Assignment 5

This week, we were supposed to take photos of things to portray expressions without the use of humans, animals or toys that resemble these things.
Meaning we were supposed to take pictures of happiness or joy of say maybe some colourful flowers etc instead of using human's expression.
Ah such a tough week yet again... But thankfully I managed, whilst barely but i managed to scrap past... I think...

Click to Reveal Photos

I took this picture at my void deck, i found it rather desolate or deserted in a sense whereby a wheelchair gets dumped at the void deck yet rather sad at the same time cuz it's being chained up. Like there's nowhere to run... Ya well people have been asking me why I have so many interesting photos from my void deck (refer to assignment 3 for the high key photo =P) but I dunno man! They are just there for me and I'm glad!! Haha! Oh ya I desaturated the photo slightly to get this look. Looks like another high key image i think =P

Well i renamed this Hope since Peace didn't really go so well with many people due to the dark clouds. Anyways Hope is more apt i guess as there seems to be light/hope behind the darkness.... Lame i know, but that's honestly how i perceived it!! And it looks exactly the part too! Apt i would say =)

Ah, I also renamed this from Turmoil to Messy, I guess it's not turmoil enough but it is really quite messy. It's also taken around my hdb block where there are tons of construction going on. So ya my area here is really a good place to take pictures for this assignment as can be seen for the next photo, really...

This is called disorder cuz out of all the flats in the block, only this one has like a jungle-like erm jungle creeping out of the flat! I wanted to take pictures of more of the flats above or below it to showcase and compare how much of a disorder it look but was unable to, cuz it was either too far that the impact wasn't strong enough (cuz taken from downstairs) or too near which is the result of this picture as my flat was really the closest to it and this was as best as I could take. There isn't any flats opposite the block such that I can take it from a better proximity too. Anyways I'll probably retake the shot at a better lighting as Ms Chiang had suggested. =D

Cheers!

Blog Exercise 4 - Singapore Biennale 2008

It was my first biennale and i must say I'm pretty impressed with how they converted City Hall/supreme court and South Beach Complex into a myriad of random art pieces that just seem to piece themselves together nicely even though there's no specific theme to all the work
And i love it that the pieces are all relatively highly interactive such as the huge Singapore map which was taken from Google Earth sprawled across the floor.
You'll be given two pieces of black sticker in which you can write and stick it onto the map/floor or do whatever you want with it =P

Click to Reveal Photos

Anyways one of the more successful pieces in which i enjoyed was probably the Aquilizan, Alfredo Juan & Gaudinez-Aquilizan, Maria Isabel's artwork called:

Address ( Project: Another Country)

This project represents a developmental process whereby many personal objects were collected 'cubed' by Balikbayan boxes. These are boxes that many Filipino migrants use to transport their personal belongings home. There are 140 of these cubes/boxes that are used to build this room with a door but without a ceiling.
I think it looks wonderful as it's supposed to be like what a garang guni man would be interested in and very messy too yet it is cubed in such a way that it is neat and can even be constructed into a room, quite awesome to say the least
There are also come "treasures" found in this tidy mess

Pardon the pun... =P But yeah look at all those animated children's tales videos by Hans Christian Andersen! And yeah a VHS of Spiceworld the movie haha....


Anyways the piece that I find it weirdest or rather something that I can't really appreciate or understand was probably this one:

Leeroy New - Teratoma ll: War of the Worlds

Well, it looks like different coloured C3PO (the golden looking robot from Star Wars) standing on top of city hall~ Well yeah it's probably smart to use the space and the building as the UFO itself but it feels more like a game/movies figurines exhibition rather than an artistic one plus i don't understand what's those white stuff protruding out from the building. It looks like those dead corals or something, so maybe the artist is trying to portray that? I don't really know or understand... Sorry...

Cheers!

Assignment 4 - Urban Fantasy

Theme: Surrealism

This was a really mind boggling project but I guess I managed it =\
The main concept is that Singapore being an urban city is being ironically (since it is an island~) consumed by water as a comet or whatever you make of it hits the Singapore River. Nobody or rather humans survived the catastrophe yet however the animals triumph through evolution, they grew wings so they are able to live on.
It's sort of saying that whilst we are advancing towards the technological side of life, we have in a way neglected our nature and the animals but nature has its way of having its revenge and prove us humans wrong that we can do whatever we want when it is nature who will triumph in the end.

The Process:

Click to Reveal Photos

These are the pictures used for the photo manipulation:

Nigeria falls in Canada, taken when I was touring in the US and took a short tour there too. As you can see the final product has far more water on the bottom right, that's because the original picture is not big enough so I had to clone it and also utilised the heal tool.

After having the desired width already I just thought it would be interesting to insert some buildings since it's about urban fantasy....

The view in front of the Esplanade. This was taken in a rush as my boyfriend was helping the Caucasian couple take a snapshot.
I thought they really look cute together so I took it as a "souvenir" =P
I could have used other photographs just solely of the view but somehow I just took this, not sure why either.
To select and crop out just the buildings I used the extract tool under Filter. Really useful tool once you've mastered it.

And then out of the blue, I wanted to include animals into the picture purely because I like animals more than humans hoho!

And so a pig is born. This was taken in the zoo and I also used the extract tool for the selection.

And then of course one animal was not enough.......

So I included this giraffe! This first one appeared in the final product as the giraffe on the extreme right, and then later re-appeared as the one right in front as I thought I needed more giraffes to give it a more uniform look rather than noah's ark with so many different kinds of animals. Plus I was running out of giraffe photos so I had to reuse it and just tilted it so that it looks different... =P
It has a surreal looking face so in a way to reflect that they are very calm despite being in the water and walking towards the big gaping hole.

And yes more giraffes~ same explanation as the above plus it has a baby (k fine, a child~~) giraffe! It gave it an even more calm feel to it...


Anyway for the rest of the image, the sky is manipulated entirely, I filled in with a dark blue background and used Filter>Render>Clouds to well, produce the clouds in the sky. The moon is fake as well using Filter>Distort> Spherize.
I'm probably going to add a some rays from the moon to sort of fake a sense of source of lighting~
Even though we know that the moon is not a source of light but it's my fantasy right so I don't really care, plus it would give it a mysterious feel to it which is the whole idea of this concept.
There's also fog on the horizon and also on the buildings itself as it's supposed to say like that the buildings are fading into the past already and the animals will the future of tomorrow~ =)
The fog is created using a new layer and selecting the area where I wanted it to be foggy and then used the Filter>Render>Clouds again and under the layers thingy I selected screen so that it looks more real, and also to lower the opacity.
The wings were from my collection of brush tools and using the same left wing and right wing to create all the wings here.
Shadows were also added using the soft brush and lowering the opacity.
Of course overall the pictures would be manipulated using saturation and levels tool as well to adjust the colour and brightness of the images.
Lastly I added two more layers of overlay in dark blue so that the different images would look like they are all there instead of being copy and pasted inside.

Very tedius but it was quite fun to do I guess =)

Cheers!

Blog Exercise 3 - Analyzing a Picture

This is a photograph by Sharad Haksar who is one of India’s leading photographers. He has won several international awards for his work and was even named one of the top 200 photographers by Luezar Archive.

Let’s go through the formal elements of this photograph to understand the photographer’s point of view then.

In terms of the light source, it looks to be from a natural source i.e. sun~ since it’s an outdoor shot, but it is either diffused by the clouds or might still be early or later in the day as the light is not harsh and coming from the left to the right of the wall. Thus the shot is neither overly bright nor dark and shadows are not hard hitting. Just natural.

The texture is shown through the ground and dirt and is not noticed immediately. It does reflect a sort untidiness and might suggest that is taken from a rural area or a kampong area, making the image more real.

The main focus of the picture is both the Nike logo as it is red in colour as compared to the dull brown or white colours around it, with the catchphrase “Just Do It”, and of the boy who is top naked and seemingly peeing on the wall whilst the puppy watch on. The image is rather simple with no complications in the background, so that the audience can focus on what exactly the photographer is trying to convey which are the subjects in question. The colour of the logo also reflects a certain dynamic feel to the brand, and with the boy peeing on the wall it just gives the audience an even stronger feel or reaction towards the brand.

Angle of view is roughly at eye level from the right side to the left of the image which shows the full picture of what is happening.

Overall, what the photographer is trying to convey and how the audience will see it exactly is the irony of the brand’s catchphrase “Just do it” with the boy doing exactly what he feels like doing at that moment. And the greatest irony of all is that he is doing it with no apparels or shoes (literally) that has anything to do with Nike. It is pretty direct to the point with the use of the simple background which portrays a rather run down area where probably the people there are not able to afford such a brand as well.

Another example which is also from his work where a simple background works well in conveying a message that is direct to the point:

It’s like another irony where it is saying yes, even Superman needs a wardrobe of clothes to change his outfits for his daily outings/work and for disguise despite his well-recognized spandex costume. =)

Cheers!