College work

Wednesday 18 April 2012

Triptych photography

Research:

I like this type of triptych art as i like the way that the red all stands out and it is also clear to the audience how all the images relate to each other. From looking at this i like of London straight away, as all these things are seen in london.

Wolfgang Tillmans

Wolfgang Tillman’s is a German photographer that was born in 1968.Tillsmans studied Art at Bournemouth College of art and was the first non-English photographer to be awarded the Turner prize in 2000. When Tillman’s first started photography his photography was snap-shots imagery of friends and objects that were around him. Since 2000 he has been more interested in Chemical foundation of photographic materials. This has created some very different styled photography that looks very interesting. Most recently he has started to explore into more figurative imagery including this paper drop series.

I like this photo as it is very simple but like colours in it all look good together.This image looks like it could be a cover of a book or dvd.

From looking at Tillmans photography it makes you think as some of his image could be something else than what it really is. Here is some of his earlier work

In this image the cup of tea looks like it could be separating although it could also be a shadow of a tree reflecting into the cup of tea.

Here is some of his examples of his Paper Drop series of photo.

This picture is of a folded up piece of paper although when i first looked at this i thought it was a Spoon on its side.I like the lighting that fold from the paper has created.

Taiyo Onorato & Nico Krebs

These two photographer are swiss photographers who have worked together since 2003. Together they produce photography installation and sculpture and have a number of awards for the work together. From looking at there work together it is very different from other work i have seen as it isn't very realistic as they have normally put a few things together to make the image. Here is some of examples of there work.

I think this image is very interesting as it makes you think that the face in the TV screen is of the person behind the screen but its not. The colours and style of the photo also gives it an older feeling.

Idea's:
One of my idea's is for my 3 photo's to describe a journey. So for this i would have the black and white image of a stair case that is leading somewhere or a image of the front of the college, then for the digital photo would be of a picture that i have taken in New York of the city from the top of the empire state building. My scanned image would be of things that i have brought from New York to show what i got from the journey that i had been on.

My second idea for my 3 images would be of different bright lights. For my first black and white image i would take a photo of the lights in the college from high up. for the digital image i would once again use a image that i will take in New York either being of the lights in time square or a image looking down on the city at night with all the lights on. For my image in the scanner i would try and make shapes with my hands that will give different shades of lights.

My finished images

Evaluation

When given the task of creating a triptych photo, we had to include a black and white image, digital and a scanned image. My idea for my three images was for them to explain a journey somewhere. The first photo I took was on a 35mm black and white SLR camera. As our images had to be college related, I walked round the college taking photos of interesting things. As I wanted mine to explain journeys the first thing I took a picture of was the outside of the college to represent where the journey started off. On each picture I took I changed the focus and shutter speed so that it would give different effects to the photo’s and would suit the brightness.
Once I had taken all the photo’s I wanted on this camera, I then developed them. When this was done I then looked through them to see what would be the best suited for my theme. There were two images that stuck out for me one being the outside of the college and the other one being taken from the top of the college looking down on to the atrium with the lights in the photo. I decided on printing both images to see what worked the best when putting them all together.

The second image that I took was the digital image. As I went to New York I thought it would be a good idea to use one of my photos from there. When in New York I took a range of photo’s including one from top of Empire state, in Times Square and central park. When I came back I looked through my photo’s and decided to use one of my images from time square as I liked the lighting and positioning of it.

The final image that I had to be included in our triptych was a scanned image. We could scan anything that related to our themes but it had to be done in college. I decided to scan my tickets and postcard from New York. I thought it would be good to scan these as they were things that I used and got on my journey to New York. I spread them out so it looked like a collage.

Once I had all my images I put them all on to Photoshop and set them out and edited them the way I wanted. Before I placed then I cropped them all to the size I wanted and then I placed them on a landscape A3 size paper. The next thing I decided is what order they should go in. I did a 2 set out of this as I didn’t know what I preferred the best. I then decided that my one with the black and white image at the beginning worked best as it shows the beginning of the journey in order. Once I had all my images in order I then went through each one and edited them. On my entire photo’s I messed around with the colouring to make them darker and lighter and on the middle image I changed to black and white as I felt it worked better with the rest of the photos.

Overall I feel that my triptych went well as there is many meaning behind the photos. My meaning from the photos was meant to show a journey. Its starts off in college and then the second image show all the tickets and all the things I used to get to my last place on the journey which was New York. When showing this to the group they said that one of the main things that stuck out for them was that the images was that in the first image the picture looks down on the where the journey started off and then in the last image the picture shows me looking up at the images. This could say that I feel big and comfortable when I live as I know it well but when you get into a new place it makes you feel small again and you look up to everything. Another thing that was said that stood out was the New York on the ticket on the middle scanned image, they said that by that being there you can automatically tell that the photo was taken in New York. I’m quiet pleased with my images although I feel that maybe I could of experimented on editing a bit more, to give the images a different effect.

Monday 19 December 2011

Christmas Photography tasks!

Day5 Candle's

Day4 Didnt get a photo as i saw no sun!

Day 3

My Festive dog !

Day 2
There's a frost it must be cold!

Sunday 20 November 2011

Music portraiture assignment.

Portrait photography is used in different ways but is mainly used to show what the subject in the image is like , their personality and there mood. This is shown by their facial expressions , clothing and also the background of the image. In portrait photography the image is mainly of their face or there whole body. Normally the subject will also be looking into the camera.
Portrait photography can also been some in groups , for example, family photo’s or a band . Musicians use portrait photography a lot to show fan’s or people who are interested what they are like. These images would be used on CD’s , flyers , posters , advertisement and on magazines.

Lauren Dukoff.

Lauren dukoff was born December 31st 1984 and lives in works in Los Angeles. She is an American based photographer and is very well know in amaerica for her great photography of celebrities. Her photography is mainly portraiture and documentary work of celebrities and musicians.
She studied photography at university but after one year pulled out and her father carried on to teach her about photography. She also had a mentor in music photographer Auturm de wild that helped her in her career.
Lauren has photographed many celebrities including Beyonce , Lady Ga Ga , Adele , Justin Bieber , Morrissey , Natalie portman and the cast of Glee. Her images have appeared as front covers for magazines including Rolling stones. Other images have been used for CD cover , calendars and posters. Lauren's photo's show artist's personality from the clothes that they are wearing and from what they are doing in the image.

From this portrait image it shows that the artist is a drummer from a band but by him covering his face it doesn't show us who he is but he could be trying to say that being a drummer makes you feel hidden. The lighting in this image is quiet bright but it looks like it has been edited in post production. The lighting used in this image makes the drum kit stand out as the light is reflecting of some of the kit. The target audience for this image would be people that like the band as they would be able to tell who it is even know his face is covered.

In this image of Lady gaga , it show's her in a different way from how everyone normally see her which is very dressed up in very strange clothing. In this image it makes you feel that she is a shy person under all the strange clothing she normally wear. The lightening in this image is quiet bright but one side of her face is more lit then the other as on her right side of her face there is a shadow. The target audience for this would be for people that like her as they would be interested to see her in a different way as they used to seeing her dress up in strange and bold clothing.

This portrait photo that Lauren has doen of Adele has been used for her latest album 21. From this image we can tell that she is a solo artist as it is just a image of her. From you get a feel of what her music on the album may be like. For example from looking at this i feel that the music is going to be of the soul/ and quite mellow as she looks very relaxed in her photo and this is what i would imagine her audience to feel like when listening to her album.As the image is in black and white it also give off this feeling. The ligthing in this image is mainly on one side as it is creating sa shadow.The lighting makes you focus on her face so that you know who she is.

Mick Rock

Mick Rock is a well known photographer that has pictured a lot of musicians in the 70’s. Mick did photography for many Album covers including David Bowie, Queen , Genesis , Dolly Parton and Iggy Pop. He has also done images that have appeared in magazines and as posters. Recently he has been working with Alicia Keys , Lady gaga , The Killers and Snoop Dogg.
Mick’s work has won a number of awards and he has many exhibitions in the uk and all around the world. Many photographers look at Mick's work so that they can copy his style. From people doing this , this type of photography is now very popular.

This is one of Mick rocks most famous image of Queen as it was in there music video of bohemian rhapsody. this image show everyone that they are a band but it also makes you wonder what the band does as they don't have any of their instruments. The lighting on this photo is good as it only shows there faces so you know who it is and that they are the main focus that we should be looking at.

This is one of my favorite images of mick rocks as it quiet different as you cant see much of the artist but the most important parts stand out. From this image you can tell that the artist plays the guitar and who the person is. These parts stand out as they are in white and they stand out from the black background. This images makes you think as it could be just a studio shoot although it looks like he is at a gig but by us not being able to see the background it makes the audience think he is just at a gig.

This image of David Bowie show him holding a saxophone. This shows people that he plays this instrument and many people may not know this. From him holding this it tell the audience what type of music that he must play. From looking at this image i get the feel that music is a big part of his life as he looks very serious about what he is doing. I could see this image being used as a album cover as it shows the artist personalty. The lighting in this image is good as there is white light in a small part behind him near where his saxophone is, so it draws you in to that part of him and makes the saxophone stand out.

From this portrait image of Michael Buble we can tell that he is a vocalist and he must enjoy what he does.Although this image is probably a studio shot , by having the yellow curtain behind him it makes you think that he is on stage and make you thinking that's what he does on stage. The lighting in this image is very bright but i feel this is done to show the genre of the music that he does.

Planning

My subject that im taking photo's of wants a range of different images that show him in different ways playing the drums. My musician wants some still images of him with the drums and some action photo's.

Photoshoot 1- Studio shoot, with a black backdrop and drum kits infront of it.

26th Decemeber - 11:30am

I will take some action image of him playing the drum's and also some still shot. Want the images of him playing to look as if he is playing at a gig.The lighting in the image will look like a gig . I will have a bit of lighting behind him and to the side of him ,so that the subject and the part of the drum kit is well lit so that its shows what he is playing and so that is the main focus. I want the image to be quiet dark though so that it gives a Rocky feel to it.

For the still shots i want to get him behind parts of drum kit with his drumsticks in his hands.
Once i have taken my photo's my musician wants his name and quote to go with the image, to show what he does.

I think to do a image like this would be good as it shows the musician and with the drum kit in the background.

Here is an example of a type of action shot that i would like to get but mine would have a black background.

This is the layout of the studio when i took the photo's.

My 3 edited images.

Evaluation

Before I took my photos of my musicians, I researched into photographers that do music portraiture. When I researched this, I found out that in these images you have to show what the musician is like through what they play, facial expressions and why what they are wearing. When researching I looked at different genres of music so I could tell what they included to show there genre. For example if it is a pop artist it’s normally just there face with bright colours. From looking at Rock there images were normally the musician with their instrument with dark colours or in black and white. After I found out the musician that I was taking photos of was a drummer and played rock music, I researched into photography of drummers. From doing this I got an idea of how to take photos to show what he was like.

When I was in the studio with my musician I made sure that I got a range of different images to choose from when I came to editing them. Throughout the photo shoot I changed the lighting around to give the images a different feel and so I could have different parts of the images as the main focus. For the photo’s my musicians wanted to show that he was a drummer so I made sure that he also had his drum sticks on show in the photo’s. When taking the photo’s I had some of him standing with his sticks in his hands. Once I had got some of these I then started to add parts of the drum kit in to the photo’s to then build up to the whole drum kit. When taking the photo’s we wanted a mix of action and still images.

The first photo that I edited was one of the images of the musician playing the drums. I felt that this was one of my best photos as it shows the artist do what he enjoys most and the lighting show the mood. When I came to editing this image I realised that some of the background other than the drip sheet was in the image. When editing I got rid of this by getting the clone stamp and copying the colour of the background and then colouring over the top of the parts that I didn’t want. I felt that the lighting in the image was good as the light focused on the drum kit and his face the most so it showed the importance of them. When I added text to my image, I got a quote that my musician liked about drumming. For this I wanted to set it out like it was a double page spread of a magazine article. When I added colour to the text I used the same colour of the drum kit, I did this by using the clone stamp again to copy the colour from it.

My second photo that I edited of my musicians was of him standing with parts of his drum kit. I felt that this image was another one of my strong ones. I thought I would try something different with this image so I made the image really dark almost so you couldn’t see his face. I wanted to do this so that it made a mystery feeling and it could show that being a drummer can make you be hidden. When editing my image I changed the brightness and contrast. From doing this it made one side of his face more visible than the other, this also shows the shadows on his face. From this image you can still tell that he is a drummer from having the symbol from the drums in the image. When I added writing to the image I used the same quote that I used in the other photo. I wanted this to look like first page of a magazine article. I made the writing for this part red as I thought that it stood out from the image but still gave a rock feel to the image.

My final image that I edited I felt could of gone a lot better. I felt that I could have experimented a lot more with the editing. Although I didn’t do a lot with the editing, I do like the lighting on this photo as it is focusing on the drum’s and part of his face. From this image it makes you think that he’s in control of the drums as he is standing over them. I have used the colour of the drums for the writing again so that the colours in it could run throughout the image. I took the clone stamp tool to get the colour of the drums to use it for the words.

Overall I am happy with my images as I feel that they do express the way the musician feels about playing the drums. If I was to do this again I would maybe change the angle of some of the photos that I took to give the images a different feel.

Sunday 23 October 2011

Evaluation on Website

For my website i choice to do a fan site for the band Mcfly. I created 5 pages for my website , which included a Home page , News, Events, information on the band and My own photography on mcfly. For my Home page i decided to keep it quiet basic. I choose to just have the links to the other pages, i also added a image which i got from the internet. At the bottom of the page i embedded the band’s music video. I got this video from YouTube, while i was embedding it i choose the size that i wanted so that it looked right on the page.
Throughout my pages i kept mainly the same with the same background and fonts so that it flowed and looked like it was all part of the same website. On most of my pages i had images of the band and all my pages included links back to the home page, so that it would be easy for someone to find what they’re looking for.

Overall i am quiet happy with the website i have produced although i do feel that it is a little to basic. I made sure that all the links that i have on my website worked and they did which i was happy about. If i could do it again i would maybe change my home page a bit, so that i had a image of the band as the background so it would be easier to tell what the website is about.

Tuesday 18 October 2011

Web design - "Understanding common web coding protocols"

The purpose of a web browser is a software application can retrieve, pretent , and traverse information on the world wide web (www). To let us see the content on the internet a web browser will render HTML into content. So that see can see images and text on the site. There are a number of web browsers that people can use. There is ,internet explorer , Safari , Firefox and Google chrome.

HTML (hypertext mark-up language ) XHTML (Extensible hypertext mark-up language) and CSS ( Cascading Style sheets) are all common web coding language and are basic building blocks for any type of web page. When making a website you must include these otherwise your information you want on your page won’t show. When making this on Notebook you have to open and close the code, you open it by putting <head> and close it by </head>.

Web coding protocol let the developers of the websites to add things to their pages. For example they can add images on to the website by putting <img src = “picture”>. This will add the image to the page. You can also add Hyperlinks to the page, you can do this by putting <a href = “the website” > Home </a> you can use this for links around the site or for links to other websites. Websites can also use Meta tag. A Meta tag doesn’t affect or show on a page. Instead it provides information on the page, for example, how often its updated or what it’s about. The information can be shown in the “head” of the pages. The Meta tag is also used in search engines such as Google and Yahoo.

This is a typical structure of a coded page.

<html>

<head> This information isn’t shown on the page </head>

<title> What the page is called </title>

<body> what the website includes i.e Pictures , information , background colour , font ,size. </body>

</html>

WYSIWYG , stands for “ what you see is what you get.” This is a software where it allows you to

make a website without using all the coding to change the look. This still uses the HTML coding.

Other examples of programmes you can do this on is Dreamweaver and expression web.

When publishing a website you have to first make sure that the address you want to use is

Available. You can do this on a website like “go daddy or “123-reg” When you find the address

you want this company will then allow you to store your websites information on their website.

This works via FTP(file transfer protocol) to publish a website it will cost you but it depends on

the type of address you want.

There are many way of promoting a website , the main ways that are used are S.E.O (search

engine optimization) or S.M.O (social media optimization) These allow people to search for your

websites in things such as Google.

Thursday 13 October 2011

CD Evaluation

Evaluation

When creating my album cover, I looked at a few different cover before I decided on what genre and artist to base mine on. After looking through I decided to focus on the pop genre and album cover of Olly Murs’ self titled album. From looking at those I discovered the codes and conventions of what a pop genre CD cover included and what appeals to the audience. From looking at pop genre CD covers, I discovered that most background were very plain and that they cover showed the artist either just there face or there whole body. When making my CD covers I took all of this into consideration.

When I started my first version of the CD cover on Photoshop, I started by getting a readymade template of a CD front and back cover and the insides. After the layout was ready, I went on the Internet to find the images of Olly Murs, that I could use for the main image on the front of the CD that I wanted to produce. The first image that I found and that I wanted on my front cover was of Olly Murs, where you could see the whole of this body. In this image he is wearing a Navy jacket. From this I felt that this colour should be the colour of all the writing that I was using. On Photoshop I got the Ink tool and took the colour of the jacket and used it for the writing. I did this as I knew I would be the same colour. I liked this but then I found out that CD itself was red and I felt that these didn’t look right together, so I decided to change the colour to the red that was on the CD. From looking at CD covers I have seen that they need a Barcode and the music companies labels, I got these from the internet and pasted them on to the covers on Photoshop.
On the back cover I decided to stick with the same colours that I had used for the Title on the front cover. I decided to keep this colour throughout the CD as I felt that it flowed and looked good. For the background on the front and back I didn’t have a coloured background. I did this as I felt that if it was coloured it wouldn’t of stand out and I couldn’t find any colours that would have fitted with the image on the front. By having the white background the image and the writing stands out. It is important that things like this stand out on CD covers, as they need to catch the public’s eye.
Inside the front cover I decided to have a montage of images of Olly Murs. I thought by having this it would show the artist in different ways and it would show his personality. By doing it’s something that a lot of pop genre artist do, as their fans like to see lots of images of them. I wanted to try and get images that used the same sort of colours but I was unable to find any. So I decided that I would just get the images and see what they looked like Altogether. Once I had put them all in place I decided that I wasn’t happy with this as I felt it looked cheap and not professional. As this was my first attempt I decided to keep it but change it in the next version.

For my second version I decided to try a coloured image on the front cover. I got this image from the internet and I felt that it would work as it’s a close up image of his face and many pop CD covers have this. As the colours on the image were quiet dark, I thought that I would stick with the same colour of the first version of red as I felt that it stood out from the image.
For the back cover I rearranged the way the track list was. I moved it so that it was in the corner. I did this as I felt that when I had it in the middle on my first version everything seem quiet squashed, where as now it doesn’t. I also kept the Red colour font throughout as I felt it fitted with the CD its self.
As I didn’t like the image layout of my inside page for my first idea. I decided that I would just have one set of image that’s all linked. I got these images off the internet. I changed them into black and white as I felt the colours of the images didn’t fit in with the other colours as they were dark Reds and blues. Although I liked this I still felt that something was needed as I felt that it looked a bit bare.

For my final CD I found an image on the internet that I felt worked well with the colours and layout that I wanted. This image has been used on one of the single before but I wanted to make it different. I took the image and cut the part of Olly out so that I could paste it onto the cover. Once I had placed the image where I wanted, I put the writing next to the image. As for my other two covers I have had the colour red for the writing as I felt that this wouldn’t work for this one as the colour on his top was red and I felt it would of been too much. So I decided to have it Black. Although I changed the colours to black I still thought that the writing stood out because of the white background.
As I liked the back cover in my second version but I felt that it looked a bit plain. I decided to repeat the image so that it didn’t have the white parts on it. I felt that this worked well and it was similar to something I had seen in another pop album booklet.

Overall I am please with my 3^rd and final version of the CD cover. I felt that it included everything that a pop CD cover should have and that it looks good and am a similar style to his album which I have based this on.