Work Record 1

Artist research

Lisa Milroy is an Anglo-Canadian artist born on 16^th January 1959 in Vancouver. Milroy is most known for her still life paintings of objects placed in patterns. She started doing sky painting in the 1990s, drawing the horizon line very close to the bottom of the canvas. One example of this is her print “sky” which depicts a field lined with trees, and then a clear blue sky with few clouds, this is printed by lithograph on a vertical 54.7 x 42 cm canvas

When you view “Sky” you get a sense of calmness from the print, mostly because the colour blue gives out a calm emotion to the viewer but also because there are only three layers to it, the fields in the foreground, the trees in the background and the sky backdrop. The sky portion is the largest portion of the print. As your eyes scan upwards you can see she framed the picture perfectly with mostly negative space. The sky is filled with some cirrostratus clouds that run diagonally across the page which add some depth to the negative sky area. Milroy's work relates to my exam topic of "framing devices" as the three portions of the picture frame each other put most importantly the bottom of the picture frames the sky, sort of like a polaroid pictures border.

In my preparatory shoots, I worked with buildings and reflections a lot which helped show how i could use them for the exam, it also helped me realise what looked good and what didn't within photographs using framing devices, for example, I didn't like doing reflections. These shoots also helped me to understand what I was really influenced by.

In response to the exam, I intend to take pictures of the sky using unnatural borders such as houses, roads etc. With these pictures, I may use physical or digital manipulation to improve my work. In this exam, I would like to try to create a photo that makes use of multiple photos stacking them to make one photo.

Contact Sheet

My idea for my shoot 2 framing devices was to photograph houses, telephone poles and other unnatural things/objects to frame the environment around me, mostly the sky, similar to Lisa Milroy's paintings of the sky. 

Best images

This is the first of my best images. This is a picture of a telephone pole that has been adapted to hold multiple lines at the same time. I thought this was perfect for framing as it is framing a perfect sky with 3 telephone lines running through it. When I edit this I may edit all of the likes out unless they're in the frame or i might cut out the middle of the photo.

This is the second of my best images. The image is of the top and side of a house and its garage. the photo frames the bright clear blue sky with the orange bricks and tiles, these colours are complimentary to eachother which make the photo look very aesthetically pleasing. It also has darker and white parts of the photo. When I edit this I don't want to cut out parts because the two parts compliment each other very well.

This is the third of my best images. It is a photo of two silhouetted houses, which look very similar, against the sky, with the sun peeking from behind the cloud with sun rays beaming out from the sun. When I edit this it might be a good idea to cut out the two houses from the photo as it would further frame the sky.

This is the fourth of my best images. It is of a pigeon landing on the chimney of a house with some tree branches coming from the left third or the photo. When I edit this I want to crop it so the pigeon and the tip of the house are in the middle third of the photo. This frames the sky as the sky is the negative space within the photo. 

This is the last of my best images. The picture is of a telephone pole. The picture is mainly cut into two pieces, with the pole cutting through the middle, but with the multiple wires going from the middle of the photo out to the edges there are 4 main parts of the photo. It might be a good idea to change some colours to make the photo more interesting for the final piece.

The negative blue space within my work has connotations to peacefulness and tranquillity as there are large amounts of it in my work. This also links to Milroys work as she also has vast spaces of blue skies in her paintings. 

Images to be improved

I chose these two photos as photos I could improve on as they both don't convey the message of framing as well as my other photos. The first photo used the settings aperture f9, shutter speed 1/125, and an ISO of 100. The second photo used the settings aperture f11, shutter speed 1/320 and an ISO of 100. The first photo could be framing because of the window but I wanted to frame the environment around me and it would only work if there was a reflection of the sky within the window. The second photo is too zoomed out to count as framing like the other photos, I could crop it but then the photo may be too small to present.

I used a cannon EOS M body for all of my shots that I took. I didn't use a tripod as I was planning to because I thought I could get a more natural shot by just holding my camera, though maybe it would've been better to use a tripod. I had my camera on a "landscape" setting to get a wide depth of field and get the right settings. My settings ranged from ISO 100, aperture f5.6 to f18 and a shutter speed between 1/100 and 1/640.

Digital Manipulation

For all of my pictures, I first started out by editing them in the RAW editor within photoshop. I then sharpened some of these images using the unsharp mask within photoshop. I also then straightened and cropped some of the images.

I tried experimenting with replacing colours in these photos but I don't think it worked well, so I didn't add it to the finished pieces. I also tried experimenting with deleting parts of the pictures. 

Physical manipulation

For physical manipulation, I wanted to cut parts of the photo out, either the frame or the thing framing the sky.


At first, I tried cutting out the entire thing but I felt like that didn't quite work so well, so I decided to cut it on all sides but one and then have it open like a door.

My artist research was helpful as it helped me to understand the importance of negative space in framing photographs. It also helped to research the different ways to physically alter my images to experiment with different things within physical editing.