Name: Yucheng(Frank) Bao
Name of Project: Extended World
Concept
My concept in this project is “Extension” which means using the limited frame to provide more extended visual perception. There are three things I want to emphasize in my project: Distance, Depth, and the contrast between realistic and unrealistic, which are all around reality and imagination.
Process
(1) Describe your process in staging and photographing part I.
For my photographing stage, the main still object I have is a small sculpture of a mountain, which only has a plain white color. And for the studio setup, I only have a black fabric background. So, I added some green leaves, red petals, and transparent crystals around the main mountain to make the whole composition more varied. But in the actual shooting process, I found the output picture still too simple. At the same time, I couldn’t get more objects in a short time, so I was thinking about utilizing the mirror whose reflection can provide more visible elements for my picture.
As you can see, the style of the picture, for example, 1471, 1494, 1504, etc., is really realistic and natural, which presents the original color and property of the object. Then I was thinking about how to make the variance of the picture, maybe change the light setting, such ad the color of the light or the direction of the light. Actually, I found two useful tools to make my picture more interesting: a colorful transparent bag and a bulb that can change color. By using these two tools, the light condition becomes more various and fancy: the light thrown to the mountain makes it no more boring and plain.
Also, you can see pictures 1511, 1518, 1528, the mountain’s color is caused by the different lights, which make the really good visual effect. And pictures 1548 and 1549, the “sun” and “moon” is the reflection of the bulb in the mirror which added more spacial element in the whole composition.
(2) Describe your digital process in creating part II image.
I finally choose the picture as my original picture because I want to show some contrast between the two pictures. The main features of this picture are that all objects are centralized in the middle of the page, and the clear focus on the mountain makes the visual perception more humdrum. So, I was trying to expand the dimension in this limited frame.
Distance
In order to make the sense of distance, I considered making something that can make people feel that is in a remote location. So I copied the mountain figure and wanted to add some elements between them to show that they actually not in the same location. My intentions here are to make the distant feeling and also this circle’s figure present on the sun and moon, inspiring from the picture I took in the first part.
Depth
When I think about this conception, the first figure that pops up in my mind is the ocean which presents the sense of depth. So I added a part of the picture of the sea at the bottom of my composition that can extend the depth in the imagination level.
Realistic and Unrealistic
One more important concept in this project is contrast. I think the comparison between realistic and unrealistic may be interesting. So for the sun and moon, I just used geographic patterns which symbolize the entity. And in the middle of the composition, I added the cloud picture with the painting-style filter to make it unrealistic which also is the transition of different parts.
Conclusion
If I have more time for this project, I may think about the relationship between the diptych. According to the feedback from the professor, even though my project can catch her eyes, the relationship may not really be direct.