COLLABORATIVE PROJECT
Bioshock Photography project with
Charlie Nye
As of November 2017 I have been collaborating with a University of Lincoln Photography Student, Charlie Nye. Charlie approached me after seeing a commission I produced for a friend of her's and asked me to create some pieces she could implement in her Third Year Final project. She intended to develop a visual recreation of Rapture, the dystopian underwater city setting of the Bioshock video games, by combining photos of her local aquarium taken by her and Bioshock inspired elements painted by me. Because of my own love of the Bioshock games and the fantastic opportunity to collaborate with a Third Year Student I immediately accepted.
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The initial agreed approach to my contributions was to have me paint individual, isolated elements that could be incorporated into photos independent of one another. I voiced concerns that the lack of a unified perspective, composition or the desired lighting would cause these elements to stand out and look out of place as part of any whole but, of course, painted the pieces as requested.
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Towards the end of the project Charlie encountered the problems I initially voiced concerns about and requested that I produce a final fully composed painting, that would have transparent windows and act as a frame for the underwater photos Charlie planned to take. Upon my completion of the piece and Charlie's presentation of it to her tutor however, she was told that the predominance of the painted elements in the work overrode the intention of a submission on a Photography Course. This meant Charlie had to go back and utilise the original assets I sent her, though I have been informed both she and her tutor were very pleased with the result.
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This project has been an incredibly enjoyable and rewarding one but was unfortunately plagued by a lack of proper communication. From the project's inception Charlie refused to communicate over anything other than text-based messaging, whereas I felt the creative process and necessary brain-storming element of a collaborative work would be aided by verbal communication. I would also sometimes go months at a time hearing nothing from Charlie while waiting on feedback for sent assets, though I can assume this was mainly caused by the highly demanding schedule of a Third Year University Student. Despite these issues though I feel the project was a success and now forms a strong basis and education on approaching collaborative works in future.
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