IMM Midterm

"Dancing Rain"
"Flood Maze"
"Sunny Night"

"Eternal Bricks"

"Leaves of Life"
"Confinement"

Abstracts:

"Dancing Rain" is a perplexing abstract photo. It shows what looks like are falling water drops. The photo is actually of a water drain that is on the ground outside. To capture this image I stood over the water drain, looked downwards, and zoomed all the way in on the water drain. I then pull focus on the actual drain, allowing the bars in front of the drain to be out of focus. The rim of the drain was covered with water drops, as seen in the photo. The photo only shows 1/4 of the circular drain, which is why you see what appears to be the big black abyss to the right of the photo. To get this photo I took in various shots and in various angles, but was finally satisfied with this one. I call it dancing rain because from the angle I took the picture, it looks like the water molecules are dancing and trickling down.

“Flooded Maze” is an image of a sewer lid. Originally when I took this image, I was amazed by it because the sun was laminating it gold. However, the closer I looked at it, the more beautiful it became. In order to create this image, I altered the color and cropped the image so that you can see just a small portion of the sewer lid, which are the protruding bars. These sewer glistening with dew looks like a maze of bars. I decided to capture and edit this image because it was very conjectural and intriguing. This sewer is merely something we normally walk over, however if you take a closer look at it you can see how beautiful and complex it is.

“Sunny Night” is am image of a sunny day. I selected “Sunny Night” as the title of this piece to make it as oxymoronic as the image is. The sky was so sunny when I took this photo, the sun created the shape of a star. However, from first glance, one cannot tell this image was taken during the daytime. I altered the color of the image and many other features, for I thought it would be more interesting and abstract for the sun to not look like a sun at all. I also decided to change the color, for the image stood out more with a blue hue, which is not naturalistic. The silhouette of the tree branches creates the seclusion of the sun in this image. Although they are also in the picture, the fact that they are blacked out, the sun, which is the focus of this piece, is given all of the attention.

“Eternal Bricks” is an image I created. In order to create this image I took a photo of the corner of a brick wall I was standing under on an upward angle. This image was altered multiple times in shape and in color to create an abstract look. One major factor that helped create this image is symmetry. If you rotate this image upside down, it looks exactly the same. For this reason, it is very mesmerizing and hypnotizing. I entitled the image “Eternal Bricks” because the end result appears to be a brick wall that’s going on for forever. The middle of the square of bricks creates a vanishing point.

"The Leaves of Life" is a photo I took of a small section of a bush. In this photo there is a small section of the bush's leaves that are in the foreground that is in focus, while the leaves that are in the background are out of focus. While taking this picture I made the artistic decision to focus only on the three leaves section of leaves and put the other leaves out of focus to show depth of field. I also did this because I thought it would look very abstract if you can't see what the leaves are apart of. This way, from first glance, a person may or may not know they are looking at a bush.

“Confinement” is a photo of the outer bars of a water drain. This image shows solitude and mystery. The audience is left to wonder what is alone, confided behind the bars. In order to capture this image I zoomed in very tight on a portion of the drain and focused very sharply on the bars, so that what’s left beyond it is blurred out. The blurriness adds to the mystery, and the image of the bars itself creates the feeling of solitude and emptiness. In addition, this image has a blue hue to it, which was created manually through white balancing the camera prior to shooting. The blue hue gives it a mellow feeling that is very somber.

Production Log:

“Leaves of Life”

In order to create this image, I manually zoomed all the way in on three small sections of leaves on the bush. I also manually focused the camera on the part of the leaves I wanted in the foreground, which put the other leaves out of focus in the background. This created a sense of depth of field. To maker sure the image was focus right and centered in the middle of the photo, I had to retake the shot multiple times. Also, since I wanted to create a mellow tone with this picture I changed the color by using linear burn. Linear burn gave the image a blue tone which is more subdue then the original dull green color the photo originally was.

“Sunny Night”

The image “Sunny Night” took several steps to create. First, I used the tool linear burn to alter the color of this image. This effect gave the image a blue hue. I next cropped the photo so that the item of focus, the sun would be highlighted and centered. Following this I used I adjusted the blacks and whites in this photo. I increased the blacks in this image. I did this so the photo didn’t look to washed out by the brightness of the sun. As a result of this the trees became very dark, almost like a silhouette framing the sun. Finally, I used a cooling filter to give the image more color. This created a purple hue around the sun.

“Eternal Bricks”

In order to create this image, I began by copying and making three layers of this image. I next rotated one of the layers 180 degrees. By doing this, I produce an image which had an overlapping look. I then tested out all the different effects you can use on the layers. I ended up using the multiplying effect, which to my surprise caused the photo to look very abstract and complex. The multiplying effect caused my image’s layers to look transparent, which created an even grander symmetrical pattern then what I already had.

“Confinement”

The image “Confinement” was not edited. In order to create this image, I white balanced the camera to sunlight. I did this purposely because I know that sunlight appears blue. I next took a picture on a downward angle of the water drain on the ground. I took this picture several times in order to insure that I got the image that I wanted. I purposely took a picture of only a portion of the water drain, to add to abstractness. This way it is uncertain what the image is at first glance. Also, before shooting I adjusted the focus so that image of the bars was very sharp in the foreground while what’s “confined” beyond the bars are blurred and on known.

“Dancing Rain”

The image “Dancing Rain” was also not edited. In order to create this image, before shooting I white balanced the camera to sunlight. I did this purposely because I know that sunlight appears blue. Once again, I next took a picture on a downward angle of the water drain on the ground. However, this time before shooting I adjusted the focus so that image of the water trickling on the drain in the background was in focus while the bars, which are in the foreground, are blurred.

“Flooding Maze”

In order to create this image I edited the image of the sewer lid I took. I began by making a copy of the layer so that I wouldn’t work on the original image. Next, I started cropping the image. At first I wasn’t satisfied with the part of the image I cropped, because the water wasn’t clear on that portion, so I cropped over and over again until I found a portion of the lid that I was satisfied with. Finally I tested out at all the different effects on the layer, and decided that Linear Burn was the best effect for it created a blue hue and abstract look to the water on the lid.

Self Evaluation:

When creating this portfolio, I decided I would take photos of non-connecting images and tie them together through one come theme, abstraction. One way abstraction is shown is throw seclusion. I noticed the best way to create abstract images is by creating images that cause the audience to focus on one thing. For this reason, in many of my images, you only see a small portion of what the object actually is. I decided to do this in order for the audience to see beauty, in what isn’t stereotypical beautiful like a water drain or a sewer lid.

In addition, when creating this portfolio, I wanted my audience to see the difference between altered images through editing with programs like Photoshop and manually editing while shooting. This is clearly seen through the overall tone of my portfolio. The tone I was trying to portray is mellow. In order to create this sense of mellowness, I naturally took photos with a deep blue hue and also altered some of the other images so that they could have this deep blue hue. In order to capture photos with a deep blue hue I white balanced the camera on the sky during a very sunny day, knowing that sunlight appears blue.

Also, I used the features in the camera such as manually changing the aperture to control the light and manually focusing the camera on the part of the object I wanted to singularly capture. This took almost two hours for just a few images. On the contrast, to create a blue hue in Photoshop, I simply created a new layer and edited the hue and brightness. Also, instead of trying to zoom in on an image perfectly while shooting, with Photoshop I was able to take a large image and crop what I wanted to keep in seconds. The time it took to manually edit the photos took longer than it took to edit them through Photoshop, but it was worth it because I was proud at the beautiful images I was able to capture during my first time using a high tech photo camera.

One important thing, which helped me a lot during this process, was brain storming beforehand. Before shooting, I knew the style I was trying to create and the tone I wanted it to portray. Another thing that was helpful was learning the importance of selection. I learned when deciding which images to place in your portfolio, each image should work together but be strong enough to stand alone, for one’s project is only as strong as your weakest image. Ultimately, by creating this portfolio I was able to try new things through taking abstract photos and learn editing images is quicker if you do it afterwards during post production, but is more satisfying if you do it manually.