My artwork is based on style of David Hockney and it’s an image of the Ohio union through time. The reason why I chose to use black and white color is because few of the pictures was taken in different time and this way can smooth the lighting and contraction to show better time space continuum in front of the Ohio union. I didn’t edit the background too much, what I did was use Photoshop tools to cut out what’s happening in the street through the day and edit them together. It’s clear to see the movement of the bus and few other cars and the proportion between people walking on the street and those moving vehicles shows space in the image. During edit these pictures, I think what I should have done is taking these pictures from different perspective instead of taking most of the pictures from a same angle, it could make the image a lot more interesting.
Self-Portrait
My picture portrait was a display of my hobbies and my interests in style of Arcimboldo, it’s made by Photoshop lasso tool and magic Eraser to amalgamation 15 pictures that can best shows myself together to represent my portrait. In my picture, it shows verity of colors and textures, I tried to use pictures in same lighting conditions so it shows better unity and less contractions after I put them together. However, during the Photoshop lab, I think what I should have done is try to use same simple background when I took those pictures, because it’s much more complex now to clearly cut out the items I need without rough edges. In Arcimboldo’s original work such as the four seasons, he used all sorts of vegetables, fruit and flowers to represent each season, thus in my pictures, I used figures, instrument, wine and computer chips to represent who I am in life. For improvement, I should consider the shapes of those objects before I combine them together so that it can looks more like a human face.
research on Ansel Adams
Ansel Adams is indubitability one of the most influential photographer in 20th century, his art works are so popular that you can find them in almost every single supermarket or photograph gallery across united states. He is not just a popular photographer but also a revolutionist who dedicate his life to make photography become new forms of fine art, he promotes “pure photography” meaning shoot photos without borrowing any additional art style from other forms of art,(Turnage,2017) even though I personally think this is pretty hypocritical because there is not really a clear boundaries between visual arts, but his idea did inspired a lot of photographer to join the field. He also created techniques like the zone system that are still using by many artist today.(Eftaiha, 2017) What makes him have such an important role in history of photograpghy? After doing a little bit of research online, I found the secret behind what separate his masterpiece from any other ordinary landscape portraits, it is his mastery in manipulation of colors inside the dark room, he use the intense contrast in color to visualize what he imagines when he sees the great view. However, It’s not only about the view, it’s also about how photographer chose to interpret the view.(Boxer,2017) .
Anyone knows a little something about Ansel Adams probably have heard the story behind his well know work “the half done”, how he keep changing the color of the filter in his camera to show what he “saw” with his own interpretation. Finally he decided to use the red filter to achieve the intensity of the photo,(Cain,2017) but little do they know, his “Moonrise Hernandez” can show the contrast better than another one. Just like what’s shown in figure1, the picture on the left is the original negative printed without filtering, the light is rather bright in the sky and shows barely any contrast from the horizon. After his manipulation of the color, the same negative changed dramatically into the one on the right side, the intensity of the dark sky is so breath taking and mystical, it also shows the loneliness in the highway to New Mexico and the endless horizon. (Cain,2017)Just like Ansel Adam once said, “Photography, as a powerful medium of expression and communications, offers an infinite variety of perception, interpretation and execution.” Everyone will have his own perspective of the view, the only difference is that a good photographer knows when to capture the view and how to “make” the view happen. (Carr,2017)
Another thing that worth to mention is the amount of different colors he often shows in a “simple” black and white photo. Just like what he shows in figure2, the black and white medium can’t limit his imagination, the degree of the lights from river reflection to the mountain and the dark forest on the right side shows a large verities of spectrum, and this powerful perspective is what he is trying to show the viewer.(Cain,2017) Ansel Adams is also a master in capture the detail, like what’s shown in figure 3, the veins of the rose is so clear and fragile, it can almost give people a 3d feeling to it. (Cain,2017)With all these been said, there is one more thing I want to mention. That is we are living in the age of information, there are millions of photos upload to social media every single day, but we need to know that it’s because of people like Ansel Adams that make this happened. We should never take the privilege of taking photos and using filters for granted.
citation:
Turnage, W. (2017). Ansel’s Anecdotes – The Making of Moonrise, Hernandez. Ansel Adams Gallery. Retrieved 25 September 2017, from http://anseladams.com/ansel-adams-anecdotes/
Carr, B. (2017). 42 Inspirational Ansel Adams Quotes About Photography. Shutter Muse. Retrieved 25 September 2017, from http://shuttermuse.com/42-inspirational-ansel-adams-quotes-photography/
Cain, A. (2017). The Photograph That Made Ansel Adams Famous. Artsy. Retrieved 25 September 2017, from https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-photograph-made-ansel-adams-famous
Eftaiha, D. (2017). Understanding & Using Ansel Adam’s Zone System. Photo & Video Envato Tuts+. Retrieved 26 September 2017, from https://photography.tutsplus.com/tutorials/understanding-using-ansel-adams-zone-system–photo-5607
Boxer, S. (2017). Critic’s Notebook; Memories Live In Ansel Adams’s Dreamscapes. Nytimes.com. Retrieved 26 September 2017, from http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/01/arts/critic-s-notebook-memories-live-in-ansel-adams-s-dreamscapes.html
figure1 
figure2 
figure3,
pictures all from the Ansel Admas Gallary
My poster of the pop culture icon LeBron James was created to represent a similar art style as pop artist Roy Lichtenstein. It’s trying to show the image of LeBron walking on the street with such a dominant style to it. First of all, colors is a big factor in this poster, I used black and yellow to show the focus and sort of a “warning” feeling as LeBron walking down the street like he owns the place, I also used blue and red to show cavalier’s team spirit because their signature colors are blue and red. Patterns is another important element in this poster, as viewers can see, the whole poster is composition of small dots, and the repetition of those dots give this poster a comic book feeling to it. During my process of making this image, I think the biggest problem is the lighting and contrast of the original picture, I took this picture on high street, and I was so excited to see LeBron James outside of TV for the first time, so I didn’t even think about the lighting and therefore the whole picture is pretty dark. I tried to adjust the contrast during process and it did make the picture a little bit better. In terms of process, I used Photoshop to transfer the original picture into black and white, then I used the mask tool to select LeBron from the background and turn it into this style with halftone filter. Finally, I created a new layer between the duplicate of the previous image and filled it with colors I chose.
This image is a representation of my nightmare with some slight twists, after my second screening of “IT”, all I can dream of that weekend are clowns and other horrifying things. That’s why in my image, I’m at a cross road trying to look at the map to find a safe way while only find scary clown, Annabel and a haunted house at the end of each road. I’m trying to show the confusions and helplessness from my dream in the image. In this image, I think the first thing viewer would notice is the color, I pick only black and white is not only because there weren’t any colors in my dream but also it gives a much scarier vibe to the environment. Second thing is the lack of movement in this image, the clown and other symbols of horror just sits there still, waiting for me to face the inevitable, I think this make the image more breathtaking and feels more powerful. During the critique section, few people suggested that I should fill the gray space in the background, as viewers can see, I took that into consideration and used healing brush and patch tool to fill up the gray space at the bottom of the image. The process of making this image is quiet simple, I took three country road pictures and the haunted house from the Ohio reformatory and blend them together as background using Photoshop, which is already pretty scary without any editing. Then I carve out the clown and Annabel using lasso tool and moved them into the picture. Finally, I adjust the contrast and brightness to make it even more scary.
this is the inclass practice figue 2)
This is a postcard for a beautiful place called the Pictured Rock National Park locate in Munising, MI. I traveled there last fall and took this picture as a reminder for a good time. I think this postcard would be an excellent way to show people what an amazing place this is. As for elements of art, I think the pictured rock defiantly shows a beautiful color combination from the natural. And the form of the text absolutely shows a vintage style to it. During the practice lab, the postcard I made for Holland MI (figure2) is a little bit hard to see, so for the actual project, I select a very different picture to fill up the text and it does seems better. This postcard is largely done in Adobe Illustrator using the warp and clipping mask tool. After design the text as I wished, I copied and paste the background image multiple times to fill up each of the letters using the clipping mask tool. Finally, I added the white boarder to make it have a more vintage feel to it.
extreme close up
very wide shot
weather shot
extreme wide shot
medium close up
cut in
close up
POV shot
cutaway
noddy shot
My final project is a combination of two images that can best represent the concept of time and change. The first one is a comparison of few landmarks including superdome, French quarter, Canal Street and Jackson square in New Orleans during and years after hurricane Katrina. I used Photoshop to put all the images into the most iconic figure in New Orleans-the fleur-de-lis, and the balanced design I used to place both images was to offer viewer a clear view of the difference in time while the space remain the same. I use the purple color for background not only because purple can best represent New Orleans but also I want to light the mood so that viewers can focus more on the “city raise from ruins” side of the image not the tragic natural disaster side of it. The second one is inspired by photographer Julien Knez’s series of historical shots in Paris. I think there is no better way to show change in time by take a shot of the present view while holding a photo from the past in front of it. I think it shows unity between history and visual objects in a poetic way. For suggestions, I think the biggest issue is the presentation. I always think a successful art piece should be able to tell the story on its own, however, these two images requires viewer have pretty good understanding of history of New Orleans to know what’s going on. One last thing, both images were created use Photoshop tools such as the lasso tool, patch tool and transform tools, noting new or out of the stuffs that I have learned this semester, but if I have to say, the magic eraser tool is probably the most useful one since I basically just edit new pictures into the existing mode I made earlier.
Here is a list of the stock image website that I used for this project:
http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/archbishop-aymond-on-katrina-recovery-the-work-is-not-finished
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:French_Quarter_Fest_2011_Jackson_Square.jpg
https://www.google.com.hk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=7&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiR08CN7uvXAhWCWSYKHaBvAfAQFghaMAY&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bmfcomms.com%2Fcaf%25C3%25A9-du-monde-re-opening-post-katrina&usg=AOvVaw1l8s15cz7pCylBK6yAtmLg
https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2015/08/new-orleans-10-years-after-katrina/402277/
https://wheresthedrama.wordpress.com/page/31/
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/661325526502591021/
https://picclick.com/1969-New-Orleans-French-Quarter-Court-of-Two-142584396639.html
http://www.coolinaryneworleans.com/restaurants/court-of-two-sisters/
http://old-new-orleans.com/NO_Miltenberger.html