

Even though I attempted to take my own sunset images and they went wrong for various reasons, I still am so captivated by the science behind sunsets and the colours of the sky as it’s almost a tangible way of everyone on the planet being able to interpret astronomy without the equipment to do so. As I feel I’m lacking quite a bit in terms of the amount of work I’m churning out I am branching out of my strictly astronomy theme and will try to take some photos inspired by these. These also strongly link to Ori Gerscht’s work I was initially motivated by however attempting long exposures with a lens I couldn’t zoom in with I found it really frustrating.

Harvard Referencing:

Eric Cahan, 2018. Sky Series Selective Works [digital image]. [20/03/18] Available from: http://ericcahan.com/portfolio/sky-series/

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Immersive Exhibition Space

20th March

I’ve been thinking about how I’m going to set up in the exhibition, and since I was inspired by the science museum’s immersive feeling I was suddenly reminded of being in primary school and having a company come in and teach us about astronomy in an inflatable black dome. Presentations including projections of constellations and the solar system illuminated the pitch black small enclosed area.

This is exactly what the experience was, and the visit we had in year 3 made me want to take up astronomy in the first place. This is what sparked my initial curiosity so I think recreating this in the same way that the science museum inspired me would be perfect. Hopefully viewers would see the enclosed area and be inspired just as I was.

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16th March

Over the past week I’ve been taking loads of photos of the sky as the weather has been getting much better and the colours permeating through the clouds have been really beautiful. I haven’t yet come to any conclusion regarding the images I’ve taken from my phone but the way the sun rays shot out from the clouds in one particular image struck me as really interesting. I then thought about how the sky is never the same, we see it as a constant; the sun always comes up and then comes down at the end of the day, but due to various physical causes, nothing in the sky is ever the same.

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Twilight photography

12th March

Since looking at Ori Gerscht’s work I’ve wanted to take photos at Twilight but I didn’t exactly know when that was, so I just googled it. I thought it was ust an observational like “oh the colour of the sky is indigo therefore it’s twilight” but it turns out it is an actual astronomy term. The website gives daily updates as to when ‘civil twilight’ is, which is the brightest form of twilight.

https://www.timeanddate.com/astronomy/different-types-twilight.html

“atmospheric phenomena and colours can be seen during Twilight” 

Twilight occurs when Earth's upper atmosphere scatters and reflects sunlight which illuminates the lower atmosphere. Astronomers define the three stages of twilight – civil, nautical, and astronomical – on the basis of the Sun's elevation which is the angle that the geometric center of the Sun makes with the horizon.

In the evening, it begins at sunset and ends when the Sun reaches 6 degrees below the horizon.

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Thinking about the zine cover

Due to the Brian Cox ‘Wonders of the Universe’ episode where he explains why the galaxies on the edge of the universe are red I’ve found myself unable to shake the concept. Also I’ve been wondering about what to do for my zine cover. Originally I was so obsessed with Daisuke Yokota’s abstract images but due to my lack of access to the dark rooms at my university I’ve needed to re-approach this. Also, the last photos I took were SO unsuccessful and un-abstract and just look like normal portraits for the most part so I’ve come to the conclusion that I should merge these three ideas: have red portraits with an abstract/experimental edge to them.

Then I realised this reminded me of something, and immediately I remembered the children’s book ‘The Little Prince’ and the cover, which I had as a child and I remember it encouraged my fascination with space, seeing as the age range fit mine. This idea of looking out onto space I now think is very important for me to emphasise on the front cover, so that the images inside that don’t necessarily match can have some kind of cohesive feel as a reflection of the external image.

In addition, it’s imperative that the cover fits my new title, which is ‘Interlude: Dream within a Dream’ which suits the new cover concept. I think it’s necessary for me to reread ‘The Little Prince’ to get some idea of the mood/messages of that.

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March 9 I wanted to see if I could project some kind of star system constellation onto the wall so I can later recreate it in a portrait shoot. I got a piece of A3 black card (because with white the light leaked through and the contrast was disappointing) and poked holes with a safety pin. I placed the card over a lamp but the holes ended up being really big and shaped like squares, and were also weak. In addition, my tiny mug-sized lamp, while bright, was far too small to cover ALL the stars. Instead, I used my handheld torch as this allowed me to move it around in comparison to the distance of the card. When the light source was closer to the card, the stars were much bigger, but the further away, the stars were smaller (also more stars were lit). Also the card would need to be placed really close to the projection surface so the stars are bright enough and circular in shape. Therefore I have come to the conclusion that I need to try taping fairy lights to one side of the card, evenly distributed throughout the card. I’m not sure if this will make the stars big or small but it will help with the fact that I needed the whole A3 sheet lit up.

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Update, project feeling lost

And all of a sudden, the project is catching up to me. I thought I was on track but in retrospect I’ve been feeling a bit lost regarding what photos I should actually be taking. So, I’ve decided to just take a bunch of photos as soon as I can. As the focus of the project is on astronomy I really need to start taking those sky photos as soon as possible, however I am not sure of the weather conditions. Of course it would be amazing if I could take the photos locally, I really hope I don’t have to travel. 

Since the photos I took on my latest roll didn’t go very well I’m starting to realise how expensive this project is going to be, so I may resort to my digital camera to take the photos of the stars, as it’s just so much more reliable and I can take RAW images to perfectly capture as much as possible.

I found this website, London Astronomy & Stargazing which lets you know when the sky is appropriate for stargazing in terms of cloud and light pollution: https://www.accuweather.com/en/gb/london/ec4a-2/astronomy-weather/328328

it looks like these days are going to be the best for stargazing, I really hope I can get some decent images!

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Wonders of the Universe notes (episode 1)

23rd February

thses alien worlds are constantly sending us signals telligng us kno where they’re from.

our only contact with the distant stars is their light that’s journeyed across the universe to reach us and encoded in that light is the key to understanding what the universe is made of

when you burn elements they give off light and each element has its own set of colours

potassium is lilac

copper is blue

it’s this property that tells us what the stars are made of

Absorption lines from the sun

All the stars seem to rotate around polaris

as water cools down it behaves very differently compared to when it is a vapour. as it cools and lands on a plate of freezing cold glass it crystallises out and turns into solid water, ice. As the ice crystals form the symmetry of the water vapour disappears from view and complex, beautiful structure emerges.

The outer regions of the sun aren’t hot enough to power fusion however the inner sun is, where it fuses hydrogen and helium. Heat and light from the sun allows us to exist.

Constant shots of the blue atmosphere on the outside of the earth makes me think about how I can incorporate the idea of the blue ring or shell in my project.

When a star runs out of hydrogen it begins to die.

Sunspots on the surface of beetlejuice

Everything is produced in the heart of the dying star

Everything we find on earth today was originated in that nebula.

When we are looking into space we are looking into our own origins because we are truly children of the universe.

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Wonders of the Universe episode 4: Beams of Light (notes)

March 3

“Light is also a messenger, from a long forgotten era. And contained in the light of these far-away places, is the story of  our universe’s origin and evolution”.

He talks about these ancient temples in Egypt where as the seasons change the sunrise direction drifts along the manmade structure, until he visits on the winter equinox. It makes me wonder how humanity is so shaped by the sun, it frames our days and tells us when it is time to live. 

“This is the lagoon nebula. From a distance, this cloud of dust and gas appears beautiful, even serene, but this is a furnace, where new stars are forged.”

When the space telescope stared into the cosmos it saw galaxies glow in all different colours. But when it got to the very edge of the universe it saw all the galaxies glowed red.

For centuries people thought that light just illuminated our world. To reveal how colour can unlock the information of earth, he went to victoria falls. Rainbows are permanent fixtures above the rainbows, which are a beautiful phenomena, because they are a visual representation, of how light is made up of every colour of the rainbow.

Rays of light from the sun bend as they enter the water droplets. The light beams then bend off the back of the droplets, then are bent for a second time as they leave. This bending splits the light and the colours within the light are revealed.

Starlight is made up of countless of different wavelengths. WHen light is emitted by a distant star or galaxy, its wavelength doesn’t have to stay fixed, it can be squashed or stretched. Stretched, it turns red due to the longer wavelengths. Therefore, the space in-between the distant galaxies and us is expanding.

The blueprint for this astonishing structure is written in the very first light emitted by the universe, we can read it today. This light is no longer visible but it’s there, you just need to know how to look for it.

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Marianne Bjornmyr

By using stardust, a physical manifestation of the stars themselves against the photo paper directly, she is achieving the opposite by making something immediately available appear distant. Bjørnmyr enables us to engage with energies that are too intangible and too vast for human beings to experience in other ways. The sculptures which from a distance resemble simple minimalist black shapes increase in complexity at closer inspection. The forms present a closed-up, abstract view of a starry sky – despite the object’s opacity viewers ­cannot see the inside of the sculptures clearly. When looking into the sculptures from different angles one will recognise that the reflective surfaces are only part of a larger system of repetitious depictions, where it is hard to see what is a reflection and what is not.

Creating visually surreal universes through stardust, Bjørnmyr drags us to an imaginary microcosm, to explore the invisible. It is imagination that drives people to walk on the moon; to explore the farthest reaches of universe; to attempt to capture the mystery of a starscape – be that in the form of stardust, a photographic image, or a physical journey into space.

For me, I feel this claustrophobic impossibility of never being able to experience these starscapes and distant galaxies that the Hubble and other telescopes now are presenting to us, it is just simply too far away for any human being to ever see for real. These images, not taken with a camera, but created using data from electromagnetic waves captured by the telescopes, showing us crystal clear details and mesmerising constellations – I see this similarity to my own stardust photograms, although not as extravagant, they are actual depictions of stars, but then again they are not. The project sort of refers to its own title, Penumbra, a part of a shadow that is not quite a full shadow.

Definition of penumbra: The umbra, penumbra and antumbra are three distinct parts of a shadow, created by any light source after impinging on an opaque object. For a point source only the umbra is cast.

This photographer has made me think more about scale, obviously she recreates space matter on a size the human mind cannot comprehend into a size that fits in with daily life. This has pushed me to consider another experimental technique which will broaden my project further. This photographer used non-camera photography (photo paper) with star dust over the top to recreate the night sky. 

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Julie van der Vaart

21st February

http://www.anothermag.com/art-photography/10594/haunting-nude-photographs-evading-time-and-space

“When I was a child I looked at the stars and I could really imagine space going on forever. I had panic attacks because it wasn’t just above, but also below, and left, and right,” she explains. “I could envision space that went beyond the boundaries of my mind. When you close your eyes you see ‘an image’. What I was imagining went beyond that.

Bodies became a recurrent theme, employed as a means to express an idea. Intuitively too, the photographer leaned towards landscapes. “In nature you can find beauty and also the opposite – horror,” she says. “When you’re quiet you let yourself become one with nature, you have all the answers. It’s not meditative, but true, honest and real.”

Her oeuvre now encapsulates both bodies and landscapes, shot in analogue and black and white. “If you have colour you have this extra layer of information,” she explains. “You get more of the essential, central things if you get rid of that.” Romantic, sombre, ethereal, eerie; Van der Vaart’s work is both conceptual and “poetical”. She likes the balance between her own ideas and the viewer’s interpretation – that they can feel something while knowing nothing.

Inspired by quantam mechanics – and in particular, Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History Of Time – she wanted to create timeless photographs, images that do not exist within the confines of the here and now. To do so, she experimented with chemicals to craft a cosmic effect within the images. The bodies on show look as though they could be dissolving into space, or emerging from it – or perhaps doing both simultaneously.

In a departure from her usual approach the collection includes a small number of prints in blue, to break the flow. The results are haunting and hypnotic; a series of intangible figures, floating in a world beyond our imagination.

http://metalmagazine.eu/en/post/interview/julie-van-der-vaart-physics-and-space-in-the-instagram-era-agnes-deer

“I try to understand concepts such as space and time, and the more I learn the stranger it gets. (...) When I think about space, it expands from my mind, it is not just an image of a space/place but it is as if it can grow past the boundaries of my brain. So thinking about the universe, which is like thinking and imagining infinity, resulted in strange experiences in which I would completely lost myself. This is why I am fascinated by the universe. These experiences are some of the early memories that I remember very clearly.”

My main themes are nature and the human body. I see the human form as a vehicle of feeling and thought. I am not interested in the literal representation of a particular person, because to me the body stands for humanity as a whole. I like the form of the body and the soft skin. A naked body can be very sensual, but at the same time it shows vulnerability – this for me enhances the feeling of the ephemeral. Nature and sensuality are intuitively combined into fragile, intimate images. My work is personal and intuitive. I do not make many “appointments” for shoots but just have my camera with me wherever I go. The little things, a form, a structure or a pose, for example, inspire me, or I can be inspired by how I feel, positive or negative, and I try to translate that into my images. For the “Beyond Time” series, she manually processed her photos with chemicals to produce bodies that seem to dissolve into the cosmos, simultaneously appearing and disappearing. 

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I knew I wanted to create risographs for my project however I wasn’t aware that you could make black and white ones. I was looking for more ways to string together the images I have in mind for my project to make the transition between black and white film and coloured risographs more cohesive, and looking at this photographer has made me realise that you can in fact make black and white risographs which is totally an error on my part.