Matt Molloy Inspired Work

Matt Molloy creates images using his time lapse photography, he calls these timestacks, In my sketch book a have created an artist research page on him showing his work and some styles of painting that these look like they create, I made some of my own time lapse films which can be seen at the bottom of this post, with these I added each frame onto a Photoshop layer an used the lighten effect (used by Molloy) these give the images an effect that makes them look like paintings, this is a technique that I like because the purpose of the time lapses is to capture the beauty in movement and the images also capture them whilst linking them to how they can be captured in other aspects of art, the time stacks allow all colours to be shown at one time which created a very interesting piece that is appealing to the eye. These link to my exam theme of multiple images as they are simply, multiple images layered to create one composition.

The image to my left is my favourite because I feel that it is the one most similar to Molloy's work as you can clearly see each layer, I also like the effect given by the lens flare as to me it represents how nature is hard to capture in every essence of its true beauty, It is somewhat Ironic that we use man made technology to savour the moments given by pure nature, the colours in this make it stand out which can cause some people to wonder what it is, i think this helps to juxtapose the monochromatic tones in the clouds, also each layer resembles brush strokes remarkably well, and questions the viewer into thinking whether it is a painting or a photograph, I like the idea of tricking the viewer and this is something that I would like to remain in my pieces

This time lapse was created by taking photographs every 10 seconds for about half an hour and then collating all of the images into one video piece to show the sunset, I really like the colours that I achieved in this piece and it is something that I would like to experiment with in a canvas painting.

All of the following time lapses were taken around the same time I took the sunset time-lapse, I took these at the same time because I liked the lighting that the sun was giving and i wanted to create some short clips focusing on the movement of the waves and the swans (Despite them not wanting to be seen by the camera) I am happy with the results that I got as They all show the movement in them well. For each of them i just used the continuous shot mode on the canon camera so the camera would take a picture every 1 - 2 seconds which was suitable for fast movements so they create a rather smooth video.

I turned each of these videos in to time stack images however they didn't work very well and the water just looked rather plain there was no definition between the waves  and for the videos with the swans in them I just achieved multiple swans and to me this just looked amateur and I decided that these were not something I would continue working on.

As much as I liked the work of Matt Molloy It was not something that I thought I could move on from or experiment around with and so I chose to leave his work as just an experiment point, I learnt a lot about camera and film techniques that I plan on continuing with in the future, it also increased my appreciation for time lapse photography. I struggled with this method however because I did not have an intervalometer which is a timer used on the cameras which you chose the time for the camera to snap, I had to manually take pictures myself which was very time consuming and laborious for me, which was probably why i didn't enjoy it as much but I felt that the end result was more on my skill rather than the technology that I should have used.

Here is my cloud time lapse 

I had looked at the style of Molloys work and to me each of his photographs looks a lot like a painting and so with this interpretation I began to paint canvases based on his work

Stacked Clouds

The rolling images are photographs of my works that I created from various time lapses of mine

Sunshine with lens flare

Artist Copy using techniques that appeared similar

(Artists Work)

Sun shine with lens flare

Pitsford Reservoir Sunset

Multiple Images

I have been practising photography for my time lapse footage also as this is something that I enjoy the look of also, and I found that with the Canon EOS 1100D this is difficult because there is no way to set it so that it automatically takes photos every few seconds, so I had to sit (in the cold) for half an hour clicking away every 4 seconds. In order to get a better result I would need to use an intervalometer which I could set so it automatically takes photos, However for a first attempt at a manual time lapse, I am happy with my result. For these shots I used a tripod also

This was roughly 600 shots

I decided to try the method of continuous shooting when out and about because the images would be quicker than the clouds so I could take the shots quicker, The issue with using this on the Canon is that the shots will be in good timing for the first few images and then it will gradually slow down, this did not turn out to be much of an issue as they were handheld shots so they had that 'home footage' feel to them, Below is a compilation of the continuous shots I took edited together using adobe premiere pro CC 7.0

I was experimenting with the camera, taking some random abstract shots to build up a portfolio of work so that I could ensure I had enough to work with and I began collating it all together, I added a song over the top and began to found that this created a music video feel, and so i experimented more, Shortening clips and cutting them to the beat of the song. Of course the clips are completely abstract but I think it works well. The clips of the flowers in my garden are taken using the method of lens whacking, which is where you take the camera lens of and film, moving the lens off so that you let in beams of light, I like this effect because it make stye film appear as if it is lowing and it gives an almost super 8 footage feel to it, I think it works well as a method to create footage with more of a light hearted feel to it, I contrasted this with the shots of the ink in water as I feel they look much darker, the clips of my nieces eyes along with this create a different emotion, you begin to think about what she may be seeing and as the song itself sounds rather abstract i think i have created a good compilation.

I wanted to work more on the continuous shooting as I found out it works better with using more pictures, And so on the way to take my motion blur pictures of the traffic, I began to take some shots whilst driving. I like this method as it gives a greater sense of speed to the video and this is enhanced by me adding a fast paced song over the top of it, There were roughly 1000 pictures taken during this

Before I knew how to use the method of lens whacking I researched some ways you could do it without taking the lens off (because i wasn't really too sure how to do this) and so I found a set of movie files that had the same effect and look as this and began experimenting with them, I leo added some photographs to see what to would look like when you layers more than one thing, and i really liked the final outcome, It is definitely something i would like to experiment with more