For this weeks creative practice I was struck by the view I have of the university on my way to school. I see the two new residence buildings from the time I leave my house until I arrive at school. There are a couple of points where they seem to strike me in a particularly aesthetic way. The first time I noticed them is on the south east foot bridge next to the nature conservatory. It was interesting to see them juxtaposed against the reeds and the marsh as the stood out against the sky. The more I thought about the buildings the more I thought about exploring them in relationship to perspective. So for this weeks practice I chose to photograph the residence buildings at the U of R from three different perspectives.
This photo is from the perspective of the bridge where they first caught my eye:
For the Second Photo I climbed to the top of Boot Hill in Douglas Park to capture a birds-eye perspective:
For the last photo I got very close to the building and provided a low perspective looking up:
I think all the photos I took this week are aesthetically pleasing but they all have a very different feeling. If you look at the first photo the buildings look short and squat and it seems to be much more about the nature in the foreground where as in the second photo the buildings seem taller and elegant and seem to interact more with the lake as an interactive environment and its less about the juxtaposition. In the third photo there is no environment it is almost entirely the building but the positioning gives the building strength and meaning. It really becomes about the architecture and the materials of the building (the glass and stone, the steel beams, the curves vs the straight lines). It was interesting how three photos of the same subject changing only the relationship of the viewer to the subject (perspective) can really affect the interpretation of the same subject. It is something to keep in mind when deciding on what perspective to use for creating an art piece. How does the perspective you choose for your subject change how you view the subject?
Will Whitten 