The core idea behind this project was an inspiration from light, the way it changes and interacts with objects, (eg. sunsets and torches)and how this can be manipulated creating drastically different atmospheres depending upon the light source and its surroundings. I have used this starting point to begin to capture this effect through photography, scanning and watercolour. The different settings allow for varying degrees of success and various levels of quality documentation. 

 I order to grasp a clearer objective to the direction this project was headed a researched online the concepts of light in relation to physics; that being its properties such as refraction and reflection in addition to the affect of it being simultaneously a wave and a particle and the effect this had on how it acted. I also looked for inspiration through various artists whom have worked with light such as Pablo Picasso’s long exposure photos where he ‘painted with light’ using an electric bulb. In addition to research I also chose to begin collecting what I considered to be beautiful examples of the effects of light, particularly in the form of photography and capturing many sunsets and reflections upon lakes.

 In response to this research I collected a series of objects which according to the research into lights properties should be able to be used to manipulate it accordingly. This lead to a lot of photographic documentation of prism, glass, mirrors  and foil being used to refract light alongside lace creating interesting shadows when a torch was shone through. The scanner also became one of my main tools for creating images as it uses light to process what is placed above it leading to experimentation with paint and plastic forming new images, playing with the transparency of objects used to create them. I chose to both document inside and out, allowing these various light levels to also affect my work finding a dark environment to be best. However instead of sticking exclusively to a digital camera and an iPhone camera I chose to photograph using a Polaroid camera which allowed for more raw, unedited, more focused documentation of this ‘manipulation of light’. Leading to the title of my project and final artwork being ‘Manipulation of 430-750THz’ – the frequency of visible light.

 Picasso’s long exposure shots were a particular inspiration as whilst I did not do long exposure shots myself it opened me up to a way of documenting my interest in light and the opportunity to use it as a way of creating art itself through manipulation rather than exclusively photographing a nice sunset. In addition, Monet proved to be a big inspiration (and always had been) in particular through experimenting with impressionist paintings of some of the sunsets I was seeing. Whilst I did not place to much focus upon painting this project the vibrancy and colours that came from this experimentation stuck with me as a desired factor for my final project.

Ive discovered  a lot specifically about photography and development of images throughout this project which I found fascinating, specifically how there was so much you could do to affect the outcome each time whether it was in the camera settings or the development of images. In the future I intend to explore this further, specifically looking into what can be further achieved through alteration of settings whilst incorporating a variety of subjects to further alter the final outcome. I also found a lot of new ways of creating effects specifically by using objects I did not previously consider to create a wide range of alterations to environments whether permanent or not. Most notably I’ve paid a lot more attention to my presentation of work (inspired particularly by Wolfgang Tillmans presentation), choosing to display it almost as a thought process beneath a cabinet allowing the viewer to perceive my final piece as their workspace in order to follow my thoughts. One element of my artwork I would change if was within my means would be printing all of the photos (particularly the wall prints) onto better quality photo paper however due to financial reasons I was unable to. Whilst originally I had a layer of satin beneath my piece I removed it because I found it took away from the focus of the art-light.