David Hockney
Known for his photo collages and paintings of Los Angeles swimming pools, David Hockney is considered one of the most influential British artists of the 20th century.
Born in Bradford, England, in 1937, David Hockney is a photographer and artist. In the 1970s, Hockney began working in photography, creating photo collages he called joiners. He continues to create and exhibit art, and in 2011 he was voted the most influential British artist of the 20th century.interested in art from an early age, admiring Picasso, Matisse and Fragonard. His parents encouraged their son’s artistic exploration, and gave him the freedom to doodle and daydream.
Looking at David Hockney's joiner portraits and landscapes, I found them intruiging and 'other-worldly'. He uses several photographs and overlays them: sometimes with just a face and other times a whole body portrait or landscape. I applied this technique to my own photography.
Firstly, I took photos of the subject from various focus points. I layered and cropped some of these photos to create a distorted portrait, using photoshop tools such as overlays (hard light, soft light etc) instead of just changing the opacity of the image.
In my opinion, the first image was effective because I managed to create a sinister atmosphere through the use of a) strange props and b) the black clothing. After blending certain images, they became more prominent and the colour palltette became higher in saturation yet created a darker feel.
The second image is more of a traditional joiner photo in which I did not change any of the images opacities etc I only cropped. I created the image of a fuller portrait rather than a layered one which I believe works well with a joiner photo. However, I prefer the first image.
