Alphabet!

For this assignment, we had to create our own alphabet. I decided to do light photography to create the letters. This is done in a pitch black room with a really slow shutter speed and some source of light. I turned the lights off in my closet and sat my camera on a chair to stabilize the camera. My shutter speed was set to stay open for 2-3 seconds allowing me to use my cellphone to write the letters. This created the letters to be a bluish/purple color which I thought was really interesting. A flashlight can also be used, created white/yellow letters, but this could always be edited in photoshop to produce a different color. Then I just placed all the images in a photoshop document and scaled them to the same size. I used the smudge tool on some letters to make parts of the letters that didn't show up more visible. The faster the light source moves, the less bright/intense the image will turn out. The areas where the letter is really intense is where my cellphone was held for an extensive time. In other areas, the light was barely visible because I moved my phone so quickly, which is why I had to use the smudge tool. Knowing this, you can create really cool images or produce something just how you want it. For example, for the letter X, I had to move my phone really quickly so that no light would show up and enclose the X. Overall, I think this turned out really cool and I'm really happy with it.

Tutorials

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For these two photos I followed a tutorial on how to achieved a "tea-stained" image and a "turquoise" image. This was done with gradient maps by adding an changing the color stops to a faded magenta or turquoise. Then by changing the opacity, you could make the effect as prominent as possible. I think this is really need and will definitely be using it to add a vintage effect to my images.

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This tutorial was using HDR's to create a really cool black and white image. This allows you to really mess with the details of the image and get sort of a personalized black and white image. I thought this was really cool and a neat way to spice up a normal black and white image.

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 This was stimulating a color grad filter. I used photo filters and the gradient tool to fade the image and give the sky a cool sunset. For this one, I used three different color filters to have a purple/pink sky. This is a great way to enhance sunsets/rises to create the perfect one!

Midterm

For this assignment, I chose to use the UVA Rotunda logo and in it, incorporate popular Charlottesville/Crozet restaurants. Overall, I like it, but the logo I used was not the best quality and there were a lot of outcast pixels that I wish I could have cleaned up and made the image look more clean. If I had more time to work on it, I would definitely fix that.

For the splash, I followed the tutorial, adding different splashes around my object to make it look as realistic as possible. At first, I followed the tutorial for the background too, but I didn't think it looked realistic enough. I played around with a bunch of different images until I found on that worked well. After changing the splash to match the ocean using a color filter and the color replacement brush, I selected the part of the pineapple that would be underwater and lowered the opacity. I also selected the ocean and lowered the opacity on that too to make the pineapple look like it was actually underwater. Overall, I liked how this turned out, although it was a struggle to get it to look right.

"To Save One Life is to Save The World" - Holocaust Project

For this project we had to capture the theme of "To Save One Life is to Save The World." I knew I wanted to incorporate newspapers from the Holocaust and pictures. I decided to use the word "Heroes" and have pictures of heroes in the word. There is a picture of American Soldiers, the Big Three, an injured soldier, a child with his parents, and FDR. I chose these because I feel that in some way all of these people had done something to save someone's life and therefore- saved the world. I then also added an American Flag to the background and blended it with the newspapers to give it a subtle background that embodied America's involvement in the Holocaust. To finish it off, I emphasized the theme by adding the quote at the bottom in a simple font. I really liked how this turned off. I think it is fairly simple, yet it highlights that tragedy and embodies the theme.

Holiday Cards!

Book Covers!

Ashley recommended me to do this book for the cover of a book I had never read. She told me that it was about 3 kids who find a horse and want it, but don't have the money to buy it. I found a picture of this white horse and decided to make it the focal point of the cover, but I also wanted to incorporate the kids somehow. So I found an image of three children and made them silhouetted. Then I created a gradient over top to create the effect that they are walking away in the background. To finish it, I put the title in a deep red to give it some color and the authors name. I really like the simplicity of it.

I chose The Last Song as my second book to do a cover of. I knew I wanted to incorporate the beach and music into the cover because I feel like those are two key things of the book. I decided to have the letters be the beach so it wasn't the whole cover. I added a drop shadow just to define the text a little more and make it stand out. I also chose to incorporate sea turtles because they kind of symbolize the novel. Finally, I added old looking sheet music as the background and faded it a lot so it wasn't distracting. I really like how this turned out and think it captures the key aspects of the book.

Surrealist Sport!

For this assignment we had to choose a sport and turn it into an impossible one. I decided to use pole vaulting, but instead of a pole, use a snake. For starters, this wouldn't even be slightly possible because you would just collapse onto the ground. I think the faces of the vaulters are actually very accurate for having a snake in front of their face and makes all the images very comical. Since we were supposed to make a news article about it, I decided to mimic a newspaper and wrote up a little blurb about the article to emphasize even more of the impossibilities. I thought this was a very fun assignment and I'm happy with my final product.