Tryptich

A triptych is a panel of 3 photos which are supposed to be appreciated as one piece. They are connected in some way, such as a narrative starting from left going to right.

Research:
Bill viola is a video artist who uses electronic, sound and image technology in new media. His work focuses on the ideas behind fundamental human experiences, such as birth and death. Here are some of his triptychs:

The three panels of Viola's triptych show video footage of birth (on the left), death (on the right) and a metaphorical journey between the two represented by a body floating in water (in the centre). The footage used was not originally shot for this particular project. The birth was inspired by the birth of Viola's first son in 1988 (although it does not depict his son's birth) and was filmed at a natural childbirth clinic in California. The artist has used this footage in several works. The floating body in the central panel was filmed in a swimming pool for an earlier work, The Passing (1987-88). Viola filmed his mother as she lay dying in a coma in 1991 as a means of confronting her death artistically. The three passages are accompanied by a sound-track of crying, water movement and breathing in a 30-minute loop. In this compacted space birth and death eclipse the dreamy suspension which represents, in the central panel, the thinking, active human life. Here it is not life's journey which is important, but its beginning and end.

Adde Adesokan did a series of images called, 'triptychs of strangers.' Here are some of them:



I think these photos are interesting because my interpretation is that we judge what the rest of the person is going to be like when we see one photo of the person, no matter what part of the body, feet, hands or their head. Also because these photos have a strong sense of the person's personality which really comes through in these photos, if we concentrate on the main parts of their body, we can tell what they are like.

Francis Bacon:
Francis Bacon made triptychs with distorted faces by using exaggerated strokes and weaker strokes of the brush. This shows moods and feelings in his work, such as aggressiveness. Here is an example of his work, this is a self portrait.

Here is a photo of what he really looks like.

Here is his interpretation of what he looks like.



We can do this in photography by using shutter speed to blur parts of the body while the subject keeps the rest of their body still, however, it is impossible to blur parts of the face so only so I could only blur parts of the body such as the arm. Here are my experiments inspired by Francis Bacon:

 

John Wood and Paul Harrison
These photographers use performative actions where either one of them does something or they both do something using architectural shapes based on the human form with a geometrical significance. They try very hard not to repeat themselves and they take a lot of care on planning what they are going to do by drawing the things they will film. They have a deadpan sense to them as their faces are emotionless when making the film and they normally involve a plain background, a person and an object. There work called 26 drawings and falling things is a great representation of their work.

Tasks:

The first of my photography tasks, I got given this photo and was told to take a two more photos and make a triptych from it.

My interpretation of this photo is that the boat is covered up, out of place and there is also a great texture in this picture. These are the photos that I took in relation to the one above:

This is a weird ice formation on a patch of grass, the idea is that the ice is out of place because it shouldn't be on the grass, the grass is covered up by the ice and there is a great texture in the photo.

In this photo, the old Christmas tree is clearly not supposed to be here, the tree isn't covered but it does blend in with the ground, also there is good texture from the tree and the tyre marks.

My next task was to Create some triptychs of my own:
I first tried triptychs that didn't have a story behind them but were still connected by what is in them. These photos are all connected because they are all to do with the beach which is why they will work in a triptych.

With this triptych, people can read it from left to right or from right to left. I tried to make it look like the beach huts were in between the two groans. I used the groynes as portraits so that it looked like they were being viewed from the beach huts, I used the beach huts as landscape because it makes the triptych look continuous so that all the photos work together.

Another triptych which I did in the same context as the one above was this:

I like  this triptych because all the butterflies have the same background so that they look like they could be grouped together on the same plant.

My next triptych was a story line of a race in the paralympic games.