Project 12: Stop Motion

For our last project, Carly and I teamed up to make a stop motion inspired by the book The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein and a stop motion animation video done in a previous class, in which a story was told through sticky notes. Each one of the frames was an individual drawing that I created and Carly photographed. The story depicts a tree going through the seasons, before being cut down by some carpenters and then hauled away. But our story needed a happy ending, so a sapling grew at the end.
By the way, we do not in any way own the song "Only the Good Die Young" by Billy Joel.

Project 10: Magazine

Carly Pagnano and I collaborated to make a travel magazine for this project. I did the front cover and pages 2-7, and Carly did pages 8-11 and the back cover.

Project 11

In this project, Carly Pagnano and I partnered up to make two silent, 30-second movies that depicted either a utopia or a dystopia.

Project 9: Portraits

Project 9 involved taking pictures of people--portraits--and editing them into both artistic and commercial portraits.

Artistic

This is a picture of my sister Lindsay's eye that I made into a multiple exposure. I felt that this was a good representation of my sister because she is not made up of just one layer--there are several sides to her, and a static photo didn't show that. I put a tree on her face to represent her love for travel and the outdoors, and I thought it created a really cool effect. I cropped the pictures and fixed the exposure in Lightroom and made it into a multiple exposure in Photoshop, as well as turning it black and white to provide contrast (below).

This is a picture of my best friend Emma. She's a colorful and musical person, and I thought this image captured that side of her. While my favorite thing about this picture might be the contrail, I love how simple the shot is. Only the exposure and contrast were adjusted--it was a beautiful day, so the lighting and colors were really good for photography--and the other editing I did was cropping the photo and fixing the glare on the black car in the background. 

Commercial

This picture is advertising the necklace. I added a dramatic vignette and increased the contrast of the necklace while softening the rest of the picture, and turned it black and white to add interest. I like the final product because of the contrast of the sharp necklace and the softness of Emma's face, and your eye is drawn right there as a commercial portrait should.

This commercial portrait is advertising the bag, and to give it contrast, I desaturated all the colors but the pink. I had to remove the pink that was in the dress and around her eyes using the adjustment brush, and I cropped, rotated and fiddled with the levels of the photo. I like how simple this result is, and how it's not in your face as advertisements typically are, even though it's still all about the bag.

Extras

Project 9 Pre-Work

This project is all about portraits--using composition and pose to create fine art and commercial portraits.

Fine Art Portraits

This is a portrait of Hillary Clinton, taken by Annie Leibowitz. What I like about this portrait is the posing, as it conveys a part of the subject's personality. The coloring is nice and the background is not distracting, and the lighting is great. 

Another example of fine art portraits is this one, taken by Rolland András Flinta. I like how the pose does not show the entirety of the model's face, which is unique and makes for an interesting composition. I also like the movement of the hair and the fact that it is black and white, which adds a certain mood that makes the portrait more compelling.

This portrait of U.S. Marine Carlos Orjuela, taken by Louie Palu, does a really good job of conveying emotion. The posing is simple yet striking because of the expression, and was enhance by the black and white (almost sepia) tint. 

Commercial Portraits (Magazine Cover)

This cover stands out to me because of the lighting and the color choices. The portrait and pose itself is simple but the final result is very beautiful.  This was done by Jason Lee Parry. I think that the actual name of the magazine could have been in color, but other than that, this was done very well.

This magazine cover was shot by Agata Pospiezynska. I like how the color of the portrait contrasts with the black of the magazine's title, and the expression on the model's face brings a little life into the shoot. I also like how this is a different than the typical "stare sultrily at the camera" thing that most covers have. 

Project 8: Surrealism and Photomontage

For this project, we created surrealist images meant to be fantastical or dreamlike using three or more different pictures.

This image was created from 10 separate pictures and several copies of them. There were pictures of street signs, a picture of a post from a beach volleyball net near Lincoln City (still continuing the beach picture trend I've had since project 2), a picture of a trail I took while on a hike, and a picture of Carly taken on our walking field trip. I chose to make everything but the street signs black and white to make the signs stand out, and to give the image a gloomy mood. I also chose to make the stop sign far brighter than the others to make it stand out, so that your eyes gravitated there. There was a lot of editing involved in this picture, all of which was done using Photoshop. I had to edit the detour sign in particular--the words needed to be flipped back around when I rotated the sign horizontally.
I took inspiration for this photo from Alice in Wonderland--the Disney movie--when Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum are telling Alice to go in multiple directions (hence the two "one way" signs on the same post). I think my final project is creative and really reflects all of the work I put into it.

Surrealism in Photography

One of the more famous surrealist photographers, David Hockey, gained recognition because of his photo montages, such as the one below, entitled Telephone Pole. The image fits in with surrealism because it is made up of several different images knitted together, creating a fantastical and creative image.

David Hockney

Another surrealist photographer is Erik Johansson, whose work (such as Fishy Island, below) is made up of multiple photographs in order to create his images, thus fitting in with our surrealism project.

Erik Johansson

Erik Johansson

Surrealist photographer Stephen Criscolo creates surrealist images by imagining up is own worlds, like the example below with the jellyfish. The dreamlike image fits in with the surrealism movement.

Steven Criscolo

Surrealism

Surrealism is an avant-garde movement in the art world  that is aimed at releasing the creativity of the unconscious mind. The results often capture dreamlike and impossible-looking images.

A couple of famous artists of the surrealist movement include Salvador Dali and Andre Breton.

Salvador Dali

Vladimir Kush

Tim O'Brien

Project 7: Alternative Processes Through Digital Means

In this project, we emulated daguerreotypes, cyanotypes, and gum bichromate photographs using Photoshop.We didn't really make them, because real daguerreotypes and such are on metal plates and made using entirely different methods, but by using an editing process and other images we were able to make photos that resembled the final result of the other means.

Daguerreotypes

This daguerreotype was made from a panorama of upper Multnomah Falls I made for the last project but never posted because of its composition. I used pictures of scratched surfaces, concrete, and a basic frame to make the final result. I really like this picture because the original (right) had blurry parts and spots from where there was water on the lenses, but for this project, those imperfections made for a good daguerreotype.

Because every project I have done since project 1 has contained some sort of beach picture, I figured I might as well continue the tradition here. This is a picture I took near Salishan, just south of Lincoln City. I like the final result because of its texture, and because of the way the scratches brought a certain dimension to this photograph that wasn't there in the original (below).

The two above photos are of the same daguerreotype with different frames. I personally prefer the one without the frame, but I decided to post both of them regardless. I took this picture just outside of Stevenson, Washington, in the gorge, and though the photo include modern things like the bridge and cars (which are easier to see in the original, posted below), I really liked the daguerreotype effect and how it turned a plain photograph into an interesting one. I also really like the spots on the final image, from the concrete.

Cyanotypes

This is an image I took at the beginning of the year on a walking field trip, and I thought that the floral imagery would look good as a cyanotype. I am particularly fond of the edges of the brushes on this photograph, because it makes it look a little like a painting. The original is posted below.

This is a picture I took of some chalk on the sidewalk on our most recent walking field trip, and I made two version--one as a cyanotype, one with only the brush strokes and no color, which I included because I like the non-blue version best. The original is, again, posted below.

Gum Bichromate

The two gum bichromate images above were made from the same picture, of a flower in my backyard (original below). The first one has a really interesting color contrast from just two layers of color, and the blending I did on it created a cool color contrast. The one below it is more subtle and a little more whimsical in the coloring. I like both versions, especially the splattered edges.

This was a photo I took while out on a walk with my family and my uncle. My dad and my uncle talked about birds nonstop and prompted me to take pictures of the many ducks, herons, and other birds around us. I turned the original photo (below) into a bichromate because I was interested to see how the Mallard, whose colors are vibrant compared to that of the water and the trees, turned out. There are three layers of color in the gum bichromate version.

Project 6: Multiple Image Techniques

Project 6: 

For Project 6, we had to edit pictures in order to create panorama, HDR, and multiple exposure photographs. 

Panoramas:

I took this photo when driving back from OHSU--I saw the city skyline, told my mom to slow down, and went through the moon roof to take pictures for this panorama. I liked the result, so I stitched it together in Photoshop and lowered the exposure, fiddled with the curves, and cropped it.

I actually took this photo during spring break of last year. We were at an overlook in Dead Horse Point State Park in Utah and even today I really love the colors and the wildness of the setting. When editing this panorama after I stitched it together in Photoshop, I played around with the curves, took down the whites, and increased the shadows to add contrast. 

HDR:

I tried to take many HDR photographs, but most of my attempts never came to fruition. This one was the only successful one. I liked the lines in the photographs and the line of the construction crane, so once I combined the photos in Photoshop, I cropped it to maintain those lines and increased the contrast and the vibrancy.

Multiple Exposure: 

This is a spontaneous multiple exposure I did when I saw a lot of identical benches on a walking field trip, some of which had people sitting on them. I thought up a concept and blended the pictures in Photoshop, then adjusted the exposure of each of the pictures and changed the way they blended from "screen" to "overlay" to maintain the colors. 

I particularly liked this multiple exposure because of the mood. This one is pretty simple: two pictures of two of my favorite beaches--Dungeness Spit and Rockaway. When I blended them, the rocks at Rockaway beach looked ghostly and faded with the other picture, and I really liked that effect. Other than combining them in Photoshop, I adjusted the curves and the exposure of each.

This final multiple exposure is one that I wish I could have taken more pictures of if I had more time. The final product is the result of two pictures of the same location at different times. When I combined them in Photoshop and brought up the vibrancy so that the colors stood out, as well as adjusting the exposure and the curves, and then I cropped it. I wish that I had a few more pictures I could have added, but I like the end result.

The rest of the photos in this post are all extras that I took while trying to capture images for this project. I had a lot of extras I really liked (I'll save some for later projects) but I posted some of my favorites based on the value, mood, and shape.