Fine Art Photography meets Visual Stories
Sublunary - Part 2
As a professional photographer, Father to the most beautiful little toddler in the world and Husband to an equally beautiful Mother; I find it difficult to get out and make personal work.
In 2017, I graduated from University with a High 2:1 in a BA Hons in Photography & Video degree at De Montfort University, where the idea for this project was born. I began with a long period of time in the library, scouring art books and photographic archives, learning about who, what where, when, why and how specific bodies of work was made.
Surprisingly, I came across some painters and other Fine Art Photographers that worked in similar fields to my research. One in particular that sticks out in my mind was Photographer Erasmus Schroeter and Painter Max Ernst.
Erasmus Schroeter (2005).
Max Ernst, (N.D.)
I was also heavily inspired by my lecturer (Kosovan) Lala Meredith-Vula who is a contemporary fine art photographer with international recognition. Lala's ideas about my work and how to get the best out of me was first class and Lala's self confessed crazy mind was a perfect match for the project I had stuck in my head. She knew just how to get me excited about my own work.
Lala Meredith-Vula
Lala Meredith-Vula (N.D.)
So the body of work for Sublunary began. I created a series of landscape photographs that followed the narrative of an imaginary alien invasion of the planet Earth. A tall order you might think? I just needed the right level of inspiration and a camera. At the end of creating the work for my degree, I put it all together in a short movie with a spooky sound track that I created myself. You can watch that below.
I'm now about to embark on a much longer journey that will see me creating a whole new body of work for Sublunary Part 2. I'll be using my experiences from the first part of the project and will be digging deeper in to my imagination.
Here's a sneaky peek at my first experiment for part 2...
Paul Hands (2018), The Mute.
This is called 'The Mute' and features a landscape photograph that has been manipulated in camera by myself. I added the red light using the brake lights on my car and chose this location for the crazy tree that could be morphed in to any kind of other worldly creature. The reverse side of the road sign represents having nothing to say, to be muted and to be stunned by the experience of an alien invasion. You will see that I've also added a strange shaped metal frame on the right. This represents an alien being and is the shape of a large humanoid or key hole. It is hollow and appears invisible with the exception of the outer edges.
The scene is lit like a stage as if the play is being carried out and has undertones of humour, not to be taken seriously. It's a project that I can literally play and have fun with. I have a list of locations, that I've been building, so you can watch to see how this develops.
De Montfort University bought the first 5 prints of this project and hold them in their permanent art collection on campus. You can also read more about this project here.
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