Week 8 - Final Week

  This week was the final week of this project and I had a lot to get on with. I started working on my 3d mounting piece which consisted of a cardboard box. First I had to wrap black poster paper around the cardboard box and tape it down. Let's just say I wish they had sold black wrapping paper, because that would've made this task so much easier for me and would've made it a lot more neater and professional looking. After all the wrapping and taping was done to the outside of the box I began doing the same in the inside except with some glue this time. It looked a bit better than if I had used the tape, so that went by well until some glue accidentally spilt inside the box after I had put the poster paper inside so it left a stain. Though that later got resolved with just putting the photos on it and using it to tick the photos to the box but there are still hints of it there.
  After sticking on the photos I had finished the 3d mounting piece. It didn't come out as professionally as I had wanted it too, but it does its job and makes the photos stand out in its own way.
  After that I had done folder work the rest of the day to finish off my sketchbook and perfect it to my ability.
  Overall for this project I would say I have accomplished my goal which was to learn and try and tackle this project as well as I can since it is out of my comfort zone and I don't usually deal with designing and carrying out designs. I definitely learned a lot on photoshop than I had before and hopefully that would come to good use. The thing I had most succeeded in during this project was the photographs in a whole, because they turned out to be quite good and well edited and I think that's what I was going to excel at in this project from the beginning.

Week 7- More Editing and Planning My Final Piece

  So to start this week I began with editing some photos and also getting some printed. It did take me a while to decide which photos I was going to print off for my final piece. I worked on a lot of the photos I thought would be good to have in my final piece, but I still have many others to possibly print as well.
  For how I would mount my final piece I decided to use a cardboard box to mount all my photos on, but this is a really commonly used mounting idea so I though I had to develop it a bit more. I thought of putting the main photos of the doll inside the cardboard box and some other photos that I had took for practice on the outside perimeter of the box, so that it would look like a sign of caution to not enter the box or something along those terms. I would also put a picture of a crane near the top of the box so it would look like its reaching inside the box. So with this design I have both included my main photos and some of my practice shots.
  Here are the photos that I currently have printed off.

  So these are the photos I have currently printed out and I'm still planning to have lots more printed.
  Next week is going to be the last week and a big one. I'm in the process of completing my mount and hopefully have it ready to be mounted soon.

Week 6- Editing and Taking More Photos

  First, I started to edit the photos that I had taken from last week and see how they would turn out.  So here I'm going to show you how I got to editing these.

Before:

  So for this picture I aim at having the graffiti and fence in the background to have a nice effect. I think what makes this photo good is how your eye strays immediately to the doll on the left. Of course the rule of thirds has to do with this, but I think it was worth mentioning.

After:

  As you can tell I turned the photo black and white except for the doll. I think this makes the doll stand out and that's what I was aiming for. I used history brush to put the colour back on the doll. History brush is by far one of my favourite tool to use on photoshop. Even though I've recently learned about I can use it I now used it on almost all my final photos because I think that some colours and figures need to stand out in black and white and I pick those specific colours or figures to use the tool on and a new effect to my photo.
  Let me now show one more example on another final photo that I will use in my project.

    Unfortunately for this photo I don't seem to find the original version, so I will explain the one only difference. I have yet again used the black and white and history brush technique. Although this time I have used the history brush on the background, not the doll. As you see I have kept the doll and hand in white and black. The main reason for that is because the background has such a nice colour scheme and it would've been a shame to keep it in black and white, so I decided to use the black and white on the hand and the doll. I am thinking though that it may have been a mistake to put the doll and hand in black and white since now they don't stand out to me as much, so I'm going to keep in consideration to maybe change the picture and just add a bit of contrast and levels instead.
  After all the editing I went out to take a few photos and also help another classmate with some of his photos. So after the photo taking this day was done. I'm going to put some of the photos we took on this blog. They are all un-edited and will show the edited versions next week.
  Next week I'm hoping to start on my mounting piece and my final project. I also will get around to printing some of my photos to go on the mount. So next week is also a big day.

Week 5 - Final Photographs Being Taken

  This week I finally went and started my taking photographs of control with the props I had brought in. For the 3 ideas I had came up with I brought a basketball, a sort of puppet/doll and a hat(which I didn't take photographs of). First off I went to the schools basketball hoops and started taking photos of Maxime taking some shots. I had to let him take a few photos at times since I had a better style of shooting and would look nicer. After that I had headed out to help Maxime with a few of his photos and then went to find some graffiti so that I could use it as a background for my doll to be in front of. I used Maximes hand as another prop so that it can gloom over the doll.
  After getting back to the CRaM room I didn't edit any of the photos and had them sent over to my google docs to then edit them in the next lesson.
  After taking these photos i'm pretty sure that i'm going to use the doll photos for my project, but i'm definitely going to have to take a few more photos of the doll. Its not like I didn't take a lot of photos of the doll, but I want to create this sort of storyline for the doll which can be shown through the photos because I think that'll be quite interesting.
  Here are some of the un-edited photos I had taken:

Week 4- Getting Down Ideas for the Project!

  I started to brainstorm about what I could do for my final project. I came up with a few ideas, but I was keen on only 3 of them which were:

1. Have a doll being controlled, pushed around by a hand

2. Tricks with a basketball or any other ball

3. Have an object being blown away by the wind e.g a hat

  I was a bit sceptical about the third one due to it not having many shots to take of it and thought about having a hat and putting it on top of railings or posts after being pushed by the wind.
  For the doll I would have it next to a nice background that would also go with the theme of the project 'control'.
  For the basketball shots I was thinking of me shooting the ball and letting someone else take the photos, but also thought that it would be good if I took a few of someone else shooting while I take the photos.

  As you can see thats mostly what I had been thinking about so look forward to next weeks blog as I'm gonna explain how the photoshoots are going to go and what I pick for my final project.

Week 3- Another Session of Research

  This week was also another session for research as for particular reasons wasn't in for some a few lessons so I missed out on some photographing outside, so instead I decided to work on my sketch book and research since I was quite a bit behind on it. All that is left is to annotate some of my photos and then i'll be up to date on my sketch book.
  Now here are some photos I managed to take and edit outside of the school. I think that they were quite good and I managed to edit them on photoshop after I took them.

I had a different version of this photo, but I couldn't upload it to blogger due to the file being to big. I had learnt something new and used the tool history brush on it.

Week 2 - More Research

  This week I got on to doing some more research on some fine photography like Rankin and a few others. I the went on to photoshop a few more pics and printed of the ones that I thought looked the best and then sticked them in my artefact book and then later on to write a description of them and explain what I did to them. I later on went to take a few more pictures. Even though my pictures white balance was right (unlike my previous photos) didn't grab anything interesting that I could use. Since for the main pictures that we have to take we can use props, I've had an idea in the back of my head of some props that I could use for my final piece, but i'll have to develop those ideas a lot more before I take them out of my head and put them to use. Since for most of the day was for researching I don't have much to write about other than this so here are a few more photos I managed to edit on photoshop.

Week 1 - Learning About Fine Art Photography

  The start of the new school year also means the start of a new project. We didn't get a brief, but we got the main idea of what had to be done. You had to make a piece of fine art that would show "control" by the end of the project. So first I had to find out what fine art is and what kind of object or idea would link back to control and make a fine art piece about it. Being that art like painting and creating something with a piece of paper is by far not my strong point I think I will have to pull my weight up a bit more than I would've in the last few projects. After receiving my sketchbook (which would act like a folder) I got going in making a front page and then into some research on 3d fine artists (as in sculptors) and some fine art photography photographers. I got on to looking at a sculptor who's name is Louise Bourgeois. After doing some more research I headed of with a new school camera and tried to get the overall image and take some pictures that had to do with control. I took quite a few pictures of Maxime trying to escape the school and climbing over fences and gates, I also took a picture of what looked like a drain which had a pattern of crosses and diagonal shapes. After taking my pictures I went back to the CRaM room and got on photoshop and started editing my best pictures. I found out that my white balance was messed up and one of my good photos turned out blue, amateur mistake. I'm not the best with photoshop either so couldn't come out with the best of what could've been done. I did learn and remember a few stuff about photoshop and i'm going to have to learn a bit more when I get deeper into the project. Here are some of the photos that I had edited: