Blog 5- And That's All Folks

1. What is the most significant accomplishment in looking at your Midterm or

Final? You can talk about technique in Photoshop, investigating your Big

Idea, creating a meaningful artwork, etc.

I feel that the most significant accomplishment would be my interpretation of the Big Idea.  I didn't want it to be a cliche and I wanted to create something meaningful to myself.  I felt with the midterm I doubted myself at first because I couldn't think of a way to express myself the way I thought I would be satisfied with but once the inspiration came to me I started looking at my Big Idea in a different light.  Instead of looking at moments as the artwork I looked at the way we recollect these moments and from what perspective are we reflecting on them with. From here I was able to investigate my Big Idea in a way I wasn't before.  Before I was looking for an image I wanted to emulate but  afterward I looked for perspective and how other artists view the moments. 

I was trying to figure out what to do with these images, I couldn't relate these pictures with what I wanted to express but then I realized that I needed to look beyond the images and focus on what they show and that is the tools used to reflect back on these moments.

2. Choose a project in the class and discuss your most challenging learning

experience in Photoshop. Focus on a technique or concept from

Photoshop that was difficult at first, but that you mastered by the end of

the quarter.

All the techniques used in class were difficult at first.  One that I feel I have improved on tremendously would have to be the selection tools.  I had to practice and figure our different ways of using them.  I demonstrated these techniques for my midterm project.  At first I wanted to select an image to fit inside the rear view mirror and then just erase the extra off of it.  I soon realize that it took a lot of time and didn't look very clean. Then I choose to select the part of the mirror I wanted to replace and erase that part first and just put that on top of the image I wanted in the reflection, once I figured that out I was able to apply it again on the second image of my midterm project.

3. Compare two projects from the quarter to compare and contrast how you

achieved making meaning in the work. Try to showcase in your examples

an improved capacity to making visual images that mean something as

opposed to being a showcase of technique.

I feel like the quizzes we did in class didn't really show any meaning, it was there for us to show you that we knew how to use photoshop even though you encouraged us to transform our own images.  The quiz where we used the retouching tools is a great example that even thought I was transforming my own picture, I didn't really put any meaning into it.  Now the midterm and final project made us dig a little deeper not just because of the research we had to do prior to it but we had to connect it to a Big Idea that we chose, and there was a reason why we chose to that Big Idea even though it took me a little longer to figure out why I chose it and what I wanted to use it for, I connected myself with and in those project.  This is definitely demonstrated in my Final Project with the animation of my home and my children.  This was my life on display and that is what gave it meaning. 

This was my before picture and my after picture but there is no meaning behind this transformation I was just trying to get as much of the tools that we covered in class in to get full credit.  If you look at my final project in the previous post you would see that there is meaning behind that project and not so much a display of Photoshop techniques.

I just wanted to finish off by saying that this class has really taught me more then photoshop and that is the ability to trust myself and push pass a wall that I put up when I don't see an end result.  I now know that sometimes it take time for an idea/concept to form and not to give up before it happens.

My Final Project

I kept with the same Big Idea I've been working with all quarter and that is "Life built on Moments". I want to illustrate the different aspects of moments, not so much a moment specifically but the different ways we experience them. For the final I wanted to illustrate the overlapping of moments such as a person's home. You create many moments at your home but when you think of your home you don't necessarily remember each individual moment but instead there's an overlapping of those moments and experience that create your home. For the final project the technique that I set out to accomplish was animation, it was hard at first to see how it would fit in with my idea. I used it not so much to move an image across the screen but more of a blending tool.

For this project I went through all my pictures and found a lot of pictures of my house. They differ in time of the day and time of the year. They illustrated different stages of improvements that we were making, different images of our children, different cars we have had, etc. and placed them on top of each other, making them transparent and blending them together like we would do in our memories.

I picture my Final project to be played on a screen somewhere in a museum, but on a personal level I would like to have it playing in the digital picture frame at home to reflect and remind us of how much we have done in our home.

The different things and people that influence my work would be scrap booking. I love to scrapbook but didn't necessarily know why it was important to me until I started this class. It reflects a life, and moments in life, when you look at a scrapbook you see what a person's life is made up of. Another thing that influenced my work was time itself, how does time play a role in our life, how do you illustrate time? Time lapsed photography does just that. It is the illustration of moments define by time. I looked at the works of Sandra Bauser who uses bubbles to reflect on her own images. Its all about perspective.

Blog 4

I kept with the same Big Idea I've been working with all quarter and that is "Life built on Moments".  I want to illustrate the different aspects of moments, not so much a moment specifically but the different ways we experience them.  For the final I wanted to illustrate the overlapping of moments such as a person's home.  You create many moments at your home but when you think of your home you don't necessarily remember each individual moment but instead there's an overlapping of those moments and experience that create your home.  For the final project the technique that I set out to accomplish was animation, it was hard at first to see how it would fit in with my idea.  I used it not so much to move an image across the screen but more of a blending tool.

For this project I went through all my pictures and found a lot of pictures of my house.  They differ in time of the day and time of the year.  They illustrated different stages of improvements that we were making, different images of our children, different cars we have had, etc. and placed them on top of each other, making them transparent and blending them together like we would do in our memories.

I picture my Final project to be played on a screen somewhere in a museum, but on a personal level I would like to have it playing in the digital picture frame at home to reflect and remind us of how much we have done in our home. 

The different things and people that influence my work would be scrap booking.  I love to scrapbook but didn't necessarily know why it was important to me until I started this class.  It reflects a life, and moments in life, when you look at a scrapbook you see what a person's life is made up of.  Another thing that influenced my work was time itself, how does time play a role in our life,  how do you illustrate time?  Time lapsed photography does just that.  It is the illustration of moments define by time.  I looked at the works of Sandra Bauser who uses bubbles to reflect on her own images.  Its all about perspective.

Blog 3 My Inspirations

Here are some of the people and the stuff I'm looking at for my final project.  Sorry for some reason I've been having trouble with the pics  Hope it works this time!

At first I didn't find an artist that necessarily embraced my big idea the way that I wanted to portray it but there is a website that is full of digital pictures that could be used as backgrounds for your computer.

wallcoo.net.  These images are literally "desktops" composed of things that a certain person is interested in.  You pick an illustration that reflects the kind of person are or want to be,the life you have or want to have.

http://www.redbubble.com/people/sandrabauser/art/5483750-2-still-life-reflections

Artist: Sandra Bauser

Her images involve faireis and has a mystical vibe.  I relate to her art because she used bubbles to depict my big idea of "Life built on Moments". 

The image depends on what bubble and at what angle of the bubble you are looking at.



Sam Javanrouh is the artist that I used to for my ideal of time lapse. 

Sam Javanrouh is the man behind top photography blog daily dose of imagery, and a talented photographer in his own right. Javanrouh created the top time-lapse photo out of six photos shot in about a two hour time frame in downtown Toronto. To achieve this effect, Javanrouh uses ‘Pclix’, a device that allows you to trigger the shutter of your digital camera at much shorter intervals than is possible manually.

http://weburbanist.com/2009/02/18/12-long-exposure-time-lapse-photographers/



Movie Poster

This movie poster is more neutral as far as color scheme.  It has a light calming affect and the text on it is very simple and not in your face.  The main focus is on the couple on the cover,  They are large, centered and focused.  This can be seen as a romance, a love story because of the way these character are positioned in this poster, they seem intimate with each other.  The targeted audience would be younger couples being that they can relate to this couple. Older couples could be interested too, to maybe go back to the earlier stages in their relationship.  Guys name John could be interested because their name is in the title, most likely not but I'm just covering all the bases.  The most likely audience are young girls because girl are interact to want and look for relationships at this age while guys aren't.  Girls like their guys to be like this while guys prefer a girls to look single and available not with some other guy on the beach cuddling.

This movie poster has a darker color scheme.  The colors are bold and stand out.  The image of a person in a spider suit with an intense look symbolizes the importance and seriousness.  The image shows action because the character is on the outside of what appears to be a very high building holding on to a string with just one hand.  It doesn't look like there's a physical struggle but more of an internal struggle since the reflection of the character is different from its real image.  The line at the top confirms this observation.  The title itself is very sharp as far as the font and coloring.  The color reminds me of metal and and the font is slanted to give it depth.  The background is very busy, full of building and the sun is setting.  This movie poster would appeal to an audience that is into watching a serious action movie.  I would say it appeals to guys because the character appears to be a guy and guys are more interested in Spiders then girls.




The differences between these two are that the images they are portraying involve different atmospheres.  One being a calm beach and the characters being calm with each other while the other is at a high and intense place and the character is in conflict with his image.  The fact that he is so high up gives it the unique feeling of something is about to happen because if the character was just standing in front of a bathroom mirror and his reflection was different you wouldn't feel the same way, less urgency to know why.  The same with the first movie poster if the characters were placed in a different position or in a different place it would change the interpretation as well.

This is the new movie poster I'm created for the movie Dear John.  This focuses more on the John character and the other role he plays in the movie and that is the role of the soldier.  I still include an image of the female character but she is more in the background and isn't so much the main focus anymore and their relationship isn't the main concept anymore either.  I used the flag as the background to enhance the importance of him being a soldier and patriotic.  The audience that this new poster target is those that are into patriotic movie and into action.   This image is more targeted toward guys and soldiers.   This is something that they might find easier to relate to.

Blog 2

Life 

 

Purpose       

Relationship

 

Midterm Artist Statement

My Big Idea is “Life Built on Moments”.  I explored the different ways of viewing moments.  This idea is important to me because the moments from the past that we reflect on in the present influence the choices we make for our future.  When you look at a picture, it brings a moment back, a feeling that we haven't felt for a while.  I got this idea through my research on the term life.  I got images that related to relationships, journeys, and other factors that life is built on.  These are all moments that affect us and mold who we are.  Moments is such a vague and big thing that is hard to illustrate, I knew it was important to me but I didn't know why, I didn't know what I wanted to portray.  I looked at images from Google and Flickr.com, nothing made me jump but it finally clicked.  I didn't have to portray "moments" itself but the way we reconnect with them. I decided the aspects I would concentrate on was how does one moment affect the next and how does the way we look at these moments change their meaning. 

Moments can be something that happened in the past, is happening in the present, or will happen in the future.  Moments can be a combination of all three.  A moment can occur in the present searching for the future while reflecting on the past.  In the first image, the future is depicted by the windshield being a blur of two roads but still green and intriguing.  The past is reflected in the rear view mirror with a clear image.  This symbolizes the road that has already been taken and the present is just being there and able to see the two interact with each other. 

Moments are only defined by how we see things.  These moments are manipulated by our memories.  We reflect on them with lenses that we create in our minds.  Our environment and current status changes the way we view each moment.  The second image shows that being in one setting (black and white) might make us yearn for a different setting (color).  The sunglasses symbolize the lenses that we chose to reflect on these moments with.  It is used to show us what we want to see. 

Rough Idea

My Big Idea is Life.  I started off with the idea of Life and Death and decided that I wanted to compare them since they are the two things that we can't really determine when it will happen.  I started by looking up pictures of Life and realize that life is filled with big and little moments that are sometimes taken for granted.  Then I decided to concentrate on life more than death because death itself is a part of life.  I also find that in life we form so many different kinds of relationships and find that these relationships is what forms us as humans.  So with this idea I branched into measurement of life.  What is a fulfilled life?  What is a life worth living? Are there any that aren't?  We are living for more than just death.

In my brainstorming project I have sayings of life itself portrayed in pictures.  I also have pictures of different relationships formed in life and the bonds that are created  are moments themselves.  There are pictures portraying the journey and the way we measure our life.

What's the Big Ideal anyways?

Purpose:  What is the purpose of being here?  Why do we wake up everyday and do what we do?  Is there a purpose?  Can we live without a purpose?  Is our purpose for us or for the people around us, do people depending on you literally and figuratively give you purpose? If you're alone what happens?

Relationship:  How do we relate to others?   Do we choose who we relate ourselves to?  Do these relationship matter?   Can you relate to a total stranger?  Can you relate to a family member?  What do you get from a relationship?  Does it matter in the long run who we know and who knows us?  Relationships preserve who we are, if nobody knew us and what we did then would we really exist.

Life/Death:  The two things that we are destined to do.  Does anything in between these two events matter?  You appear in your local newspaper when these things happen.  Joy and happiness versus gloomy and sadness.  Both events are looked forward to.  Where you are born is not where you will die.  The people that were there when you were may not be there when you die.  You life accumulates things and people that you have to let go of when you die.  One thing you have when you die that you didn't have when you were born is memory, it starts with your first breath and it follows you until you die, the memory of you and your existence. 

Meet My Digital Artist

Christopher Haines art work can be found at www. neondreams.com/au.  Here's one of my favorite ones.

Denotation: This picture is mainly in black and white with a little bit a light pink spread out throughout the picture.  There is a panda sitting on its behind with its two hind legs spread out and it front paws in front of it with one paw extended out with something in it.  There is white rabbit in from of the panda bear facing him.  They are sitting in a clearing of what looks like the woods with the ground covered in snow.  There are little mushrooms on the ground, some are pink and some are white. The tree branches are bare with gray strokes.

Connotation: The placement of these two animals I feel represents that they are out of the norm.  Pandas are predominantly found in a warm environment such as the Southeastern Asia.  Here it is most likely winter somewhere noted by the white ground and bare branches.  The gray strokes thoughout could be snow falling or snow being moved by the wind.  Just the fact that the two animals being together in such a peaceful environment is out of the norm.  This to me is the artists trying to say that it takes extra measures to bring harmony to the world, like taking two opposite animals out of their usual environment to get this extraordinary moment in time.



What's happening on my itouch!

So I just got Monopoly and the new Taylor Swift album during winter break and have been addicted since.