Stop Motion Animation

For this project I was tasked with creating a short stop motion movie. Creating this movie was quite difficult since I had to make sure that there was minimal camera movement to have the video be somewhat stable. I also had trouble with making sure that the lighting was consistent throughout the shots. I also found it to be quite an exhausting process of making this very short movie. In total, I had 479 photos which completely filled the memory card on my camera. In general, I had fun messing around with making this movie and I am proud of my first attempt at a stop motion movie.

Semester 2 Final Portfolio

Project 10 Prework

In this project, I will be working in collaboration with Bella K. to create two short films depicting a utopia and dystopia. I will be making a short and silent film depicting a dystopia. Before I can start to film my clips for the short film, I will present my definition of what is a utopia and dystopia.

A utopia is an imagined place where everything is perfect.

A dystopia is an imagined place where everything is unpleasant or bad.

To get a better idea of what I am going to be filming for my utopia and dystopia films, here is a video that I will be using as inspiration for my own film.
Baraka

Project 10: Silent Film

For this project, I worked in collaboration with Bella K. to produce two silent films depicting a utopia and dystopia. I made the film depicting a dystopia. I found this to be a difficult task because on the day that we were filming, the weather was very nice and allowed us to get many clips for the utopia.

Here are the short films, enjoy.
Dystopia
Utopia

Project 9: Fake Magazine

In this project I partnered up with Bella K. to make a fake magazine. When I say "fake magazine", I mean that the magazine has only photos and the text is just a place holder. We decided to make it about games. I found it to be interesting working with her to make sure that our parts of the magazine did not clash with each other. If you want to see some more work by Bella, here is the link to her blog: http://www.nontan.ml/

Here is the final result:

Cover by Bella

Pages 2-3 by Michael 

Pages 4-5 by Bella

Pages 6-7 by Michael

Pages 8-9 by Michael

Pages 10-11 by Bella

Back Cover by Bella

Project 8: Two Portraits

For this project I took a few portraits of some people and turned them into either a fine art portrait or a commercial portrait. For my fine art portrait I focused on the person's face and where they were looking. For the commercial portrait, I was focusing on where and what the person was doing and I added a message that would try to sell a product or service.

Fine Art Portrait:

Commercial Portrait:

Project 8 Prework

Fine Art Portraits:

Portrait of David Bowie by Carolyn Djanogly

Surreal Portrait by David Talley

I really like these two portraits by the photographers because they both use the lighting, colors, exposure and background to emphasize the emotions of the person in the portrait. I feel like both of the photographers were able to capture the personality of the person. The first portrait of David Bowie has a more significant impact on me because, David Bowie recently passed away at 69 years old. This gives the portrait a feel that you would find at a memorial. The portrait heavily contrasts the different shades of grey, which enhances the expression of his face. Since the photographer made the portrait black and white, it drives home the notion that this portrait is a memorial. The second portrait utilizes the background, flying crows, and the child to immediately set the mood of the photo. The photographer used the crows to enhance the mood of the photo. In addition to the stare of the child sends a chill down your spine.

Magazine Portraits:

In these magazine cover portraits, they focus on the subject of the focus with the person in the middle with plenty of room on the sides to add text that will have the name of a specific article in the magazine. The photographers used the lighting of the photo to highlight the face of the person who has their back turned to a blank solid background. The portraits are also trying to advertise a product that is relevant to the type of magazine that the portrait is in. In the first portrait, the text that is advertising men's fashion is right next to a well dressed Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

Project 7: Surrealism and Photo Montage

In this project I had to make surrealist photos. For the most part, the photos were made by selecting a portion of one photo and pasting it on top of a background. Then I would warp and re size the photo that was on top of the background. To make a shadow, I would make a copy of the photo and use the paint bucket to turn it black, then I would adjust the black layer to make it look like it was coming from a light source. I would get the shadow look from the black layer by applying Gaussian blur and adjust the opacity.

Music of nature

In this photo I was thinking about the music of nature. Whenever I go on a hike, it all feels like there is a song that is being played that can only be heard when you go into the woods. In this particular photo, I got the cloud things by using the brushes that I downloaded from the last project.

Giant Foot

In general, I really did not like working on this project. I am not too interested with expressing the unconscious mind and the unreal. 

Project 7 Prework

Surrealism was a cultural movement that appeared in the 1920s which sought to unlock the creative potential of the unconscious mind. Artists would create works that depicted illogical scenes, strange creatures made from everyday objects, and a style of art that would allow the unconscious to be expressed. The works of art would also include juxtapositions and surprising elements. Some of the most famous artists from the surrealist movement are Salvador Dali and René Magritte.

Salvador Dali:

Metamorphosis of Narcissus, Salvador Dali
http://all-that-is-interesting.com/

Persistence of Memory, Salvador Dali
http://all-that-is-interesting.com/

Rene Magritte:

The Son of a Man, Rene Magritte
http://all-that-is-interesting.com/

The Pilgrim, Rene Magritte
http://www.renemagritte.org/

Ronen Goldman:

The Magician, Ronen Goldman
http://www.ronengoldman.com/

Tommy Ingberg:

Stone Part 1, Tommy Ingberg
http://www.ingberg.com/

Jim Kazanjian:

untitled (object), Jim Kazanjian
http://www.kazanjian.net/

Project 6: Alternative Process Through Digital Means

In this project I was supposed to make photos in photoshop that look like they are made through alternative photographic processes. I made a cyanotype, a gum bichromate, and some wet plate collodions. Out of all these processes, I liked making the wet plate collodions the most because I really liked the way they turned out. Personally, I had the most trouble making the gum bichromate because of how the colors interacted with each other as layers, while trying to make the photo not turn white and having the colors still show.

Cyanotype:

Gum Bichromate:

Wet Plate Collodion:

Project 6 Prework

A wet plate collodion is an early photographic process that almost entirely replaced the daguerreotype in the 1850s. Making a wet plate collodion photo required the photographer to coat a glass plate with a collodion mix and then dip the plate into silver nitrate in a darkroom. This would create a negative which would then be used to make a print.

John Milleker Jr.
darkroom.baltimoresun.com/

A cyanotype is a photographic process that creates a blue and white photo. A cyanotype would be made by painting a photosensitive mixture on paper and then you would place an object in front of the piece of paper which would expose the mixture creating a negative.

Anna Atkins
vernacularphotography.com/

A gum bichromate is another early photographic process that involves placing a photosensitive mixture onto a piece of paper that is exposed to light. While a lot like a cyanotype, a gum bichromate would be multi-layered with each layer being exposed individually with photosensitive mixtures that contain different colored pigments. 

Scott
lumberjocks.com/

This project involves the use of many types of brushes in photoshop. After downloading some, I made this while messing around with the brushes. I also made my own brush out of a photo of a clay statue from an earlier project.

Project 5: Multiple Image Techiques

In this project, we went out to take pictures to make HDR photos, panoramas, and multiple exposure images. I found this one to be interesting because of the ways we took the pictures, and how we edited them in photoshop. I enjoyed making the HDR photos the most because it brought out details in darker parts of the photo that you would not usually see.

HDR Photos:

Original

HDR

Original

HDR

 Multiple Exposure:

 Panorama:

Extra:

This photo is one that I thought was fun to make and though it does not belong in any of the types of photos that I was supposed to make I still think that it is still worth showing.

Semester 1 Final: Photo Emulation

Semester 1 Digital Portfolio