Generation Art – The Fifth Challenge

Yes, here we are at the end of the fifth challenge….. and at the end of my humble participation in this adventure. There, the cat is out of the bag!

Although the past weeks were an incredible strain, I have enjoyed every moment of it. I learned a lot (even at my advanced age) and I think I can safely say that I am more confident in my photography now than I was before. That I have acquired much more confidence in myself….

I enjoyed that, unlike other reality shown on TV, there was no internal strife between us participants. We worked as a team, helped each other out and every one had a good time.

So the challenge we got this week was…. the Portrait!

But not just a simple portrait of course. It had to be more! We were to transform the photographic portrait, to work with it, to work on it and to make something different out of it!

WHAT THE F….! I thought. When I make a  portrait, it’s that, it’s finished. It’s The Portrait! What in hell shall I do to it, to make it more…. artsy?

So like my comrades I switched to Brainstorm Mode! But unlike them, I am rather older, my perception of photography is stuck in antediluvian times. A portrait is a portrait is a portrait! It shows the person, the soul. How to give it ‘more meaning’?

So I decided to take a ride, to just go home! No, I didn’t give up! I went home to get my Polaroid camera, made a detour to get some Impossible film (impossibly expensive film), all the while frantically thinking about my immediate future.

I finally had two ideas! Yep, not only one, old fart that I am, but TWO GREAT IDEAS!

First one, I didn’t put much faith in it…. I’d make a lot of ‘partial portraits ‘of my comrades and do some patchwork of them…. not great, but an idea nonetheless.

Second, the APTDP (Amazing Polaroid Three-D Portrait)! Not new I guess, but always good to wow the masses… I thought.

So I went ahead and grabbed my Canon AE-1 and nagged the others to sit (or in this case, to quickly stand) for me.

 

The result was a bunch of face-parts I had to painstakingly assemble, once developed, scanned and printed out.

I ended up with lots of material…. and no idea what to do with it! Should I go for the funny angle and do some silly stuff like this?

Let me tell you that I was desperate and really tempted by this approach. But I finally decided to play it to the finish and try to get some artistic stuff together… didn’t work out though.

My second idea took some time. I made 4 polaroid pictures of my sorry self, all around, and a last one of the contents of my head – photo gear of course. Then I assembled the photos into something resembling a cube (any Kindergarten kid would have done better!) and looked at it and cried…. Nooooo, I didn’t cry of course. But I was somewhat underwhelmed by the tiny result. Nothing to present to a jury here.

So I took all my little 4 by 6 printouts, looked for an available space and started laying them out to get some presentable result.

Yep, there might be something there… slowly approaching a final product. Just have to get rid of the feet in the lower corners. Now don’t think this was quick, I spent HOURS shuffling the pieces around to get to this….

And what will be my story behind this stuff? I’ll have to sell it to the jury!

So let me think – these are photos of my colleagues, my friends. They are all in there, at least those remaining in the competition. Yes, that’s it, it’s Generation-Art-Man… with a small piece missing, above the left eye, symbolic for those who already left us.

Anyways, that was it! I’m out of Generation Art – Photo Edition. And honestly I am not sad! Really! I’m glad I made it to the fifth episode. I enjoyed meeting great people, fellow contestants, the TV crew and the jury members. I’m happy I learned a lot during these weeks, and I’m glad I could deliver my final message to promote film photography (I hope they did not just cut that part……).

And for those who have the amazing courage to watch the newest episode, and the last one featuring Me, Myself and I, just see HERE! (Will be online later this evening)

Of course I will be reporting on the next episodes during the next weeks, though the main character is sadly gone 😉

Until then, thanks for reading!!