Primary Research & Photoshop Experimentation

 Last week I went to Cornwall and visited some beaches to gather stuff to use in my project. Since looking at diatoms I've been interested in seeing things under a microscope and I  have an old one at home - it doesn't have a powerful enough lens to see things as small as diatoms but I can still use it to get really close up views of tiny things. On one beach, I noticed that the sand was made up of little fragments of shell so I took some in a bag to look at later under the microscope. On a different beach I collected bits of plastic and strands of nylon rope that were littering the sand.

When I got home I set up the microscope and looked at the sand which had a lot of unexpected patterns and colours in it so I tried to photograph the most interesting ones. Later I went on photoshop and arranged the images in a square grid:

I think the visual language of the grid is assertive and scientific, it gives the impression we are looking at research specimens from the lab which creates a sense of importance even though it's just sand. 

The next set of images are closeups of the plastic rope I collected on the beach and I really like the shallow depth of field which creates dream-like blurry edges. These screenshots show how I used the grid feature on photoshop to help me arrange the images evenly.

Here's the final image:

Lastly I experimented with the clone stamp tool and made this busy image as a contrast to the grid form where the circles are like plastic planets in space. It was inspired by Mandy Barker's photography of ocean litter.

Extra Images -

We found this starfish washed up and released it back in the water. All its tiny feet underneath were moving around

Barbara Hepworth piece in St Ives

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