Capture Manchester Competition Entry
Posted on 2009-02-16 [direct link] Tags: Manchester Photo Polyfarm.

I recently found out about the Capture Manchester Competition being run in association with the CUBE Gallery. They even had the decency to extend the deadline, a sure sign that they hadn't exactly been swamped with entries. Or maybe they'd been overwhelmed? Oh well, too late for that... I've entered now.

The first job was to cook up the idea for an iconic image of some sort. I would then render it in polygons, I am becoming firm in the mindset that all art should be rendered in polygons. Preferably triangles. So I wandered the streets of Manchester last Friday looking for something that fit the vision.

I knew that I wanted a sweeping roof-line of some sort, ideally with a curve and some strong blue above it. The silhouette needed to be strong and recognisable. And it needed to mean something to me personally - entering this competition is highly unlikely to yield a financial rewards so it is critical that the image is worth my time in its own right.

Candidates from my youth were Central Library (more specifically the side passage that curves around it) and GMEX (now renamed to something else).

These two are pretty good. But then you realise that GMEX is nothing like as pleasant to look at as it is to remember, and the central library passageway is something I didn't really want to claim represented anything meaningful about Manchester as a whole.

Whereas the Urbis building does say a lot about Manchester, and more importantly means a lot to me. So that's what I ended up using.

A lot of people dislike the Urbis building. It is undeniably trying a little too hard to be different and attention grabbing. Personally I like the way it looks, and I like that it is trying. I hold no real opinion on it as a working space and have spent mere minutes inside, but the areas around it are very meaningful to me and in the end perhaps that is why I like it.

I used to linger around the old corn exchange (now the Triangle, next door to Urbis) buying comics and watching the cooler grunge kids laze around the gardens drinking cider. I would take my crappy Walkman and listen to mix tapes while studying obscure dance and jungle records in tiny smoke filled basement shops. I knew a lot about those weird basement shops, and I like the fact that the vast majority of people didn't even care they were there.

Not long after I grew out of all that the IRA bombed the place. A handy full-stop into the narrative which gave the planners an opportunity to "regenerate" that end of town. Swanky new buildings, boutique shops and higher rents all became the rage.

The timing was very handy because I didn't have to see them rip it all down, I was away from approx 1996 to 2000... and by the time I noticed what they were up to the Urbis building was getting its final lick of paint. So I like it. And hence it became my source image.

I didn't exactly pick a good day to photograph Manchester, it was cold and very dark. The image I ended up using was far from perfect, but a frankly ludicrous 1/9th second exposure managed to capture some of the blue/green tint on the building and gave a bright sky without being completely washed out. But it wasn't a blue sky, and I wanted a smooth fade, and all the gray in the foreground would have to go, etc, etc.

The key thing is that I had the building silhouette. Which was all I really wanted. The rest I painted out or coloured bright green. The green isn't a complete fabrication by the way, Urbis has copper roofing elements. So even though it mostly looks blue there is a distinct green shine when the light catches it.. anyway... I wanted a blue sky and a green building and to hell with it.

I was set on having a lot of empty space at the top and to the left of the building's front edge, with a gradient fade from dark to light proceeding down the image. My intention was to give the feel of something rising up rather than just being static, Godzilla leaping up out of Tokyo harbour probably covers it.

The image above right became the "master" image given to the polygon-farming program I've written. Much more info on that here. After many, many, iterations you end end up with pictures like these:

And eventually you get something like this:

The image above left has had the opacities slightly altered to emphasise the "framing" of the black rectangle "under" the polygons. The image above right has had some of the colour from the original master image bled back in. This takes away the pure vector-image nature, but the trade off is that it brings back some texture and hinting for the eye. I should probably have spent time tidying the stepped edges of the raster-image elements... but oddly I decided I liked the contrast and left them in.

Finally I did something that forever renders the image an also-ran in the competition stakes - I added cheesy caption text.

Part of me knows you're not supposed to do things like this if you want to call it art and have everyone keep a straight face. A larger, and more important, part of me likes cheesey captions and worries that people won't know which way around to hold it without a hint.

The final product is below. It will be printed as a 6 inch by 4 inch postcard and exhibited at the CUBE Gallery from 28th March to 9th April 2009. Click on the image below to load a huge version, but be warned that it may slow your computer to a crawl while it tries to draw it.

[2009-02-16 at 21:45 (updated 3 times)] [views: 1261] [direct link]