Week 6: Hue, Saturation, and Value

Craft

First of all, I removed the text from the composition, and also added photos of smoke for the factory's smokestacks. As for the hue, saturation, and value, I mainly used those for the background and only slightly enhanced the saturation of the fruits and shopper in the foreground while lightening the value of the smokestacks. For the background, I darkened the hue of the background to make the colors of the fruit pop. The saturation was also lowered for the background next to again make the fruit stand out. The value was lightening in the third to make the foreground show.

Concept

I removed the text because I thought that it was too distracting. I decided to make it the title instead. I put in more realistic smoke to make the factory more realistic and recognizable since the text was now deleted. The hue, saturation, and value were changed mainly in the background because I thought that the background did not serve much purpose for the message and I did not want to change the fruit and factory too much because I wanted them as recognizable as possible.

Composition

The composition makes the viewer notice the shopper and fruit first as intended, then the factory. The saturation and value changes of the background achieve this by causing the foreground to show better. The reviews from peers said the same thing basically. Besides some photoshop clean up needed, the resolution of the photos were the biggest hindrance but most got the factory concept and thought the value lightening in the background was the best at doing that.

Week 5: Collage Final Draft

Craft

For this version of my collage, I added more fruit and the shopper with the cart which proved difficult because of the low resolution photos. I used the same backdrop from the rough draft and but I add smokestacks which were one that was copied to create a row that symbolize a factory. I added smoke in photoshop to make them more recognizable as as smokestacks. Lastly, I did add the text "Fresh Produce" to draw the viewers eye to the factory in the back.

Concept

The concept that I chose to go with is the point at which food production in the U. S. becomes ridiculous. I try to achieve this by creating overgrown fruit in the foreground, overbearing the shopper who kind of struggles to push her cart. The factory in the background symbolizes the processing and how it is more chemical than natural growing.

Composition

The composition consists of the shopper in the foreground surrounded by overgrown fruits and vegetables. This is to make the distinction that this is a market or farm stand but the overgrown produce is the ironic part. The factory in the background then answers this irony. That is the general direction that the viewer's eyes should be lead.

Week 4: Collage Rough Draft

Craft
Using Photoshop, we were to combine at least one person, one place, and one object from the photos that we took previously to form a collage. As for the place, I chose the park because I thought it was the best shot and used it for the background or setting. However, stretching the image to fit the paper distorted its resolution too much so I left it alone which effected its small size upon printing. For the person, I chose the crossing guard. The quality of the photo was one of the worst but I thought it was one of the easiest to cut out. I was still in a state of practice mode. As for the object, I chose the pear. I chose it because it was the best one that I cut out and we needed at least one unexpected or ironic aspect in our composition.
Compostion
The compostion itself is small due to the lack of resizing the background image. The crossing guard was rescaled to fit the scale of the foreground as well as the pear which was rescaled and left large in comparison with the crossing guard and park setting. The pear was duplicated and rescaled so there were three overall and the each were overlapped to make some depth. The pear in the front was brightened and the pear in the back was darkened to enhance the illusion. However, the sunlight in the background photo is different from the sunlight in brightness and direction from the crossing guard and the pear.

Concept

Mostly I was just practicing when initially making the collage, and lost focus on thinking of a concept especially with the photos that I had to work with. What I plan on doing is changing the background entirely to a different image as well as the crossing guard. I have a picture of a shopper with a cart instead and I thought that a concept could either be about concerns of genetically altered food or the wasted surplus of produce in America. The concept as it is now does not really have any meaning except for a bit of irony in that there are giant pears with a crossing guard.

Week 3: People, Places, Things Photos

Craft

Using the same camera from the previous assignment, I thought of people who I thought I could easily get photos of. It was difficult to actually get the photos taken off them because first of all they are moving and second I had to be inconspicuous. Most of the photos came out OK but some that were taken in sunlight had clarity problems. The people in the shade were the best.

Next were the places. The best one I thought was the park because it was the clearest of them all also I thought it was the only one that really provided a blank, clean setting. The objects were similar to the objects of the previous week with the exception of a mailbox.

Composition

I tried to center everything as much as possible with an unobsructed view but that was difficult for the people photos because of the angles and locations that I took the photos at. It would have made cutting them out difficult because of the objects. The locations were easier to take but some were in shade while the photo was taken in the sun.

Concept

For this photo shoot, I wanted objects, people, and places that were unobstructed, and very visible in sunlight. I also wanted photos that could easily be cut out and not blended with the background.

Week 2: Isolating Photographs

Craft
For this assignment we had to choose and photograph ten objects in isolation against a simple background to isolate in Photoshop. First of all, I have no photography experience, so being able to set up a clear and easily isolated photograph was not necessarily easy. The camera I used was a borrowed Kodak DX6490 4.0 Mega Pixel digital camera. As for the five indoor objects I choose, the setting was in a bright room with florencent lighting, and the objects were rested on top of a box with a white cloth for the background and photographed from above. The five outdoor objects were photographed during the morning on a back patio in the shade. I think the clarity of each object was about the same and it was not the greatest clarity either. The indoor objects were more succesful I thought because of the brighter pictures and the more neutral backgournd. As for the picture I thought was best was the starfish because I thought it was the most interesting and one of the more easily isolated ones.

Composition
I wanted to take centered pictures as clear as possible. Knowing that we would have to cut them out I wanted to make sure that all the objects had a simple background that was different from the color of the object. I think the biggest problem came from the lighting for the indoor photos because there was too much of a shadow that made cutting them out difficult. The outdoor photos were actually the easiest to cut out.

Concept
There was no concept in choosing which items to take pictures of. I just wanted to pick some objects that were interesting and they had nothing in common really.