Cathédrale Saint-Jean
For this project, I wanted to create a composition that evokes nostalgia from my time abroad in Lyon, France. Since Lyon is also where I met my boyfriend, I chose to incorporate a “love story” element to reflect that personal experience.
The background features a photograph of the church I passed every day in Vieux Lyon on my way to visit my boyfriend at work after classes. This church is a well-known landmark, situated along a busy route frequented by both locals and tourists. It also carries historical significance as the site where Henry IV signed the Treaty of Nantes. The image, titled “Lyon. Église St. Jean” (ca. 1890–1906), was sourced from the Library of Congress.
For the foreground, I used a modern photograph of myself walking. Since I did not have an image of my boyfriend in motion and dressed as I envisioned, I generated a Frenchman inspired by Baron Haussmann, the urban planner behind Paris’s iconic boulevards, holding flowers and walking toward me.
To achieve the desired effect, I converted the composition to black and white, applied blur to draw focus to the church’s main arch, and maintained a shallow depth of field. I distressed the edges, added scratches, incorporated sepia tones, and layered gritty textures, including wet plate and broken frame overlays, to emulate the vintage wet plate collodion style.
This project pushed me to step outside my comfort zone with Photoshop. Although I am not very experienced with the software, I experimented with tools and filters I had not used before, learning how to blend images effectively and apply overlays with precision. Overall, I am proud of how the piece turned out and look forward to building on these skills in future assignments.
Link to source image: Lyon. Église St. Jean – Library of Congress
The image is of a love story, two figures approach each other in a moment they alone share. The background, a period French church, with a prominent arch focused at the bottom. There are details from the street that build up a nostalgic scenery, as these two figures make visual contact. One moves forward, blurred by the photographic process, the other static. Overcast clouds fill the sky, giving the feeling of a rainy day.The image itself is 4:5.5, pushing the image of the church to have a vertical, domineering presence. Scratches, blurs, and a muddy texture make the photograph look appropriately aged, giving the feeling it has had a life well lived.
ReplyDeleteHowever, separate from the story presented by the artist, the setting seems haunting. The archway descends down into a dark hole in the center, drawing my eye towards the space the couple has between themselves. This space is the darkest value found in the work aside from the edges of the frame. A dark hole in the center ground of the central figures, creates a layer of storytelling, like there is a void in their relationship. One figure moves forward, blurred by her motion. The other male presenting figure withholds, almost disappearing into the darkness of an archway. Like a reference to a movie's weather setting the stage for an audience's emotion, an overcast of clouds creates an eerie feeling of sorrow or deep longing. Which is all reinforced by the love story presented.
Though the story may seem haunting, the image and designed choices source images tell a vivid story perfectly collaged for the time period. The French church dominates the image, bringing with it long standing history. Even without knowing exactly what happened in the church, the ornate architecture displays this. Surrounding the church, the clouds and dust blur blend together, building an eerie story but also ageing the photograph significantly. The method of weathering larger parts of the object allows for limited focal points in the image, focusing the perspective. An additive process from weather, blurs, blemishes, to scratches, and the dark frame and sepia tone build up the process truly mimicking a wetplates photographs creation.
Without the thoughtful process of building up the wetplate, and choice of image I wouldn’t be able to derive such an intriguing story. Though it may not be what the artist intended, the surrounding themes of love and space pull me in. It forces the feeling of nostalgia, of what love is, can be, and was. A work that intrigues me, and forces me to reflect on my own life is what I value. This is exactly what is accomplished, I reflect on my own relationships, how I’ve grown and been confronted with the church, space between and how to bridge it.