Final Reflections

Corners, from the House of My Mind Project, is one of my greatest successes from this year.  Depicting a sidewalk with roses, and covered in all sort of patters, it demonstrates my style as well as what I have learned this year in photoshop.  First of all, I really like the color scheme, pink, green, and gray.  The shifting of patterns from an animal print, to industrial pavement, to flower petals and bushes, it shows a transition from nature to manmade objects, and back to nature again.  Also, especially in comparison to one of my other images from House of My Mind, this image shows how I progressed in my learning throughout the year.   Moreover, the composition of the background image has a diagonal line because I think the tilt gives the final product image a certain organic sense and original feeling.  In this project (HOMM), I believe I developed a lot as an artist through learning about photoshop.  Not only did I learn and adapt and use new skills, but also just using the program, and practice with the different techniques, affects, and manipulations allowed me to become a better digital artist.

The Forest or the Tree, my Future Tense book, is also a favorite.   I think it also demonstrates fairly well what I have learned in photoshop, because I did in fact spend a lot of time working on each individual image.  The cover/binding of the book is an old cigar box.  Keeping the content and themes of the images in mind, I selected this cover because it draws out some of the neutral and earthy colors in the images.  Lastly, I think I particularly succeeded in maintaining interesting light sources for each of the images, even if it is not sunny, the light is intriguing and attractive.  Also, I think I had to develop a certain theme in my mind before I started taking photos, and this helped me become a more prepared photographer and artist.  Having a theme to start out with, and sticking to that theme allowed me to craft a series of images that were very cohesive, yet unique in their own ways.

I think and I know that my least successful work was the first image I made for House of My Mind.  Reasons; the idea, conception, execution, and final product, although they had potential, were just not up to my level and standards.  The photoshopping, scanning, and drawing on the image distinctly show my incapability to use the tools, for I had just learned how to do all those things.  However, I think it is interesting to compare a piece like this with the other images of this project.  For example, the topographical map of Mt. Tam shows my improvement in drawing directly on the image; and the Corners and Tile image show my improvements in photoshop skills.


I consider my greatest strengths to be my ability to take a group of images, that on their own would not be too appealing, and craft them all together to form an intriguing final product.  I think the projects House of My Mind and Future Tense give support to this notion because some of the images I used were fairly unoriginal, but I do believe that the manner in which I manipulated, altered, and photoshopped them improved the quality of the individual images and made for a very interesting final product.


I believe I put significant effort into this class.  Of course, their were days, (we all have them), in which my effort was lacking, but most of the time I came to class eager to start and with a plan already set up in my mind.  I will admit that sometimes, I had an artist's block, and would spend class time trying to figure out a way to get around this, but for me, that was part of my own individual process.  I 'gave it my all' especially on the digital projects, for these projects seemed to capture my interest with all that we were learning.  It's not that I didn't like the darkroom projects (I really enjoyed the Transforming Materials project), it's just that sometimes I felt I could have put a little more effort into taking my time with some of the dark room prints, instead of rushing and getting more prints, but lower quality.

I am really interested in design, so I think the skills that I have learned in photoshop and aperture, as well as general photography tips, will really help me.  Not necessarily individual how-to's, but a general notion of how to use a camera and general knowledge of photo editing programs that will help in the future when I (hopefully) delve further into that area.

Especially with the darkroom projects, I was forced (and this is a good thing for me), to develop a greater patience for the things that cannot go any faster.  For darkroom images, as I said earlier, sometimes I would try to get a larger number of lower quality prints than get a smaller number of high quality prints.  However, I believe I learned from my mistakes because I expanded my patience and attention span.  This allowed me to learn so much more.  Furthermore, I learned so many skills about digital manipulation that will certainly help me in future projects of design and photography out of school.  Even though I will not be taking an art next year, I still wish to continuously broaden my knowledge of the arts, starting from the base of information that I have learned these past few years!

Defy Ms. Seal

 

Some people have their pet peeves, and that is understandable.  For our last project, we aimed to undermine Ms. Seal’s pet peeves of certain subjects for pictures: flowers, pets, etc.  My focus for this project was not one of her top pet peeves, but it does focus on Branson, a location that is hard to photograph while still maintaining an interesting pull.

            At first I struggled with the subject of each one of my three final products.  For the one at Branson, I began to take photos of this one area, and I displayed them in InDesign, I realized they needed something more than to be just displayed in an orderly fashion side by side.  So, I began to move the individual images around, creating an organic, more cohesive and flowing series all together.  In the end, I think my strong point was the Branson one, and although the others were successful, this one was the one that was most attractive, and appealing.

Future Tense

A series is generally a group of images that share some sort of common ground, while still being unique in their own ways, and taken all together, elicit some sort of response from the viewer. As I was constructing the idea for this project, I was fairly intrigued by images that drew the viewer's attention immediately.  So, I decided to go with a theme of stark contrast and/or multiple layers that caused the reader to look closer to understand the image as a whole.

In six out of the eight images, I used some common photos of trees as secondary photographs.  Both the fourth and fifth images contain a photo of the same tree.  I though that using a common image would draw the series together, giving the collection as a whole a greater sense of unity.  Moreover, in creating and thinking about the composition of the images, I used a fair amount of diagonal lines, (whether its the beams in the roof, the intersecting branches, or the lines of the shadow of the window).

Future Advice for a Future Tense Photographer: A theme is a crucial part of successful execution.  I was a little bit wavering on my theme.  So, as a little bit of advice, I would say its good to have a theme from the beginning, and take photos based on that theme, not create a theme out of the photos you have taken.  That way, the images as a whole have a greater sense of cohesiveness.

Kill Your Darlings, Fibonacci

Throughout the project I faced inescapable adversity of time and place.  Being limited to just one weekend to take our first role of film, I had to use the resources that I had to get new and not-so-normal pictures.  I therefore decided to base the series on a sense of normality, allowing me to use everyday objects, photographed in a new and unseen way.

One of the photos that I killed was a really intriguing photograph taken through a window, viewing the variety of plants outside.  It had a very unique look to it, for the borders and surrounding areas of the window, which was an unusual thin vertical rectangular shape), a stark black.  I really enjoyed the high contrast of the dark surrounding of window, versus the lighter shades looking through the window, outside.  Although, however much I enjoyed the image, it did not play into my mood and the ongoing series as I could have hoped, so it was necessary that it be killed.

The photograph I selected for the display in the library foyer was executed in such a way that it played with the mood of normality that I explained earlier, while still being unique and new.  It also went quite nicely with the forming series of the class' compilation.

Yes, I believe that overall I had similar views to those of my classmates.  Someone suggested that I reprint some of the images in an attempt to get the lighting and whites and blacks just right.  I completely agree in the sense of adjusting the colors, for some of the images demanded a bright, bright area of white (from the sun), and it was interesting to hear others' responses on how they took this.

Stop Motion Project - To Build a Mountain

         There is a lot of difficulty in creating a story with just photos, some props, and only a minute to do so.  These restrictions lead to interesting takes of stop motion projects.  The story-line of To Build a Mountain followed some fingers (portrayed as a person, or creature) as they went about building a mountain with various rocks.  The pinnacle point of crisis occurred after the mountain was constructed, and after the flag was put up, when everything came crumbling down.  Logistically, the variation of imagery and the choice of music shaped the final product by giving the viewer a sort of backdrop to go off of.  The music I selected was "Houdini," by Foster the People, and the reason I chose it was for the quirky eclectic sounds that it has; I thought it would go well with the unique imagery of the project.  Overall, the photography part went surprisingly well, with quick, simple moves, I was able to create the whole storyline in just a few days of shooting.  Also, I needed to draw on expressions to some of the pictures to give the character emotions, connecting it to the viewer a bit more.  In total, I believe everything went quite well, however if I was to do a similar project in the future, I might alter a few things.  For one, I would use a backdrop or background that is a bit more interactive and moves a little more, I just think it would be more interesting for the viewer to have other things to look at.  Lastly, in hopes that it would produce a more fluid storyline and final product, I would focus on a story that has a little more dramatic arc.

         If I were to do another stop motion movie, using the same or a similar premise, I would use a black background.  I feel like this would better accentuate the colors in the film.  Also, I would incorporate mirrors and other interesting props to give the movie a greater sense of mystery and craziness.

House of My Mind

The House of My Mind project aim was to capture the essence of a house-like feeling or environment, and, using photoshop and newly learned techniques, blend together and incorporate multiple images to create a unified final project.

My final project was quite successful in the notion that I accomplished many of the new skills, such as masking, that we learned how to do in photoshop.  The valuable skill of being comfortable with editing and manipulating photos in a digital setting helped me create images that gave insight to who I am, and what my mind is like.  In the beginning, I had intentions of photographs that used only a few images, using simple tools, to make a fabricated image of something house-like.  However, as I became more comfortable in the computer setting, I began to take different paths with my editing.  I developed my craft and stretched and explored with the new techniques, especially with the comparison of my first photograph, seemingly less advanced technically than the later ones.  I feel that now I have refined my craftsmanship to a wider area of capability.  I grew from a person quite unfamiliar to the whole Photoshop thing, to one who can easily navigate.  My "Thought Process" image, which was the one I made first, compared to the others, shows my growth from earlier in the year up until now.  One can see the progression of a beginner to masking to a master, not really, but a better one anyway.

Transforming Materials

The Transforming Materials project aimed to photograph everyday materials, while incorporating them into the surrounding environments.

My final product does indeed relfect my intentions for this project.  In the beginning, I had hoped to utilize unique lighting, the sun or an unnatural source, to capture images that would make the reader question the identity of the content.

 

I think my final products took a totally different direction from what I had pictured in the beginning, but in a good way!  I think that I first imagined having a series of all black and white images of tinfoil, and just crumpling it.  However, I think the direction went in a completely different way in that I manipulated - or transformed - the materials so that the viewer would have to question the identity at first.