Evaluation:
Research:
For my research page on this project, I looked at various natural and urban photographers.
For this I typed into Google 'Natural Photographers' and 'Urban Photographers' and looked at different styles and I was really intrigued by how some people's photographs were. I particularly liked the way how their compositions were arranged and how everything was correctly placed in their photographs. I booked out a few books on 'David Bailey', 'Keith Arnatt' and 'Ansel Adams'. I was really fascinated by their work and I was really intrigued by how all there photographs went together with their chosen environments and how appealing and pleasing to the eye they were.
Investigation:
For my investigation process I did a variety of mind maps to get my creative mind in gear and to be able to create quite interesting and imaginative ideas.
Initial Ideas:
My Visual Ideas really came from a variety of different sources. I'm really fascinated into the CSI: Crime Scene Investigation programs (CSI, Bones, Body of Proof etc.) So that's what spurred me on for my final outcome really, I was wanting to portray something that not many people find appealing or attractive and your own body is really beautiful in odd ways. I particularly like how I have portrayed something that not other's are really intrigued by and that's another factor of why I wanted to do this as an idea. It kept growing throughout the course of this project and I was happy that I could do it as an outcome. Other ideas were quite strong like my Judy Woods time lapse and photographs, I would have done this an outcome but I had a really strong pull towards my first idea. I think what influenced me for the Woodland photographs would be fantasy based images and movies. I like the idea of a fantasy like environment and it did amaze me that if pulled off correctly it could look really astounding.
Techniques / Workshops:
On our workshop at the National Media Museum, at first I was a bit skeptical about the movie trailer but during the day, I was so amazed and impressed at how much work and effort goes into putting a movie trailer together. I thought that it was such a fun day and I had really good fun in making it. I found out at how they do the little angle tricks in making superhero's climb up walls and the fine art of movie editing. In the end our movie trailer looked really good and I was still amazed that, that is what we'd done in a day and it was really impressive. In other techniques I now know the art of masking which I have found quite complicated, but now I thoroughly understand it and it's quite easy to master once I knew how to do it. I also, know how to create my own brushes for Photoshop work, I thought it would be quite hard to make your own brushes but, it was surprisingly easy and I was shocked at how little time it took to create. I know how to create Time Lapse films which is something I have wanted to know but never got round to it, also I know how to create painting with light effects and put them into photos. I also know how to create motion blurred effect images.
Idea Development:
For developing my ideas I simply wrote every little detail down in a sketchbook / notepad. To fully develop my idea I simply picked two that would have to most mileage and kept writing down little notes about how I would photograph, make it interesting / appealing and how imaginative I was. As I previously said my best two were the Bones idea and the Judy Woods, woodland idea. My rejected ideas were because they were simply too time consuming and would be quite hard to perfect. I would like to do my rejected shoots later in the course maybe as I do think that they would be quite good ideas / starting points for an idea, so it is not a thoroughly scrapped idea as of yet.
Samples / Test Pieces:
The samples I did were for Architectural, Urban, Still Life, and Painting with Light.
My Architectural samples were okay, just I think I should have got my own images as this would have improved slightly and would have had a better feel towards them. I think that these shots were pretty successful as they had a variety of tools used and different techniques were used too. My Urban samples, were also pretty successful although I think I could have put a texture over these images as I think it would have given a better understand of the urban environments and would have been more appealing. The Painting with Light samples were astounding I was pleased with how these images came out, they look really striking and look like they belong.
On my Photoshop Samples page, here is where my test pieces are, by that I mean my Tim Marrs style is here and my 'This Is Tomorrow' piece. I quite enjoyed these images as they look really quirky, yet interesting. I like how in these images it looks quite interesting and is like there's a story behind it. For my Tim Marrs piece, I chose images from Google and put them together in Photoshop, I was pretty happy with these results. I think I could have used my own images. For the 'This is Tomorrow' I had to use an empty room and add things in which I would want in my own room, overall I like both of these images as they look quite interesting.
Design Development:
I arrived at my final design by taking a lot more notes of how I could do the shoot, how I could edit the photos and how doing little thumbnail sketches.
I think this got me focused as I was engaging with something that I was prepared for and what I was really wanting to do. The writing down notes of every little detail, also helped as I then knew what part was to go where and how I wanted my model to look how to act in these shots. Overall I was simply happy with my final design.
Final Outcome:
The techniques used for this outcome was masking and how to create that perfect edgy photograph which I was totally pleased with in the end, in the first stages of my editing I just used the collarbones of the skeleton and pasted them into my photograph of the model, I didn't really like this as it looked quite poor. Then I thought about using the whole skeleton in my shots, thus using the rib cage and collarbones. I liked this general look as it look more appealing in a grotesque way which I rather liked and was quite admirable. The feedback I got from my simple unedited photographs were pretty good as my model was pleased which made me happy yet I loved the simplicity of the photographs, but when I was editing my images and masked the rib cage into my photo, I heard comments like "That's really cool" and "That's quite interesting." I was rather pleased with this feedback and it made me really happy to find that people thought it was quite interesting and that it did in fact, look good. I think that this matched my design to a T, I was thoroughly impressed and was simply blown away by how it looked at the start and the end of my process. If I could change anything in this project again it would be that fact that I didn't tell my model to look at the camera and be quite subtle, whereas she's smiling in some photos which I didn't at first but now I wish I should have asked her not to smile or to have her lips closed. If this could be improved I would simply add more skeletal like features into these images and would have made my model not smile, but be relaxed and to just breathe.
Strengths & Weaknesses:
I think that my strengths throughout this project were that I wanted to try a master each element of the project, I wanted to master how to use to mask tool and know I have I now know how to do that and I'm happy as I can use the mask tool in next projects will be quite fun to do. My weaknesses throughout this would be that I didn't think of this idea until the second to last week before the outcome would be marked. I think that in the next projects I should get a clear idea of what I want to be my final outcome within the second week in.
I think what has pleased me about my work is that I find it quite interesting that it's my first time using Photoshop and I have managed to create quite an interesting piece of work and I'm quite impressed with how they turned out.
For my research page on this project, I looked at various natural and urban photographers.
For this I typed into Google 'Natural Photographers' and 'Urban Photographers' and looked at different styles and I was really intrigued by how some people's photographs were. I particularly liked the way how their compositions were arranged and how everything was correctly placed in their photographs. I booked out a few books on 'David Bailey', 'Keith Arnatt' and 'Ansel Adams'. I was really fascinated by their work and I was really intrigued by how all there photographs went together with their chosen environments and how appealing and pleasing to the eye they were.
Investigation:
For my investigation process I did a variety of mind maps to get my creative mind in gear and to be able to create quite interesting and imaginative ideas.
Initial Ideas:
My Visual Ideas really came from a variety of different sources. I'm really fascinated into the CSI: Crime Scene Investigation programs (CSI, Bones, Body of Proof etc.) So that's what spurred me on for my final outcome really, I was wanting to portray something that not many people find appealing or attractive and your own body is really beautiful in odd ways. I particularly like how I have portrayed something that not other's are really intrigued by and that's another factor of why I wanted to do this as an idea. It kept growing throughout the course of this project and I was happy that I could do it as an outcome. Other ideas were quite strong like my Judy Woods time lapse and photographs, I would have done this an outcome but I had a really strong pull towards my first idea. I think what influenced me for the Woodland photographs would be fantasy based images and movies. I like the idea of a fantasy like environment and it did amaze me that if pulled off correctly it could look really astounding.
Techniques / Workshops:
On our workshop at the National Media Museum, at first I was a bit skeptical about the movie trailer but during the day, I was so amazed and impressed at how much work and effort goes into putting a movie trailer together. I thought that it was such a fun day and I had really good fun in making it. I found out at how they do the little angle tricks in making superhero's climb up walls and the fine art of movie editing. In the end our movie trailer looked really good and I was still amazed that, that is what we'd done in a day and it was really impressive. In other techniques I now know the art of masking which I have found quite complicated, but now I thoroughly understand it and it's quite easy to master once I knew how to do it. I also, know how to create my own brushes for Photoshop work, I thought it would be quite hard to make your own brushes but, it was surprisingly easy and I was shocked at how little time it took to create. I know how to create Time Lapse films which is something I have wanted to know but never got round to it, also I know how to create painting with light effects and put them into photos. I also know how to create motion blurred effect images.
Idea Development:
For developing my ideas I simply wrote every little detail down in a sketchbook / notepad. To fully develop my idea I simply picked two that would have to most mileage and kept writing down little notes about how I would photograph, make it interesting / appealing and how imaginative I was. As I previously said my best two were the Bones idea and the Judy Woods, woodland idea. My rejected ideas were because they were simply too time consuming and would be quite hard to perfect. I would like to do my rejected shoots later in the course maybe as I do think that they would be quite good ideas / starting points for an idea, so it is not a thoroughly scrapped idea as of yet.
Samples / Test Pieces:
The samples I did were for Architectural, Urban, Still Life, and Painting with Light.
My Architectural samples were okay, just I think I should have got my own images as this would have improved slightly and would have had a better feel towards them. I think that these shots were pretty successful as they had a variety of tools used and different techniques were used too. My Urban samples, were also pretty successful although I think I could have put a texture over these images as I think it would have given a better understand of the urban environments and would have been more appealing. The Painting with Light samples were astounding I was pleased with how these images came out, they look really striking and look like they belong.
On my Photoshop Samples page, here is where my test pieces are, by that I mean my Tim Marrs style is here and my 'This Is Tomorrow' piece. I quite enjoyed these images as they look really quirky, yet interesting. I like how in these images it looks quite interesting and is like there's a story behind it. For my Tim Marrs piece, I chose images from Google and put them together in Photoshop, I was pretty happy with these results. I think I could have used my own images. For the 'This is Tomorrow' I had to use an empty room and add things in which I would want in my own room, overall I like both of these images as they look quite interesting.
Design Development:
I arrived at my final design by taking a lot more notes of how I could do the shoot, how I could edit the photos and how doing little thumbnail sketches.
I think this got me focused as I was engaging with something that I was prepared for and what I was really wanting to do. The writing down notes of every little detail, also helped as I then knew what part was to go where and how I wanted my model to look how to act in these shots. Overall I was simply happy with my final design.
Final Outcome:
The techniques used for this outcome was masking and how to create that perfect edgy photograph which I was totally pleased with in the end, in the first stages of my editing I just used the collarbones of the skeleton and pasted them into my photograph of the model, I didn't really like this as it looked quite poor. Then I thought about using the whole skeleton in my shots, thus using the rib cage and collarbones. I liked this general look as it look more appealing in a grotesque way which I rather liked and was quite admirable. The feedback I got from my simple unedited photographs were pretty good as my model was pleased which made me happy yet I loved the simplicity of the photographs, but when I was editing my images and masked the rib cage into my photo, I heard comments like "That's really cool" and "That's quite interesting." I was rather pleased with this feedback and it made me really happy to find that people thought it was quite interesting and that it did in fact, look good. I think that this matched my design to a T, I was thoroughly impressed and was simply blown away by how it looked at the start and the end of my process. If I could change anything in this project again it would be that fact that I didn't tell my model to look at the camera and be quite subtle, whereas she's smiling in some photos which I didn't at first but now I wish I should have asked her not to smile or to have her lips closed. If this could be improved I would simply add more skeletal like features into these images and would have made my model not smile, but be relaxed and to just breathe.
Strengths & Weaknesses:
I think that my strengths throughout this project were that I wanted to try a master each element of the project, I wanted to master how to use to mask tool and know I have I now know how to do that and I'm happy as I can use the mask tool in next projects will be quite fun to do. My weaknesses throughout this would be that I didn't think of this idea until the second to last week before the outcome would be marked. I think that in the next projects I should get a clear idea of what I want to be my final outcome within the second week in.
I think what has pleased me about my work is that I find it quite interesting that it's my first time using Photoshop and I have managed to create quite an interesting piece of work and I'm quite impressed with how they turned out.