"The Wave"
The development of this picture.
Initially I had difficulty in crystallising my thoughts, selecting from a wide number of ideas, and among these are two strong influences; the more recent urban, musical and electric images and the earlier childhood images of rural Orkney, wide open skies, sunsets and Scottish land-, and seascapes. In the end I combined some of these influences.
The picture is made up of four elements
a) The figure inspired by the DJ, Tiësto and the words of songs
b) The lines of light, and
c) The sunset background
To create this picture I combined 3 photographic images and manipulated the images using the Photoshop programme. There are two added layers, of text and of sparkle and swirl effect.
a) The figure and the text
I used the imagery of the open arms, strong, triumphant, words and titles of songs, but taking the power of music into the bigger landscape – sunset behind instead of the concert hall (music arena) of the original inspiration. The original image was of Tiësto the famous DJ standing over his decks, looking towards the crowd. It is relevant to note that DJ Tiësto's motto is: "I feel the energy from the crowd and I try to give it back, to create a unity.” He was born January 17th, 1969 in Breda, in the Netherlands.
The words in the picture are taken from the titles of songs from Tiësto’s repertoire such as “Walking on clouds” “Just-be” and “Break my fall”. He remixed “Adagio for Strings” by Samuel Barber which has become a classic “trance” tune. I used the Copperplate Gothic bold text font for the song titles. The text consists of upper clear font and more blurred underneath. I used a range of different degrees of opacity and a range of sizes, generally larger fonts towards the outer edge of the picture. All lines of text are touching and this creates a screen of words falling from his arms.
I used my friend Jon, who is musical and artistic, as the model for my photograph of the figure. He is also a DJ. I gave him headphones to indicate that he is a DJ here. I had to use Photoshop to colour his shirt (blue worked better than the white T-shirt he was wearing). The blue gave more contrast and more effective shadows. The strong blue and red in the image work well because they are complementary colours.
I originally had an image of Tiësto posing much like the image I used but he was pointing outwards. I felt this took the eye out of the image. So when I set up the pose with my friend Jon I asked him to cup his hands in a sign of holding or collecting power which relates back to Tiësto’s motto of "I feel the energy from the crowd and I try to give it back, to create a unity”. The arc of the arms and position of the head are reflected in the red lines of light and the position of the patch of sunlight in the sunset.
I used the sparkle and swirls of light (using Photoshop CS3) around Jon’s hands and body to connect the image to the background. Without them the figure stands out starkly. They also mirror the curves of the orange lines of light and perhaps symbolise the energy in the music.
b) The lines of light
The lines of light look like sound waves, but they are the effect created by moving the camera while photographing the airport lights on the Isle of Man with the “Bulb” setting i.e holding the shutter open while moving (using a digital Single Lens Reflex camera – Canon eos 300D). The higher double red line is made by the twin red lights on the top of King William’s College tower – my old school. The idea came from the use of moving lights to create coloured lines in night photographs of vehicles etc. You can also move a coloured light in a slow exposure to paint with light. In this case it was the camera which was moved.
c) The sunset background
The sunset was a photograph I took in Orkney when I last visited. It was taken looking westwards towards Hoy across scapa flow. I modified the image by intensifying the red (with saturation) and blurring it, using Photoshop. I have always liked sunsets. Our house in Orkney looked south west and we regularly saw the winter sunsets over the hills of Hoy. I think I have been influenced by this and Orkney photographers, such as Charles Tait and Richard Welsby (particularly their landscapes). I also like the photographs of Gunnie Moburg (colour) and Sharyn Crossley (black and white). Gunnie’s photographs have been described as ”simple statements of place”. She painted as well as took photographs and was friends with the composer Peter Maxwell Davies and the writer George Mackay Brown, who were both also influenced by the landscape.
My image represents musical energy having a bigger arena – the wide open skyscape. If the power of music were made visible this is what it might look like. The landscape of Orkney inspires music and art, including my own.