Blog #5

The most significant accomplishment in looking at my midterm project was in the way that I was able to take so many different images related to my Big Idea and condense them down into two meaningful images that could be used as a single piece of work. Through editing and picture selection, I found that I could create images that could portray the ideas I wanted to express.

One of my most challenging learning experiences in Photoshop has come when trying to make the appearance of similar light sources within different images. This technique came into use for quiz #4 when trying to balance the heavy lighting coming in from the left side onto the building with the darker lighting at the front of the building without compromising the image quality.

An example of an achieved making-meaning came when I was able to take the collage of images from my modern meaning assignment and select only a few of the images to create a more meaningful midterm project. This helped showcase the purpose of the work as opposed to the being merely a showcase of technique.

Blog #4

The Big Idea for my final project is Success. This will be employed by looking at different levels of success and the ways in which they are interpreted and dealt with. To accomplish this, I compare two Olympic track and field athletes. One athlete is a heavy favorite to win her event, yet fails to finish after tripping over a hurdle. The second athlete is not the favorite to win, but he does, and shatters the world record in doing so. These images help communicate my Big Idea by showing that success does not have to come down to one single race amongst an entire career (as shown by the woman), but also, that a successful lifetime achievement can also be carried out in a mere 9.69 seconds(as shown by the man). This work could be used as a promotional advertisement for the Olympics as a way to lure in viewers.

I incorporated one of the images from my midterm into the final because I thought it brought the two athlete pictures together well, and due to the amount of time I originally spent placing the fireworks in the sky and reflecting them in the water. Another part of my project to point out is the record board on the far right. The actual record board that was used in the Beijing games was red and had the 9.69 world record shown. The yellow record board is from the 2009 World Championships and had the new 9.58 world record shown. Since I thought the yellow board went better with his jersey, I used that, but manipulated the numbers on it to show the Beijing time of 9.69 instead of the World Championships time of 9.58. This proved to be a good showcase of the many different techniques I have learned throughout the quarter.

An influence that I incorporated into my work was sports photography because of the way it captures so much intensity and emotion from a single point in time. An example of this is the work done by photographers Bill Frakes, Neil Leiffer, and Walter Looss Jr.

One Photoshop technique that I incorporated for the first time into my final project was the use of black and white background images with color foreground images. This made for a great effect in pulling the subject of the image out to the viewer’s eyes, while sustaining the background image into a more trivial role in the overall composition.

Blog #3

Edward Aninaru

Aninaru does a great job capturing emotions within his close-up portraits. Along with the intense emotions, his use of light, angles, and touch-up work give his images a sense of life. They take on the ability to look extremely lifelike instead of merely two dimensional figures.

I am interested in how Aninaru makes these images seem much more realistic than most normal photography. This quality is something I will look to learn from and use in my final project because I think it makes the image so much more attractive.

Charles Holbert Jr.

Holbert's big idea consists of cartoon artwork. One particular thing that I really enjoy about his work is the way he utilizes the background space in his images. Rather than having plain color or white backgrounds, he enhances his pictures by making the backdrops more dynamic. Additionally, he blends the extra background detail with the subjects in the foreground to create a very subtle 3-d effect.

I would like to use similar techniques in my own work by taking advantage of background space and bring it forward to embellish the subject.

Blog #2

Tutorial: Out-of-Bounds

http://fx.worth1000.com/tutorials/161043/out-of-bounds

This tutorial attempts to take an original picture and place its subject up on a separate plane to give it a 3-dimensional effect. Here is my original image:

The first step was to make a second layer for the frame. After drawing out a white box, I cut out the center to reveal a frame around the image. I then used the free transform tool to move the frame where it needed to be.

Next, I used a layer mask to erase everything except what was placed inside the frame, and the frog's legs that sat outside the frame.

Finally, I added subtle shadows to the frog and frame. The tutorial suggested painting the shadows in, but I found this to be difficult and did not like the results. Instead, I added drop shadows to the layers themselves. There was also a gray hue in the background of the entire image that I went back and erased before coming to a final product.

Finished image:

image source: http://rkmalar.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/9.jpg

Blog #1

Artist: =theimagination

"Illusions"

The denotation of this image is a young female who is sitting outside looking off into the distance. Below her is a sunset off the coast of a city landscape with the written words "i won't love an illusion". From a connotative perspective, the artist explains that we often make illusions out of love as we often expect fantasy but are met with reality. I see the female figure in this image dreaming of love that is portrayed by a sunset over the city coastline. However, she is taken back by her pragmatic tendency as she chooses actuality over fiction.

"everything i see"

This image denotes a person focusing a camera in on an object. That object is a collage of images of young women set together by lines and splashes of different colors. The connotative view of this image attempts to show the multitude of dimensions that a photographer sees when looking through the camera. Each picture is an attempt to capture an exact point and movement in time.

Sources:

http://theimagination.deviantart.com/art/Illusions-106791702

http://theimagination.deviantart.com/art/everything-i-see-158610706