Blog Entry 8: Final Photoshop Project

For my final Photoshop art project, I choose to create a 3 part conflict-resolution series in which a population underwent a war, followed absolute devastation, and then eventually the rubble turned to hope and a new beginning with a period of resolution. While designing and creating this imagery, I kept many things in mind such as which art elements I would use, which tools I could utilize on Photoshop to help build what I envisioned, and how I could create my project without the use of dull and overused imagery.

The whole point of my project was just to shed light on a topic near to me. My grandpa served in war, as did many my uncles and dad’s cousins. This being said, I’ve always had some sort of passion for the art of war and wanted to share that with my fellow classmates. My piece specifically shows the cycle of war, and that it may be never ending so long as people continue to not meet eye to eye on international issues such as religious battles, territorial claims, terrorism, etc. After each and every war, rubble is left behind in the ruins of cities and landscapes, then over periods of years, decades, and even century, things are slowly rebuilt, although they may be likely to undergo this process soon again in the near future.

I speak for all three images when discussing the elements of art that I used, however some of these elements are more apparent in a particular image. I definitely thought about color during the creation of these pictures and even as I was selecting stock photos to use. I wanted the warzone image to be a fiery red almost hellish-like, whereas the destruction scene I wanted to be more dull and mellow with browns and grays, as if everything had just turned to rubble and ash. Lastly, I wanted the image of hope and rebuilding to be most vibrant, with light coming in through the top and having bright colors and green plants all around. Another element I took into consideration is texture. I realize a war zone, and the aftermath of a war zone must have unique texture aspects to it such as all the broken parts and pieces of intricate buildings and objects that were left behind. This being said, I specifically picked stock images to use that were full of interesting textures such as the many objects on the ground in images two and three, as well as the grassy and rocky hills of image one. One more art element I thought deeply into was the value of certain objects. In the second picture, the image of destruction, I made sure to desaturate the image so that it seemed dark and dreary. Also, in the first image of the war zone, I purposefully made the image of the military jet and missile completely blacked out, as if they came in so fast all you could make out was the figure of them. Various principles of design were also used in my thought process of creating this piece. I definitely thought a lot about proportion when adding in images on top of the background images. For example, when I put in soldiers and a tank into the war zone image, I made the tank smaller since it was further away. and the soldiers appear large because they are close up. I also created an emphasis on the kids in the last picture, by placing them in the very center, along the pathway.

To go about creating this three part series, I created three separate Photoshop projects. I used similar tools in all of three of them however. I used a layer mask and the gradient tool to create stormy cloud backgrounds in the first picture, whereas I used the same tool in the third picture to create rays of sunlight coming in from the top. I was able to make my background transparent in the second image, thus allowing me to place a smokey image into it to make it seem as though there was fresh smoke and/or dust amidst the air in that picture. I also focused heavily on tools to cut out and crop images, as I placed many stock images into the three pieces. The magic wand tool helped me very much with this, as I used it mostly to do all my selections, being very careful with it as I would zoom in and out to accurately select what I wanted. I also used various layer masks to apply filters across the whole image such as desaturation and decolorization. I specifically used these two in order to make specific images look dark and dreary like a war zone and destruction.

I knew going into this project that it would be hard to create a war zone and resolution type series without making it seem cliche. Thus being said, I thought long and hard about what type of imagery I wanted to include in my pictures and made entire lists of what I should and should not use. I ended up using images, that I thought were relatively unique to the subject, and I also edited them heavily so that they were truely unique, and so that I could claim the piece as my own. The stock images helped me to create this series, but my edits, and what I created with them is the work of  art. It is my hope that the viewer looks at the series and thinks unique intricate thoughts about each of them, thinking differently than any other cliche military art post. Of course I used the images of soldiers, I almost had to so that the viewer would at least understand the scenery, but its with certain objects such as pathways and doors leading to hope and rebirth that one does not find all to often in a military piece of artwork. Other small details such as rustic cars and revolver pistols lying on the ground help to make my work stand out as well and stray away from the typical cliche images. During the in-process critique, my colleagues warned me of using images that may seem too cliche, this being said I tried very hard to be unique and creative in the sense of choosing stock pictures to use. Then, later on during the final critique, I received virtually no negative feedback, and I was happy with my work as it was, so I decided to leave it as is. I hope you enjoy! Feel free to leave comments if you desire.