Student vote

 

     This is my Student Vote poster. In this poster, I wanted to incorporate an off-shade of each political party, and simple symbols of Ontario. I chose to use an outline of Ontario because it is an easy, and identifiable symbol of Ontario. I chose the trillium, because it is Ontario's provincial flower, but it also what mainly comes to my mind when I think of Ontario. I used a check mark as the "v" in vote, because it looks nice, and when you vote, you put a check mark in the box for the party you want to vote for. Overall, I don't like my poster too much, I think it is boring, and not colourful enough. 

Macro Photography Assignment

Before

"Perspective"

"Perspective" - Balance

     I chose to take a photo of this pine cone because of how much detail I could see on it. The element of design in this picture is balance. The pine cone is on an attractive angle and is balanced with the company of a chestnut shell. To enhance this photo, I cropped it slightly to have a more rule of thirds look present. I wanted the photo to have more colour in it, because it looked dull and boring by itself. I adjusted the hue and saturation, along with the contrast to bring the colour and details to life. 

Before

"Tears of Joy"

"Tears of Joy" - Texture 

     I chose to take a photo of this plant because it is unfamiliar to me and I really like the colour of red-purple that is in the leaves. The element of design portrayed in this picture is texture, because of the rain droplets on it. To enhance this picture, I cropped it to show one main leaf which had the largest rain drops on it, and the largest rain drop in the lower middle-left corner is my focal point. I adjusted the saturation to give the leaves a more vibrant red look, and adjusted the contrast to make the leaf, and rain features crisper. This is my favourite photo, and I really like how it turned out. 

Before

"The Last One Standing"

"The Last One Standing" - Colour

     I chose to take this photo because roses are gorgeous flowers that have lots of detail, and always look excellent in pictures. The element of design shown in this picture is colour, because of the vibrant red in the rose. To enhance this photo, I cropped it using the rule of thirds vertically, for interest. I adjusted the contrast, and saturation slightly, to increase vibrancy, but the rose did not need too much enhancing.

Photo Restoration

After

Before

This is my photo restoration project.

     To restore this photo, I made a duplicate layer, and converted the photo to black and white. The black and white style that I used is called "Portraits", and I also slightly adjusted the contrast to my liking. From there, I cropped the picture to take out the tears behind the older girl, because that part of the photo was not too important, making it just extra work to fix on my part. I made a separate duplicate layer, so I could work on the older child's face, then used a clone stamp to complete her face, and the rest of the photo, adjusting the brush size when needed. I like how this one turned out a lot more than the photo below.

Before

     This is the second photo that I repaired.
To restore this photo, I made a duplicate layer, cropped the sides and bottom, and converted it to black and white. The style of black and white I used is called urban landscapes, and I also adjusted the contrast a bit to make it look better. From there, I used the clone stamp to finish the photo, and I also used a white brush for the blanket/bed that the baby's hands are laying on, which I think ended up being too bright. I don't really like how this one turned out, I did it all in Monday's period, because I forgot to put this photo in my g-drive, and my computer would not turn on. I had already half finished this photo on my computer, and I think it was better on my computer.

After

Composite Photo

"Olympics in Space, 2185"

     This is my composite photo. The concept of this photo was to portray the Olympics being held in space in the far future, year 2185. The astronaut symbolizes an athlete on their way to their event, and the spaceship in the sky is athletes coming from Earth to compete.

     To make this photo, I used six photos, one of which is my own photo. I started out by using my photo of the Olympic torch in Vancouver, BC. In the photo, there was my friends, and I, many people in the background, along with mountains, boats and lots of other things to erase. It took me a while but I got rid of all of the distractions using the eraser and lasso tools, and also using another photo of this torch, that did not have people standing on the cement ledge, so I could cover the spot where we were standing. For the sky, I used a pink and green galaxy sky, which I liked because they are pretty close to being complementary colours, added a spaceship, and planet. I fit both of those objects to a well fitting size, and adjusted the brightness, and saturation on them, especially for the planet, so its colour matched the sky better. I then placed a cracked ground in behind the layers of the sky and Olympic torch, and later put in an astronaut waving. For the astronaut, I had to adjust his brightness, and opacity a bit, so he wouldn't look so fake.

     I am much more pleased with how this image turned out, in comparison to the image I originally made.

Composite Photo Critique

     This composite photo is called "Rainbow", and was made by Karin Kuhlmann in 1996.This painting won "winner of the month" in the Corel World Design Contest in 1996.  She went to school for photography, and graphic design and then worked as a commercial artist for over 25 years. She later started making graphic work for herself, and is quite successful.

     To make this picture, I think that Karin took four separate photos and put them over top of a background with a frame. She took photos of a building with water in front of it, a puddle of water with a ripple in it, a rainbow, and the sky. I think that these photos are separate because the clouds in the sky look very zoomed in, and too close to the building to be real, a big body of water generally doesn't have that large of a ripple in it, and rainbows don't look as perfect as the one in this photo.

     To make the water look how it does, I think she placed the photo of rippled water over top of the real water with building photo, used a clone stamp to get the reflections of the trees and building in the water, and then used a gradient with a lowered opacity for the colour.

     For the outside of the photo, I think that Karin simply used a gradient background, a frame, and made bubbles by using stamps of 3-D like circles with colours that matched the ones used inside the framed picture.

     I think that the result is very pleasing. It has depth, lots of things to look at, and uses analogous colours, for the most part so they look very well together.
   

Digital Paintings & Abstract Art

"Fireworks"

     This is my digital abstract photo. I was inspired to make this after watching a tutorial about how to create digital abstract art on photoshop. The stamp that I used for this image reminded me of fireworks, and celebrations on Canada Day, so that is why I named it "Fireworks". Although the firework on the left is larger, my focal point is the smaller firework on the right because it is much brighter, and pops out more, in my opinion.


     This is my digital painting overlay. I chose to paint an overlay on a photo of a runner because I love running. I gave it the title "Free Run" because the gradient that I used makes it look like the runner is running from something that is kind of dark, and heavy, and into something happy and free. The other reason I gave it this name was because of the Nike shoes that she is wearing. They are called "Nike Free Runs", and I thought that it would be a nice pun. Overall, I really like how it turned out, and it is my favourite piece that I created for this project.

"Free Run"




This is my optional photo, and I chose to make another photo overlay, but this time I made a cat because I thought it would be a challenge, and it was because of the detail. I used the bright orange gradient as a background because I thought the picture needed a pop of brightness, and when I tried using the cat's eye colour as a gradient, it didn't do much for the picture. I named this photo "Found the Yarn" because the eyes of the cat look like they are very focused on something of interest, which could quite possibly be a treat, or a toy, like a ball of yarn. 

"Found the Yarn"

Poetry Anthology Cover

 

     This is my design for the Lourdes Poetry Anthology book cover. I decided to have a spring theme and used many flowers, with a multi-coloured eye inside a multi-coloured flower in the center as a focal point. 

     

     I chose to do a spring theme because spring makes me feel happy, and I like the bright colours. Also, to connect with poetry, I placed a multi-coloured eye in the center of the focal point flower. It is there to represent that everyone sees things differently, and everyone has their own unique way to express their thoughts, and emotions.

Guelph Multicultural Festival Poster

     This is my poster for the Guelph Multicultural festival. To make this, I used a large Canadian flag as the background, and added many flags individually from various countries around the world to the red sides, and maple leaf in the center.

     I chose to do this theme and design to show that all of the countries are living together as one. I also specifically chose to put the other countries' flags on top of the Canadian flag because this multicultural festival is in Guelph, and celebrates the diversity of people in Canada. I tried to fit as many flags from around the world as I could and fit a total of 81 flags into the Canadian flag.

Spring Mobile - Group Project

    This is my group's mobile. I worked with Kara, Katie, and Shaila. Our work is inspired by Alexander Calder's kinetic sculptures.

     We chose to make a mobile sculpture from a purple hoola hoop, scrapbooking paper and construction paper. The theme of our mobile is spring and we made flowers from paper, using analogous colours, pink and purple. To make these flowers, we drew, cut out, and folded various sizes of circles. For the flowers to each be unique, we used both normal scissors and scissors that cut with different designs on them such as; jagged lines and wavy lines. In addition to funky scissors, we also used gold glitter on some of the flowers (that did not have a pattern) to make them look better, and not so plain.

     Our next step with the flowers was to put them on strings so we could hang them. To make sure that the flowers stayed in place, we hot glued each one of them to their string. From there, we then hung each string of flowers on  the hoola hoop, in a way that it stayed balanced, for example,by hanging four of the longer, heavier strings at four opposite bends on the hoop.

     When we finished this, we thought we were done, but we forgot about a focal point, so that is what we made next. To make our focal point, we cut different sizes of circles and folded them like our analogous flowers, but instead of those colours, we used shiny gold paper, to complement with the gold glitter that is on some of the pink and purple flowers. We then hung this string of flowers in the middle of the hoola hoop to finish our mobile. Overall, I enjoyed working in a group. We all had similar ideas that were incorporated, and everyone helped with everything that needed to be completed.

Digital Portait Project

 Photo 1 - Before: This picture is of my cousin Chelsea with her birthday cake. For whatever reason in this photo she was not smiling, and I thought that she had a great expression of sadness on her face.

After: Originally, I wanted to keep Chelsea and my Grandma in the photo together but they were expressing different emotions so instead, since I wanted to portray a feeling of sadness, I decided to remove my family and the background completely, and put in a group of children behind Chelsea. In the background photo (children bullying background) there were four children. I had to take one out so I could put Chelsea in. The child I took out was a girl who had pigtails in her hair so that is why the boy's back looks slightly misshapen. I wanted to convert this whole photo into black and white, or just Chelsea, but I chose to convert only the bullies into black and white because the various colours of their clothing were very distracting, and with Chelsea being coloured, there is a greater focus on her.

Photo 2: This picture is of Katie, and was taken in a hallway upstairs against some lockers. To make this photo look interesting, I cropped it using the rule of thirds, with Katie off to the right side. I really like the expression of happiness on her face (it was a real laugh not posed). To improve this photo's emotion, I made a gradient background. I used the blue and yellow colours from Katie's shirt, mostly because they looked nice together, and the yellow in the background seems to act like a bright light/sun that brings a happy glow to the picture. Also I used the "poster edges" effect on Katie so that the gradient background wouldn't look as fake with her in front of it.  

Photo 3:
This is a photo of Kara looking out the window in one of the hallways upstairs. In the original photo, there were many lockers behind Kara's back, so I cropped them out, also using rule of thirds, so they wouldn't be so distracting. Also in the original photo, there were vents on the roof outside of the window, so I took them out using a clone stamp of the snow that was around them. After I finished that, I converted the picture to black and white to give it a more dramatic feeling.

Overlay Technique Photos - The Carissa Zoo

 This is the original photo I used, a picture that Mrs. Reidel took of me in class on Wednesday.

 In this photo, I used a cheetah face, and my own eyes. For my neck, I copied the cheetah face, made another layer, erased everything except for the forehead, and fit it to my neck. I cropped this photo so I would be off to the right instead of being centered. I like how this one turned out because the gradient background and my hair colour match the cheetah fur colour well. 

 For this photo, I used the face of a gorilla, and my own eyes. I cropped this picture, similarly to the cheetah photo above, except I also cropped it so there wouldn't be as much background above my head. A challenge with this photo was getting the animal's face to fit mine, and it did not end up working so, I copied the face twice, and made two new layers, one for my neck, and one for my forehead. From the copied face layers, I erased everything except for the forehead, and used that on my forehead and neck. I don't like how the forehead looks in this picture because the forehead layer is overlapping with the face layer. On the neckline, it also overlaps, but I like how it looks there because it simply looks like collar bones, not a poorly done neck.

Andy Warhol Silk Screen Technique Photos

 This is the original photo I used, my school photo. I decided to use complementary colours for my photos because I like the contrast that they have together.

 

P.S.  Sorry that the purple & yellow explanation is not beside the pictures like the other photos, I could not get that one to work.       



 Red & Green - For this picture, I like how the colour of red on my face highlights the black outlines of features on my face, especially my dimples, eyebrows and how my eyes "pop". I found it hard to find a red that was not a very pink colour for the highlights in my hair, and also finding a green that looked like a lighter version of the background green was difficult.

 

 Blue & Orange - In this photo, I like the contrast of the blue on my face with the orange in the background. To improve this photo, I would put the lighter colour of blue in the hair instead of on my face because the dark blue is kind of hard to see against the black hair.

 

 

Purple & Yellow- I really like how this photo turned out because I think it looks the most like me. I did a good job on drawing my eyes, it looks realistic, unlike how my right eye looks in the blue and orange photo. One challenge I found with this photo was finding a lighter colour of yellow for the highlights, because yellow is already such a light colour.

Photojournalism - D10 Wrestling

"Pure Joy"

I chose this photo because I loved the emotion shown in the wrestler's, and referee's faces. Both look very happy to be there. I cropped this photo and changed it to black and white because it focuses in more on the two people (wrestler and referee) than the spectators in the background.

 

"Going Down"

 For this photo, I only chose to crop because there was a lot of people in the background, which are distracting. I chose to not convert this picture to black and white because one of the wrestlers has darker features so putting it into black and white made the whole photo harder to see in general.

 

"Game Faces"

 I cropped this photo, and also changed it to black and white. I did this because it really focuses in on the two wrestlers, and captures the emotion and determination of both boys to win the match.











Photojournalism Ethics

1. Staging Scenes
        I think that staging scenes is not right. Yes, I do think that it is okay to move an object to get a better view if something is in the way, but it is not okay to remove or add something to the photo because that makes the photo become untruthful. Altering the scene becomes unacceptable when a photographer adds or removes something in the picture, someone else has already taken a similar, and real photo, like in the "It All Began With a Mouse" scenario. Many photographers took photos of a destroyed town with a toy that they added into the photo themselves, and this is not right because, those photographers only staged their photos because of how popular they saw the real photo become, and wanted to get money, have their photo also become famous, an take credit for a photo that was not real.

2. Manipulation of Digital Images
        I believe that the manipulation of digital images is wrong. I think that it is unfair to manipulate digital images because it tricks people into believing something that did not actually happen. For example, the "Sharks invade New Jersey" photos are edited, and could have possibly set a scare to the people in and around the area.

 Edited sharks invade New Jersey photos.

3. Intrusion into Privacy

         I both agree and disagree with taking photos of people in private. It is legitimate to take photos of people in private moments when a devastating event has taken place, but is not when a celebrities, politicians, or other public figures are in private spaces. I think this because, celebrities, politicians, and other public figures are constantly having photos taken of them and deserve to have some privacy when they are in private areas or with their families. On the other hand I think that it is okay to take photos of victims of tragedy because those photos send a message to the public, and could bring an affect of sympathy and action to the public and government so that next time, a tragic event such as a shooting can be prevented or more preventable.

 Sandy hook school shooting.