Week 5 Blog Prompts

#22 Watch the video in the link below. Write a few sentences in response to this video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDYDxWSjVJw

 This video was very interesting to me because of my love of constructed spaces. I also LOVE the idea of doing collaborative projects and putting many people’s thoughts together to create a strong and complex concept. The sets were stunning and the ideas seemed groundbreaking.

#23

1.      In what ways do you “construct” your identity? In what ways do you “perform” in your daily life?

We construct our identity in a number of ways through the decisions we make. What we study, where we work, who we spend time with, and our hobbies are all activities of our own choosing that reflect who we are. Our actions within those settings could be viewed as performances. How we study and work and how we treat and talk to our friends and customers are geared toward the situation we are in.

2.      Describe some ways in which your personal culture and social environments are “constructed”.

Although some of where we end up may be related to where we begin, we ultimately have a choice as to where we live, work, and interact with others. We bring ourselves into these settings and have control over our own actions. This is how we construct our environment and our lives.

3.      Describe some ways in which your physical environment/space is “constructed”.

This question makes me think of the walls of my apartment. I create the space I’m living in by decorating it with pictures, furniture, shelves, and storage. I create the mess and/or the cleanliness around me.

4.      In your daily life, what would you consider to be “real” and what would you consider to be “constructed/fabricated”?

The personal experiences of my day and my interaction with other people are real, and the emotions that I experience as a result of them are real to me, although they are not real to others. The constructed part of daily life is the bombardment of advertisements, through various forms of media, that tend to influence the decisions I make about where to eat and what I wear.

  

#24 Describe your plans for your self-proposed final project (if the plan is the same as before, paste it here again and give a bit more detail). During the final critique for Assignment #5, you will discuss/present these ideas to the class.

-          I enjoy playing with scale and would be interested in doing a series that pushed this idea in a new direction

-          I love spaces and geometry. I could make a totally constructed space from my own images.

-          I like shadows and reflections using human subjects.

Final Project

 For my final project I tried to take a slightly different approach. I love architecture and geometry. I have done a number of projects in which I take several objects and piece them together to create different forms and spaces. One example is shown below.

 Perspective is one of my favorite aspects of art. I also enjoy, as I alluded to earlier, geometry and interesting spaces in architecture. When capturing the images I would use in my final composite, I used a variety of different frames to give myself options while editing. The picture of the stairs, for instance, was taken several times, zooming in and out, with and without the figure. My goal for the composite was to illicit the viewer to question the composition due to the unusual placement of walls and other objects. I also, however, wanted enough continuity that at first glance the space may actually be believable. I made adjustments to the color, saturation, hues, and exposures of each element to “match” them together.

 The concept for this piece evolved over several steps. I took many photographs through windows that were also reflecting a scene behind me. I thought the crossover of the two spaces was interesting. I contemplated adding human subjects to the spaces, but eventually decided that this addition would not further the concept. It was important to push my own creativity in this project. My goal was to create a believable space and to test my skills of post-processing and editing.

 One of my contemporary photographer biographies features an artist named Lori Nix who creates very small dioramas of public spaces. I love the detail in her work, but also the fact that the viewer can still see that the spaces are constructed. I did not want my image to look flawless. I wanted to create a believable image which upon inspection is clearly constructed.

Feedback Following the Critique

 My peers were surprised to learn that five separate images went into creating my final composite. They read the space as I intended and continued to find new elements the longer they looked. Many liked the fact that the space still showed some evidence of construction and was not a perfectly blended space. It was suggested that the composition as a whole is too dark and therefore lacked some detail that might make it more interesting. I would love to create a series of invented spaces. I discovered through the process that I need a strong and large background image to build from.

final project ideas

I want to do some sort of combination of these ideas. Any suggestions?

Assignment 5

CONSTRUCTED REALITY

1.       This photograph was taken outside on a very sunny day. I wanted the image to look compressed so that the cruise ship looked very close to the subject. I wanted the image to be slightly surreal and maybe a little bit hokey. I reduced the clarity on the background and sharpened the subject in the foreground. When I took the photograph I was imaging a postcard that shows people with very happy expressions, which can sometimes feel forced and not genuine. I think this image has a bit of that quality.

2.       I love photographs that play with scale. This image was taken from the beach, overlooking the shallow water that had a floating trampoline. The sky was bright but cloudy and I made adjustments while editing to improve the color. I chose to include the hand in the frame but decided after editing that I may have liked the image better had it been cropped out. I imagine this photograph to be used as an advertisement, and I believe the clarity and size of the label helps this concept.

3.       I believe this photograph is the strongest of the set in the relation to the constructed reality concept. The photo shows the statue of a man painting a fake picture of a statue. At first glance I didn’t realize as a viewer myself that the man wasn’t real and I believe that it’s also hard to see this in the photograph. I hope that the photograph causes the viewer to study the image for long enough to realize that the elements aren’t real. Again this scene is outside on a very sunny day, so the brightness was high and the colors were already vibrant. I did increase the vibrancy slightly and I also sharpened the image slightly.

4.       (water)

By changing the axis of the water the expressions on the faces of the snorkelers have a different meaning. I read the image of as the swimmers falling toward the left corner while another jumps into the water. I cropped out the side of the boat that was in the original image because I felt that the water alone gave the composition movement and an element of confusion. I took the photograph while standing on the boat. I adjusted the angle of the camera so that the jumper was straight on, therefore making the subjects and the water look skewed.

Feedback Following the Critique

1.       The class liked this composition and some believed that the image could work as a postcard. Some suggested that it was possibly over processed which I agree with.

2.       The class read this image as an advertisement as I intended. When I suggested that I should crop the arm out of the frame, however, they tended to disagree, saying that they believed that the human subject added to its readability as an advertisement.

3.       The class also thought that this image was the strongest of the set in terms of concept. They liked the framing and lighting.

4.       Comments on this ranged from reflecting on the color, to the confusion of the angle, and the expression of the faces of the subjects. Overall the feedback was very positive.