Exercise 3.1 - Understanding viewpoints

3.1. Understanding viewpoints

The aim of this task is to produce a collection of “camera/screen based content as part of the sketchbook process”

Main points of the brief:

• ...Make the same route as I did previously but using a camera this time
• Be conscious of diversifying viewpoints around key signpost images
• Focus on selecting landmarks or features from my route that I felt a particular interest in
• During the process, focus on seeing the subjects within a different perspective, (e.g. deliberately zooming in and out, moving from macro to micro, noticing textures, details and colours, as well as larger shapes and forms)
• Print some of the photos or make a file of them, selecting some of them and put in my sketchbook
• Take some notes about the process 

My Approach:

I followed exactly the same route where the sketches were made and took pictures from different angles where applicable and also zoomed in or out to capture details, textures, shapes, colours, micro and macro views.

As for the references captured on google earth , these were areas where social distancing is nearly impossible and thought is wasn’t safe to walk to those areas.

Instead of printing the images, I created some reference files with a program called VisRef in my iPad, I found it to be very practical because you can zoom in the pictures and adjust them to suit your needs and I can always access the program on my phone. Bearing in mind that the purpose of the pictures will be merely for reference.

• What is the relationship between the photos and the drawings in your sketchbook?

They represent the point of view from which I based my sketches on. They relate to the previous exercise drawings as reference should I wish to further refine my drawings.

• Do you see the photographs as a form of reference to possibly help you inform your earlier sketches or do you consider them to be an alternative and separate form of visual language?   

They help me inform my earlier sketches particularly the quick sketches. I might have enjoyed a particular composition achieved in any of my drawings and should I decide to redo and make a more detailed drawing or choose to make it in a different medium, I can always get back to the photos instead of physically being on that location.

• Do they provide visual reference?

The pictures provide me visual reference, in my case, three purposes come to mind, one of them is to refine the quick drawings from the previous exercise, maybe lightboxing the initial lines and adding more details to them , another is to zoom in to certain textures  like a brick wall and add it to an illustration as an overlay layer or layer mask to a background, and another is simply to help create a more fictitious environment, using elements of the pictures but no over relying on them.

• Did the process of taking photos make you want to return to any of your sketches and develop them in some way?

Some of the drawings I got happy with the end result, others I felt that the composition was good but the technical execution wasn’t since I was more focused on doing them quickly, and the latter I might want to develop in some way. 

Taking sequential art as an example, The pictures might be used as an aid to develop a particular setting for my characters or to introduce an environment in the first few panels or an establishing shot to introduce the viewer to the world that these characters live in.

In addition, the close-ups or zoomed in pictures, prove an effective means to set the mood of a drawing, be it the top of a chimney under a red sky or the sharped and shiny roof draining pipes contrasting with old rustic roof tiles.