Sunday, December 2, 2018

Digital Photography- Texture Blog Post

Digital Contact Print (Purely Chaotic) 

Here are my top 10 images for the purely chaotic category. These photographs were a little bit difficult to capture because I had a difficult time defining what was purely chaotic and what was harmoniously disorganised. In the end, my definition for purely chaotic was randomly scattered, confusing or thrown about to create a feeling of dissonance in all different and multiple directions. For my purely chaotic category, I plan to edit an image of a rubber band ball and an image of Banana Gram tiles from my house.

Digital Contact Print (Harmoniously Disorganised)

Here are my top 10 images for the harmoniously disorganised category. Similar to the purely chaotic category, these photographs were also difficult to define and sort out because I had trouble defining what was purely chaotic and what was harmoniously disorganised. In the end, my definition for harmoniously disorganised was similar to the analogy Mr. Laurence gave us in class about the "blades of grass". Each grass is similar in the sense that you know what it's going to look like, you just don't know where it's going to be and in what direction it'll face. For my harmoniously disorganised category, I plan to edit my image of a durian sculpture and my image of playing cards.



Digital Contact Print (Harmoniously Organised)

Here are my top 10 images in the harmoniously organised category. These photographs were easy to capture because harmoniously organised textures exist all around us. Our modern Singaporean society is very focused on repetition and models that are aesthetically pleasing to the eye. As a result, textures such as tiles, field fences, food, lockers, etc are all created to look pleasing to the eye. For my harmoniously organised category, I plan to edit the photograph of the wine glasses in my house and the little statue tennis court net in my house.


6 Final Images

Purely Chaotic #1

For my first purely chaotic photograph, I chose this close up shot of a rubber band ball. I loved this shot because I loved how the rubber bands overlapped with one another to look intertwined and connected. This image fits perfectly in the purely chaotic category because you cannot predict what direction and shape and form the rubber band ball is going to form. For this image, I decided to isolate the red rubber bands as my focal point. The reason for this is because next year I'm going to be a senior at SAS, and this will mark my 13th year here at this school. I wanted to create a symbol of the rubber band ball, that it may appear to look like a big gigantic mess, but if you look closer, you'll realize that all the different color rubber bands come together to create something bigger and more beautiful. It's similar to my career here at SAS over the years. It may appear to seem jumbled and messed up at times, but at the end of the day, they all come together to create one whole. To create the stand out red effect, I used the Layers menu to apply a colour range, where I selected red as the colour I wanted to isolate. Then, I inverted it, and used the adjustments feature on Adobe Photoshop to apply the black and white filter. After that, I was able to use the different tools to adjust this photograph to make the red stand out as much as possible. Overall, I'm really proud of this image, and I think it's my best one and favourite one so far.


Purely Chaotic #2

For my second purely chaotic image, I took a photograph of a bunch of Banana Gram tiles in my living room and jumbled them up in a huge pile. My family and I love playing board games because it represents time spent together in a world that continues to get busier and busier every day. This image was really hard for me to define because I wanted to call it harmoniously disorganised because they were all similar sized tiles; however, the defining factor as to why it's chaotic is because they're going in all sorts of different directions, making it difficult to predict the next sequence of events that are going to follow. For this image, I used the Filters Gallery "Film Grain" filter to apply to all the other tiles except the "I" tile. I wanted to make the "I" tile stand out because Banana grams is a game you can play by yourself, but it's more fun with other people, helping to symbolise that board games are more fun when there's more than 1 person involved. I also really liked this filter because it made all the other tiles look "dirty" while this one was really clean. Overall, I'm really proud of this image, and it's one of my favourites!


Harmoniously Disorganised #1

Singapore is famous for the notoriously tasting Durian. Every person in Singapore has tried Durian at least once, and on the spectrum of "Yum" and "Gross", you either love it or hate it. In order to remember our "Durian Country", my family and I bought a durian sculpture at home. It helps to represent the divide in my household between those that love Durian and those that hate it. My sister and I cannot stand the smell or taste of it, while my mom and dad are HUGE fans of Durian. For this image, I wanted to capture the beautiful outside of the Durian fruit because it's extremely unique and unlike any other fruit in the world. Our Durian sculpture at home is a perfect example of texture that is harmoniously disorganised. If you look really closely, each spike of the Durian fruit appears to be the same and one can predict how it'll look like; however, nobody can predict the direction the spike is going to face and the size of the spike. I was torn in this image because I wanted to categorise it as harmoniously organised, but in the end, I knew it had to be harmoniously disorganised because of the unpredictability of the direction and size of the spike. I love how this final image turned out. I used the lasso tool to select one central spike and used the adjustment tool to make it black. Overall, it's a really lovely image that captures Singapore's well known fruit.


Harmoniously Disorganised #2

For my second harmoniously disorganised image, I chose this photograph of Singapore airline cards arranged neatly in an assortment together. My family loves to fly Singapore Airlines, and on every flight we've ever been on, we always make sure to collect a deck of playing cards to bring home. As a result, our house is filled with Singapore Airline cards from every year and airline known. I chose to categorise this image as harmoniously disorganised. My reasoning for this is because all the cards are similar in the sense that they say "Singapore Airlines" and are from the same company. The only difference is the front image on each of the playing cards. Therefore, it has one aspect of predictability and one aspect of unpredictability, ultimately making it harmoniously disorganised. The predictability of the image is seen through the arrangement. It's sorted like tiles stacked horizontally and vertically in straight rule of third lines. However, the unpredictability is what design is going to pop up on the front of the playing deck card. My focal point of this image is the center of the playing cards. I used the lasso tool to select the middle card, and then I used the gaussian blur effect to blur out the surrounding cards to make the middle one stand out the most. Overall, I really love this image and I'm really proud of how it turned out.


Harmoniously Organised #1

For my first harmoniously organised photograph, I chose this image of wine glasses lined up in a row in my house. I loved this image because I really liked how the light was able to reflect off of the glasses to create a rainbow like effect. I also liked how it was made of glass to create a see through effect, and each of the wine glasses in my home has a little charm at the bottom of it, making it stand out even more. This image fits in the harmoniously organised category because of its predictability. One can clearly see the repetition in this image, and predict the next similar wine glass that is going to follow suit. One unique aspect I decided to change in this image was to include a focal point on the handle of the first wine glass. I cropped the image to fit the rule of thirds compositional device (to make it more aesthetic), and then I used the lasso tool to select only the handle of the first wine glass. Then, I inverted the entire lasso to select everything except the handle, and I used a "gaussian blur" effect to make the handle the focal point and isolate it. I really liked this effect because it drew the attention of the eye to the first handle.


Harmoniously Organised #2

For my second harmoniously organized image, I chose this close up of a little tennis court net statue that my family and I have in our house. My mom, my dad, my sister and I all play tennis, and it's something that has always connected us as a family and allowed us to spend more time with one another playing something we all love and are passionate about. As a result, I knew I wanted to showcase a piece of my tennis life in my final texture photography project. I really liked this image because the tennis court net is intertwined with one another to showcase and symbolise how we as a family are connected to one another through a similar passion. For my focal point, I knew I wanted to make it subtle yet visible. Therefore, I used my lasso tool to select one square of the tennis net. Then, I used the filters gallery tool to apply the "Film Grain" filter because I thought that each hole in the tennis court net looked like a screen to view a movie from a different perspective. By doing this, I was able to not only enhance the photograph but also isolate the single hole of the tennis net to attract the viewer's eye. Overall, I really liked this image, and you can tell that it fits perfectly in the harmoniously organized category because of the repetition and predictability of the image.


Screenshots of Editing Techniques

One of the types of editing techniques I used was the isolation of a single colour within a photograph. For this particular image, I first took an image of a rubber band ball and decided on what colour of the image I wanted to isolate. Then, I made a layer of the background copy and selected the SELECT menu. After that, I clicked on the red rubber band as the colour I wanted to isolate in the image and adjusted the settings to fit the vibrance and fuzziness of the image colour. Then, I clicked invert and everything except the red rubber bands were selected. After that, I used my adjustment menu to click Black and White, and this changed the entire image black and white EXCEPT the red rubber band. Then, I thought that the image was a little too dark, so I used a curves adjustment to brighten the entire image up overall.

Digital Photography- Composite Project

Digital Contact Print

Images That Are Not Mine (Cited)



Final 4 Composite Final Images

1. Filters Gallery

The first composite technique we learned in class was "Filters Gallery". This technique was a lot of fun to work with as there were so many different filters to pick and choose and blend from. When you're using Adobe Photoshop, there's an option at the top menu bar under "Filters" titled "Filters Gallery". After clicking this option, the photographer/editor will be able to play around with a series of filters, ranging from these categories: Artistic, Brush Strokes, Distort, Sketch, Stylise, and Texture. In the image below, I started with an image of stars in the night sky that I found on Creative Commons (I really liked this photograph because of the ombre of colours). Next, I applied a filter over it titled "Ocean Ripple". After that, I found an image of my sister, Jackie, pointing upwards towards a tree. I thought it would be a cool idea if I could blend Jackie with my background image of the night sky to make her look as if she's pointing up towards the stars (because she loves to stargaze). I used my "Quick Selection Tool" to select only Jackie's body (not the background of trees) and copied and pasted her onto the background star image. I also applied a filter gallery effect on her also titled "Ocean Ripple" to make the image appear as "one". The reason I chose the "Ocean Ripple" effect was because I wanted both these images combined together to look like a painting in a museum. Overall, I was really happy with this photo because it captures the essence of stargazing.



2. Blend Modes

Another Composite Project technique is called "blend modes". There are three types of blending options: opacity, blending modes and blend if scale. The type of blending I used in the image below is opacity. It's one of the quickest methods, and you can make adjustments to each specific layer by decreasing the amount of visibility. In the image below, I started with an image of a flower that I took near my house. I then used the filter gallery option in Photoshop, and added a filter called "glowing edges". After that stage, I noticed that the flower with the "glowing edges" filter added looked very multicoloured and vibrant (like an electric neon sign or a jellyfish). Therefore, I decided to blend an image of a jellyfish (that I found on Creative Commons) with the image of the neon flower. I used the opacity technique to blend both of the images together (at an opacity of around 33%), and then I also downloaded a brush effect called "water" and added a waterfall on the left corner of the image (overlapping with the jellyfish on the left) because it matched the theme of the jellyfish. Overall, this image is one of my favourites because of the vibrant assortment of colors used.


3. Transformations Tools

The third composite project technique is called "Transformations Tools". The transform tools allow the photographer/editor to manipulate the image on the layer selected in a variety of ways, such as "Scale/Rotate", "Skew", "Distort", "Perspective", and "Warp". The transformation tool technique I decided to use was one Mr. Laurence showed us in class. This technique involved starting with a base layer/background image. In this case, I chose a Creative Commons image of a window on a shed. I thought it would be really cool to put an eye behind the window of the shed, so I took an image of Samantha's eye and copied and pasted it onto the background image of the window and tool shed. Before that, I also used the quick selection tool to cut a hole out of the window where Samantha's eye would now be. I then enlarged her eye to fit completely over the window, and I also used the filters gallery to put the window back over her eye in order to make it look more realistic. Overall, this image is one of my favourite photos because of how realistic and simple it looks.


4. Brushes Tool Set

The last composite project technique is the brushes tool set. Online, there are millions of brushes to pick and choose from. For this image, I chose three main brushes to play around with: Clouds, Flying Birds and Stars. With these three brushes, I was able to enhance my image of a girl snowboarding on top of a mountain (that I took from Creative Commons). I first started by playing around with the Flying Birds brush. I knew I wanted to include some birds flying around in the background because the snowboarding girl was on top of a mountain, and I thought the birds would complement the scenery. Next, I took the stars brush and put some stars around the image to enhance it (because the moon was slightly visible in the left corner yet it was day time). This helped to create a "fantasy" look in the image. Lastly, in order to make it look more realistic, I used my clouds brush tool set to add some clouds around the whole image. Lastly, I used the filter gallery to apply a filter titled "film grain" on top of everything to blend the image a bit more and make it look more realistic. Overall, I'm really proud of this image because I think the flying birds, stars and clouds enhance the image.


Composite Images Before/After with Layers Panel with Description of Editing Process

1. Filters Gallery Editing Process

For my filters gallery editing process, I started with an image of my sister, Jackie, pointing upwards towards green leaves. I thought it would be really cool to make her point at the nigh sky instead of the green leaves (because I knew how much she loved to stargaze). Therefore, I took an image of the night sky that I found on Creative Commons (that I really liked because of the ombre of colours). Next, I used my quick selection tool to copy and paste Jackie from the original image to the new background of the stars. Then, I used the filter gallery effect options to apply a filter on both images (which was "Ocean Ripple" because I wanted it to look like a reflection seen in water but also have the impression of a painting one would be able to see in a museum). Overall, I love the filter gallery editing process because it's a really simple technique that can enhance your image to the extent that it's unrecognisable anymore (in a good way).


2. Blend Modes Editing Process

For my blend modes editing process, I started with an image of a yellow flower that I took near my house. I then used the filter gallery option in Adobe Photoshop and added a filter called "glowing edges" because I liked the inverted vibrant colors this filter made the flower look like. After that, I noticed that the flower with the "glowing edges" filter looked very multicoloured and vibrant (like an electric neon sign or a jellyfish). Therefore, I decided to blend an image of a jellyfish (that I found on Creative Commons) with the image of the neon flower. I used the opacity technique to blend both of the images together (at an opacity of around 33%), and then I also downloaded a brush effect called "water" and added a waterfall on the left corner of the image (overlapping with the jellyfish on the left) because it matched the theme of the jellyfish. Additionally, I noticed that the image was really dark, so I added a new layer where I used the Curves Adjustment function to brighten up the image (in order to make the colors pop and stand out). Overall, I think my blend modes editing process was a great example of how far one person can take photoshop to the extreme to create a truly new and inspiring work of art.


3. Transformation Tools Editing Process
For my transformation tools editing process, I chose a Creative Commons image of a window on a shed. This image really stood out to me because it was very simple, yet there were so many things I could play around with on the image on Adobe Photoshop. One idea I had was I thought it would be really cool to put an eye behind the window of the shed. In order to do that, I first used my quick selection tool to cut out the window and delete that portion of the image. Then, I took an image of Samantha's eye and copied and pasted it onto the background image of the window and tool shed. I then enlarged Samantha's eye (using the shift key and my mouse) to fit completely over the entirety of the window. After this stage, I was pretty happy with how the image was looking; however, I wanted to make it even more realistic, so I used the filters gallery to put the window back over her eye in order to make it look more realistic (as if Samantha's eye was really inside the shed). Overall, I think my transformation tools editing process is a great example of how photographers/editors can merge and mix two images together (that normally don't fit well) to appear realistic.


4. Brushes Tool Set Editing Technique

For my brushes tool set editing process, I chose three main brushes to play around with: Clouds, Flying Birds and Stars. With these three brushes, I was able to enhance an image of a girl snowboarding on top of a mountain (that I used from Creative Commons). To begin, I knew I wanted to include some birds flying around in the background because the snowboarding girl was on top of a mountain, and I thought the birds would complement the scenery. Therefore, I used the "flying birds" brush to create the image of birds flying around in the background. Next, I took the stars brush and put some stars around the image to enhance it (because the moon was slightly visible in the left corner yet it was day time), so I thought this would really help the image stand out, helping to create a fantasy look in the image. Additionally, in order to make it look more realistic, I used my clouds brush tool set to add some clouds around the whole image. Lastly, I used the filter gallery to apply a filter, "film grain", on top of everything to blend the image a bit more and make it look more realistic. Overall, I think the brushes tool set editing technique is a great example of how to use brushes to enhance one's images and make it look more realistic & unique & interesting.