Word Picture

I chose to do my artwork using an original picture taken from inside our lovely OLOL hallways. I decided to have the light source coming from the top left corner of the lockers and fading to the right. I chose to use the word "SAFE" for my image due to the fact that my original image was of lockers which represent a safe location to keep belongings. By adding the lock to represent the letter "A" the picture is again playing with safety as locks represent locking something so nothing can be stolen. The wet floor sign I added to create a sense of thirds, one third contains the word, one third contains the lockers, and one third contains the wet floor sign which also represents safety. The sign plays with safety a little differently because the signs are meant to caution people and keep them safely away from danger.

Original Images

Street Sign

For my Lourdes street sign I decided to keep it simple with the two Lourdes colours, standard oval shape, and the crusader logo. I did not want to give the the sign an over the top look or put too much detail into it because it is for a school environment, where people are rushing around and need a simple sign that can clearly tell them what hall they are in. I also believe in having a simple sign to keep the look and feel of the school classy and clean. Having the yellow border with the yellow outlining of the "C" adds a cool look to the picture that would not be achieved with a black "C". All words could be formatted for this sign by playing with positioning and font size.

Lovely Farm

The theme of my image is loving pigs. I chose a classic farm background which is generally a loving peaceful place that would promote a positive attitude towards the picture, which is very important with this specific image. It is key for these pictures to have a positive representation of pigs so that the viewers are not turned off to the pigs which would result in a decrease in sales. I originally had the horse in the distance covered by the pigs but realized that it gave the picture a depth perception. The bird I added in the top left corner was intended to have the same effect. As for the main focal point of the picture the pigs originally looked very pasted on so I counteracted this by reducing the opacity. I also added some leaves of the pigs feet but not to much because there is not usually leaves covering animals feet. The final step that I finalized the picture with was the "ink outlines" filter to give it more a farmy look and great more positive warmth.

Claudius (English)

Claudius

Diseased Cob of Corn -
He is like a diseased cob of corn because he is diseased and therefore he infects the whole crop feild. This is symbolic
because Claudius is ruining all of Denmarks reputation and is infecting all of the citizens.

Alcahol -
Claudius is an alcaholic. He is always drunk and this is obviously is affecting Denmarks reputation aswell. Fortinbbras
and company are assuming if Denmarks king is and alcaholic then the rest of Denmark must also be as weak and vulnerable as
Claudius.

Snake -
I believe Claudius is a snake because a snake is a slimy slithering negative stereotyped animal. I am aware of the comparison
of Rosencrantz and Guldinsteen to snakes but i believe Claudius is also a slim ball aswell. After the crimes Claudius has
committed of killing his brother, the king, Old Hamlet and committing insest with his wife Gertrude.


Poison -
Claudius is poison for all of Denmark. He is a selfish heartless man who robbed himself of all dignity he may have still had.
He kills Old Hamlet with poison in the orchard and in a sense kills Gertrude and Hamlet also. Gertrude speaks of having no
life left and Hamlet is obsessesd over this and killing Claudis, it takes over his life.

Mirror -
A mirror represents Claudius very well because he is a self centered man that could care less about anybody elses life. He
would stop at nothing to become king and murder his own flesh and blood to get there and to top it all off he marries
Gertrude. He does not care about Hamlet and we can see this when he immediatly sends his to England. He will stop at nothing
to keep his crime undercover.

I chose to put a black background because it represents a negative feel and adding to my negative depiction picture of Claudius.
The flames that are engolfing his face are also an attempt to give Claudius a negative vibe. Finally, i decided to do the
letters in red because blood is red and Claudius in a sense has blood on his hands, that can not be washed off.

Gucci Mane - So Far So Gucci (CD Cover)

With the rap persona in my mind I wanted to keep the general tone of the cover dark and black. But I thought having the white and grays on a black background would make them stand out more dramatically. In the top left corner I originally had it blank but the image was evidently not balanced and needed something in the corner. Not wanting to add too much to a simple CD cover I duplicated the bird on his chain, but changed the colour to match the cartoon Gucci skin tone, to avoid having too much white. The stacks of money in the bottom right corner goes with the rap scene of sex, drugs and illegal activity. Overall I was going for a simple dark toned look to emphasis the 'darkness" of the rap music.

Photographic Triptych

Original Images

My theme is buttons. They all blend togethor by having various buttons for example the keyboard on a blackberry, the buttons on a vending machine and the numbers and letters on a pay phone. I chose to do this theme hoping some of the filters would make the letters and number stand out. The filters I chose were used because I did not want the images to be to easily identifiable, but easy enough to make out without too much effort. The filter on the blackberry keyboard turned out to give the appearance of an underwater atmosphere, the call and end call coloured buttons turned out really unique under this filter. The vending machine filter turned everything to a distored black and white giving the numbers a shaded look to them. This is one of the reasons I chose this theme because you can not immediatly tell what are on the buttons but without too much trouble you can indetify them. Finally, with the pay phone the keyboard and buttons are somewhat detactched from their keys. All colour was turned black or dark except for the light source at the top of the image. These keys are easier to make out but the object itself takes a second look to completly figure out what it is. I was also unaware that the pictures were suppose to line up, I dont like when artwork is organized and "proper".

CD Cover

Guelph Multicultural Festival

My multicultural festival poster is clear and simple in that I used few colours and do not have a complicated design going on. The font may be a little hard to read at first but I believe that it gives the poster a "multicultural" look and is not too difficult to make out. Having such a warm red look to my poster I believe that it will draw peoples attention because people like bright recognizable colours and symbols, ie. Canadian flag. Having the flag on an angle over the red and white gradient makes the poster that much more interesting rather than a traditional horizontal flag. By spreading out the words in different corners of the image makes it easy for the viewer to distinguish the different titles. Since the festival is in Guelph I thought it would appropriate to use a Canadian flag, even if other countries people are looking at the poster they will most likely live in Canada and recognize the symbol. I chose to include the linking arms to show "living together". I wanted a black, brown, white, male and female hand portrayed to demonstrate the "one world" theme.

Media Captures

*I was going to hand in my rubric Friday but needed it to finish the project. No marks will be deducted for this :) !

Part 1:

Photojournalism Ethics

As media becomes a bigger and bigger part of society, the need for restrictions on Photojournalism will become increasingly important. The rules that photographers should live by are simple I believe. I feel that if the photographer would not like a picture of themselves in the certain objective situation then they should not publish it. Although, this is highly unrealistic in today’s world where photographs can be worth large amounts of money. Either way the photographer should put themselves in the shoes of the person in the picture, we are all humans deserve privacy and do not like our lives on display for others enjoyment. There is a time and place for media to capture their images at events and gatherings where the model would be expecting pictures.

I think having a code of conduct is necessary to keep photographers from crossing the line of what gets displayed in the public’s eye. Simple ethical boundaries would begin to get crossed almost immediately and the results would be tragic for many people’s lives whether they are in the media or not. In our media today there is a line that is vaguely visible and is being pushed constantly and I believe if we keep going too far beyond a certain point the aspect of Photojournalism will itself into trouble or have to be reconsidered totally. Ultimately it comes down to what we accept as a society and when we will decide that enough is enough and where to draw our ethical boundaries.

 

Part 2:

Image 1



This manipulative angle was aimed to promote a Liberal vote out of it's viewer. Having the high school students in approxamitly 2/3 of the picture and clapping poses a positive attitude. Leaving the posters and table to around 1/3 of the picture. Students are always looked at in a broad sense as beibng innocent and important because they are the future. The Liberal brochures demonstrate that Frank Valeriote is getting involved and is concerned about our students. It is not directly stating to vote Liberal but the brochures are obviously the focal point of the image. I kept the tight cropping about the students heads and table to keep the focus on the relavent information. I believe this picture is professional to be published but only by a pro Liberal stance.

Image 2

This birds eye view of the assembly shows the attentive audience, various political party leaders and focal point speaker at the podium. I did not intentional make the focal point the podium but the more I refer back to the image I realize my attention is drawn to the Lourdes L in the general middle of the picture. We get a diverse dimension of the picture by the blurry person at the bottom of the picture and the railing behind him. This does show the birds eye view and makes the picture more interesting. I wanted to keep the candidates to make it more clear what the event was about. Similarly, I chose to crop tightly around the VOTE poster and Canadian flag, just to subconsciously show that we are promoting voting in Canada and not America or another country. Finally, I chose to crop some of the audience out to only keep relevant people with no clutter around the edges. I believe my first image is better suited to be published than this one just because it looks a lot more professional and is directly trying to manipulate something. 



Vote Poster

My design for the vote poster played on the Nike "Just Do It - Nike" slogan and did this by replacing just to must. By having Must Do It - Vote it is getting the message across as simple as it can be. You must do it, you must vote. I believe this is appropiate for our target audience because teens can easily relate to the Nike slogan and be drawn to read it rather than an unfamiliar image. Also subconciously if Nike believes in voting than some teens will believe in voting and be enticed to. I chose to keep the background black and grey so that the red and white on the letters would stand out and bring the familiar colours of the Canadian flag to mind. These colours are also a familiar image and will clarify that this is a Canadian ad for Canadian voting. I also decided to change the "2011 Elections" to red and white to keep the same tone throughout the image. I found that having a simple background with only two colours and straight lines was more powerful than a complex colourful one that was distracting. My original image only consisted of the one vote square but I thought the image was to plain and did not have enough colour to stand out. So by copying a few more squares and gradually increasing the size it drew more attention to the poster because of the inccrease in red.

Poetry Assignment

The main theme of my picture was colour. After finding the colourful locker image I decided to create a fun instinctive view of school and stress the simplicity. The apple and lockers do have the same colour tone and I tried to use it to minimize on the blue colours that in a way did not blend in so much. But they do stand out and draw your attention in many different directions. I agree that words could have been placed better but I was very limited with the linear and horizontal patterns that had occurred in the picture. One thing I did really was the 2011, having it diagonal on the straight section of the lockers blending nicely. Having all these simple images incorporated into one simple picture represents different aspects of our school.

Out of this picture I chose to eliminate the background and keep the stack of books with an apple on top. They gave the opportunity to place words on the spines of the books. I believe this was a creative way to use the extra space. I original started the project with this as my background and planned on having other images pasted onto the chalk board. But when I found the locker image I decided to go with a very colourful outstanding image. Having the apple in my final image gave it a very fun sort of simple instinctive view of high school. I tried to use simple symbols that are associated with high school so that the image would demonstrate clarity of being a book associated with school.

I wanted to have something included that represented our faith here at Our Lady of Lourdes. On the apple there was a darkened circle that already stood out and once I faded this I was able to drop the cross behind the apple and sudely incorporate some kind of Catholic symbol into the image. The meaning I wanted to get across regarding this cross was our faith here at Lourdes, for example school masses. This is a key component that I believed should be represented.

As stated the multi colours were suppose to represent our ethnic diversity here at Lourdes. The white stickers I found irrelevant so I removed them. I didn't want a lot of lockers in the picture; I wanted them bigger to stand out more. So, once enlarged and in place I removed the unpleasant floor and roof. Having colourful lockers instead of normal depressing ones lightened the mood of the picture. Our school is so multi cultural that it would be unjust to not show this in some way.

The final image I incorporated into this scene was a sky to replace the sky. I wanted something that was not immediate to a school setting. Now that you have stated "freedom" that is what I believe I was subconsciously aiming for, the gateway to the "real world" in a sense. Whether it was the freedom of your night at 2:50 or the freedom of graduating. It is only a small portion of the picture but it defiantly has a lot to do with what is after high school.

 

Hanging Mobile

Digital Portraits (Cassy)

Original

The original photo was taken in the foyer. I tried to get lighting from the overhead sky lights, it turned out best on her cheek and forehead. The angle was also an attempt to capture different lighting and to avoid the basic "mug shot' type photo. I left some background so that once I was back on the computer I would be able to play around with the cropping. As you can see I chose to crop the majority of the background and a bit of Cassy.

Black and White

After changing the original to black and white I cropped most of the right side and top of the image to focus more on the focal point (Cassy). I wanted to leave the tree on the left to have some other details in the image. The lighting effects mostly are not noticeable in this picture but the brighter tones do still stand out enough to realize that there is a light source. The black and white image hides imperfections and I believe it makes her hair look more interesting and lighted. Overall I like this picture the best.

Black and White (Colour to lips & eyes)

This image was more for fun than anything. The bright green eyes and the red lips were added in an attempt to naturally draw your eyes to the points of the picture. They are not to evident and blends in enough to incorporate with the black and white very nicely. This is my least favourite from all the altered pictures.

Black and White (Threshold)

Finally, in my opinion the effect that turned out the best was the Threshold filter that I applied to the black and white image. It changes the lighting in the hair and brightens the face so much giving it an unreal type of look. The background and tree take on a new look that works great with the black and white. Gives the identity of the person a sense of mystery and creates a much more interesting picture than what I started with.

Digital Landscape (City Limits)

The original pictures that I combined to create my finshed product are posted below. 

 

This picture was used as the right portion of the city, I removed everything except the buildings then darkened the cross over points to the background. Since the buildings did not fill the whole horizon I had to search for an image that would fill the remaining space and proportionally fit to the other buildings.

 

 

The original background image was a far field with a shadowed fence. The sky plays a major part in this picture and is a focal point of interested in my finished digital landscape image. The horizon where the city buildings met I faded black to create some sort of mystical aspect to the image. The cows that were faded into the darkness were included to keep the farm aspect of the image visible and easier to realize when first viewing the picture.

Finally, my finished picture ended up with a space, farm and city theme that are all combined into one blended image. I chose to name the final picture "City Limits", this is because of the blending of farm, city, space themes into one image. Giving the sky an unrealistic colour and adding a planet, sun and astronaut gave the top of the picture a space view but by placing the planet and sun behind objects it gave it a sense of being farther away. Then moving to the buildings that have a light source makes it seem closer to the viewer. Also having the cows incorporated into the darkness and farm scene we can easily recognize the lower half of the picture is of a farm scene. I believe that having all three ridiculously different themes combined into one creates an unrealistic fun image.

 

Once I completed my image I decided to use my extra time to experiment with the various filters offered in photoshop. After sampling a good portion of the different filters I decided to portray my second image with the Neon Glow filter. It reminded me of a batman movie for some reason, having the dark theme with a coloured light source. It darkens the image even more than it was and creates a much deeper element of mystery. When I first saw the filter I thought something negative was occurring or about to occur in the city part of the image and the cows are looking away afraid. Also, I liked this filter because it does not give all the details of the picture at first glance but once you examine it more closely you notice the astronaut on the planet and the whole sun in the top right corner. I chose to remove the cloud covering the sun to make the sun stand out more when the filter was applied.

I chose to create a picture like the one I did because when viewing the tutorial I found the darkness in the image mysterious and interesting. It is not clear as to what is going on in the darkness between the city and farm and this creates questions regarding the darkness. Another reason I chose to explore the tutorial was because of the sky colour that was so unrealistic but that blended into the picture so well, I was interested in creating a similar picture and by following the tutorials guidelines I believe I've managed to capture the idea from the tutorial but add my personal touch's throughout the steps to create my final image.

So, I came across this image to use as the rest of the city. Even though the lighting in the buildings is completely different I figured if I faded it a bit and resized it the lighting would not stand out so much. It turned out to work well with the other buildings minus a few leaning ones.

Blog 1

1. I am excited about this course so that i can expand on my media arts skills and be creative to design unreal images. Also to learn new things about imagery and photo shop. I learned lots about creating and adjusting pictures last year but need to be refresh my skills to be completely productive in exploring new ways of designing more creative artwork. I enjoyed all the wondrous pictures that were showed in the slide show.

2. Yes, I agree to uphold the Studio Rules that were distributed.