Project 11: Utopia vs Dystopia Silent Films

Project 10: Magazine Mockup

Click here to go to the Gibson digital magazine.

Project 9: Two Portraits- Commercial and Fine Art

Fine Art Portraits:

Commercial Portrait Magazine Covers:

Project 9 Inspiration: Two Portraits- Commercial and Fine Art

Fine Art Portraits:

Peter Lindbergh

This is a wet plate collodion photograph.  The metallic look and contrast makes this portrait mesmerizing.  The model is in the center of the frame and is looking directly into the camera, which makes the viewer feel stared at, making this photo intense.  Not only his eyes, but his serious facial expression makes this portrait more dynamic.  This photo has beautiful textures, brown tones, intense shadows and hard lighting, which sets this apart from many contemporary portraits that have subtle and soft lighting.  In addition, the extremely shallow depth of field puts emphasis on the models face, even more so, his eyes.  

Jimmy Nelsson

This portrait has more of a modern, digital look.  The model is centered in the middle of the frame, which puts emphasis on his face.  The contrast between the white fur coat and his pink face makes this photo pop.  This has soft and smooth light, which creates sharp details.  This photo has a deeper depth of field than the portrait above to get the fur coat in focus.  An extremely shallow depth of field is not needed for this photo because there are no distracting elements in the background.  The model has a stern facial expression, which creates a neutral feeling; this photo isn't dark nor joyful.  It looks like Jimmy Nelsson took up the contrast and details when editing, but didn't over do it.

Commercial Portrait Magazine Covers:

Zachary Scott

This magazine cover caught my eye for it's symmetrical symmetry and contrast in scale and color.  This magazine has a clean layout- a creamy white background with a red trim, smooth lighting, a large title reading "TIME", a smaller sub-title, and very small font for the text above the main title.  The bigger the font, the more important the information is.  The photograph contains a young boy who looks shy, and a loud siren, which implies power, which goes with the featured article "The Power of (Shyness)."  For this reason, this makes the consumer want to buy the magazine to read the article.  The subject is in the lower third of the cover, allowing room for text.  In addition, "TIME" is a very intellectual and professional magazine, so they used a professional font, which looks like Times New Roman, and a clean and simple yet intriguing cover photograph.

 Eastman Photographer

I found this magazine in my house, and found it to have strong composition- the model, Jeff Bridges, has a serious look on face and is resting his arm on a guitar, putting emphasis on the product.  To make Eastman Guitars and Mandolins seem high quality and classy, they used a famous actor wearing classy clothes doing a classy pose.  The model intrigues the reader, as he is looking into the camera with his hand on his face, which also makes the guitar seem intriguing, making the reader want to read more about it.  The model is positioned towards the left half of the cover, making room for the main text in the upper right hand corner.  The title font is a classy cursive, which is cohesive with the classy photograph.  This photograph has studio lighting, a normal contrast level, and has instruments on the background to create a recording studio mood.

Comparisons Between the Two Types of Portraits:

The fine art portraits provide insight into the model's and the photographer's lives.  The photographer uses unique angles and makes edits they like to create a specific mood.  On the other hand, Commercial Portraits are used to make people buy the product and or magazine.  The composition of these photographs are less abstract, and usually provide more negative space for text.

Project 8- Surrealism and Photomontage

The Final Results:

This photo consists of three pictures- a picture of Portland, my mom holding an umbrella, and the moon.  First I gave the picture of Portland a negative look to create a bizarre background.  Next, I cropped out the background in the picture of my mom by using the magnetic lasso tool.  I then moved the cropped picture onto the background and used a layer mask to shape up the sides.  Next, I used the magnetic lasso tool to crop out the background of the moon photo (which wasn't hard, as the moon looks almost perfectly round).  Next, I duplicated the picture of my mom, scaled some of them down to different sizes and arranged them in different places of the sky.

I didn't really have a specific kind of look I wanted to create with this image.  I brought in random pictures I took, cropped them and arranged them on a background... I am pleasantly surprised how this turned out.  The background image is a slow shutter speed photo of clouds at night, which creates a blurred, dream-like look.  I then added a gradient, which creates a purple, yellow, blue, and orange color scheme.  I showed this photo to my Dad and he said it reminds him of Peter Max's work.   

I created this photo with more of a focus on photo montage than surrealism.  The background is a portrait of Eli against a cool, green colored wall.  To give this photo something more, I took a picture of paint strokes on a wall to create a texture.  Other objects in this picture include a hand full of pedals and Eli reading a book, which seem to lead to his face, making this photo more dramatic.

Project 8- Surrealism and Photomontage Inspiration

Surrealism is a genre of art that can expressed through paintings, photos, and writing.  Surrealists find inspiration for their work through dreams and imagination, which often provides insight into the artists' lives.  Surrealism goes outside the boundaries of reality and everyday life.  Famous surrealist, Salvador Dalí, says, “Surrealism is destructive, but it destroys only what it considers to be shackles limiting our vision.”

Work From Major Artists of The Surrealist Movement:

Rene Magritte

Salvador Dalí

Joan Miró

Photographers Who's Work Have A Surrealist Bent:

Ayumi Tanaka 

Photographer not specified, found on Tumblr

Lynn Skordal

Project 7- Alternative Process Through Digital Means

Daguerreotype:

The daguerreotype was created by Louis Daguerre in 1939.  A daguerreotype is made by treating a sliver-coated copper plate with light-sensitive chemicals, exposing it with a camera, then finally developing it with mercury vapor.  The result of this process is a highly detailed, bold, silver colored photograph.

Before:

After:

This is an extremely up close photo of a dried flower.  I wanted to turn this photo into a daguerreotype to put emphasis on the details of the flower.  To edit this photo I brought it into Photoshop, merged a texture layer onto it, added a vignette, added a border, took down the saturation, and used a blending mode that gave it a metallic look.  This is a brief summary of my editing process; I can't remember every step I took to create these photos.  I loved creating these photos, and stopped the editing process when I felt satisfied with the results.    

Cyanotype:

The cyanotype was created by John Herschel in 1842.  A cyanotype is made by mixing Potassium ferricyanide and Ferric ammonium citrate (green) in water, the blending them together.  Next, the solution is poured onto a card, piece of paper, or textile and dried in the dark.  Next, the objects or negatives are placed on the material and printed using a UV light.  After it is exposed to light, the material is processed by rinsing it under water.   

Before:

After:

I love cyanotypes of plants, I so decided to use a photograph of cherry blossoms.  I brought it into Photoshop, cropped it into a square, then added a navy blue tint.  Next, I used a brush around the corners to complement the blues and give it an organic look.  

Wet Plate Collodion:
Fredrick Scot introduced the wet plate collodion in 1851.  To make a wet plate collodion, pour collodion on a tin plate, place it into a silver nitrate bath with the light off for about three minutes, expose it with a camera, then finally cover the plate with developer and rock it back and forth until the image appears.

Before:

After:

This is my favorite photograph from this assignment.  I love wet plate collodian portraits, so I took this portrait of my little sister.  I don't remember the whole editing process, but these are the main things I did- I brought it into Photoshop where I made it black and white and slightly took up the contrast.  Next, I increased the intensity of the blues to make my sister's eyes stand out.  After these small tweaks, I blended two different types of textures onto this photo, merged the layers, duplicated the layer, then blended the same two textures onto the photo again.  Next, I used a blending mode that gave his photo an intense, metallic look.

Gum Bichromate:
To create a Gum Bichromate, apply a mix of water color, gum arabic and ommonium potassium dichromate sensitizer onto paper.  After the emulsion is dried, put a UV light directly on it.  Finally, float the print on water to develop it.  This process can be done about three to sixteen times.   

Before:

After:

This is another photo of a dried flower... close up nature photos and portraits are interesting subjects for this assignment.  I brought this photo into Photoshop where I cropped it into a square, made it into a cyanotype, added a border and added a watercolor paper background.  Next, I used a brush to add splotches of different colors such as yellow, pink, purple, blue, green and red to the photo.  These edits make this photo look like a colorful, abstract painting.