Month: October 2023

The memory I want to pick as my subject is a period in my high school. I used to have the habit of cycling after the Friday courses ended,which is a great chance for me to enjoy the sound of the breeze and the sunset with a relaxed mind. I loved the sunlight and the shadows, the shadow of which changes rather quickly at dusk，which always makes me think of the glinting sea, so besides the normal sound I heard when cycling, I will also use the sound of water to describe the change of light to create a holistic picture.

A.name: Cicci

Project: What’s hiding underneath

 

B.Concept: Part 1 displays our stereotype of sharks——fierce, scary……However, part 2 appears totally different images of shark. They are cute and friendly. They make friends with other animals like monkeys and pandas. Some of them are also taking showers and rowling a tub boat, which is really adorable. The first part is what the sharks look like and how we usually think of them regarding their appearence while part 2 ,in contrast,shows the imaginery inner part of sharks, which enlights us that we shouldn’t define others only by apearence and what others truely are may be totally differnet from what we suppose him to be at first sight.

 

C.Process

(1)This picture was taken during my second visit to IKEA, a furniture shop. I’m aiming at capturing the figure of various shark dolls and this picture is what I saw when I walked into the fluffy doll department. When I raised my head, the three sharks hung on the ceiling coincidently formed a very vivid state, so I just shot.

(2)Firstly, I pick out the pictures where the piles of sharks are in “cages” and it is really crowded in the cage as some sharks are even distorted. Then I seperate them into small parts and then put these small parts into the final work as its background. I also adjusted the transparency of the backgroud to ensure it won’t be too eye-catchy.

Secondly, I use the lasso tool to get the images of differnet sharks in different pictures and then put them randomly on the background. I also arrange them a lttle bit to create the freedom vibe.

Thirdly, I add more animals onto the picture. Actually when I come up with this idea,I think that it is too crazy and maybe the final picture will be a little wired. But I still try it, so naughty monkeys and panda which managed to sneak into sharks by wearing a shark coat appeared.

Then it comes the last step of toning, which is a challenge for me, so I searched th Red and tried several times to learn about white balance, exposure, contrast, highlights, shadows, whites and blacks in the camera raw filter. Then I keep trying and finally reached the effect I want.

 

D.Conclusion: I will adapt more elements and different types of sharks. Or adding more flowers and adjust their transparency to make the picuture looks more artistic and vivid. I will also dicover more effects in PS and I really want to try the “stylish” function. I believe they will make the picture look more innovative.

 

E.photo

Ritchin talks about the development in technology, where the means to record the reality changed with time.The example of the 1990 Persian Gulf War has left me deep impression as it shows how the evil took advantage of the development of the fluidity of the digital and tried to hide their creulty and the objective fact.

Fluidity of the digital seems to be negative. In the past, although recording was harder, but meanwhile changing the recording was harder too, as was depicted in the mechanical camera’s role in earlier conflicts like the Vietnam War. But the fluidity allows easy adjustment of the picture taken, which enables people to alter the reality on purpose. 

However, fluidity of the digital appears more positive nowadays,at least for me, it’s so. To take a popular photo editting app “Xingtu” as an example, young people will use it to add a filter to the photo to make it looks more appealing. In addition, Xingtu is really advanced in AI making up. I always use Xingtu to buffing my skin and change the color of my lip, which really works especially when the lighting of the photo is really poor.

Photography is really capable of capturing reality, I suppose, if the technique of photo editting never exists. Camera is a kind of optics device, so it’s recording is physically objective.

But photography is sometimes not so capable, let alone technology,such as text, video, virtual reality, books. As they are all media created by humanbeings, then they can be altered, or purposefully taken from the very beginning to pretend something didn’t exist happened to cater to certain people’s profit.Texts and books are the weakest as everyone can speak and write down something while videos are more solid as the previous ability to alter video is not so advance as that of photos and the technique requirements to alter videos is higher. But we have to admit that both videos and photos can be staged photography, so we have to take on careful attitude when judging the facts through photos and videos.

  My overall concept for the diptych is brevity and joy and I want to convey the contrast between the childish world and the brevity, which inspires people that we should always try to keep the youth in our heart while maintaining the order and brevity in our life. They seem like against each other but they can be the two sides of ones heart.
  The first image is to show brevity, in which I will use the element of furnitures while the second one is to show joy, in which I will use dolls and flowers and makes the whole picture up-side-down to emphasize the contrast between the diptych.
  I’ll also try to create some connection between the two picture but I don’t have any ideas yet. I will look for way out when I set up to do this work.
  So I plan to take photos of some furniture and dolls in IKEA and I plan to use the photo with sharp contrast between dark and bright as the background to create a romantic vibe. I will use photoshop to rearrange the elements and adjust the color of the photos.