Composition Hunt - Elements of Design

LINE

Rupert Vandervell





















TEXTURE

Yamam Ibrahim 























SPACE 

Wolfgang Volz

























SHAPE

Karl Blossfeldt
























VALUE

Martino Cusano

Alternative Process Project

For this project I decided to create a grid of cyanotypes because I was especially drawn to the look and process of creating a cyanotype image. I created transparencies of 6 different images as negatives and started by taking a lot of photograms to see how the images would turn out and different looks I could create with them.

In this test image I had taken two transparencies and printed them onto one paper. I really liked the look I got with it because the image was still very clear and had the impact I wanted. This was a good first test of my transparencies. 

In this test I attempted to layer two transparencies to see what kind of effect it gave. I liked this one in particular because it layered the hands over each other in an interesting way but I don't like how it created a line across the top of the image. 

I placed all the transparencies on square pieces of water color paper coated with an emulsion and placed them in the sunlight for around 25-30 minutes. At some point a shadow was crossing the images so 2 of them turned out slightly lighter than the rest but I actually like the look of how they all go together with it. Once my cyanotypes dried I began painting on them with watercolors. I didn't have too much of an intent with how I was painting them other than trying to use more orange tones because it would stand out more against the blue print but once I began I noticed a theme where the three photos with eyes featured had warmer and brighter tones with a mix of teals and the photos with the eyes cropped out were almost entirely tones of blue and purple. 

Here are the final prints! 

Early Process Research

Cyanotype:
The cyanotype process uses a piece of thick paper such as watercolor paper and coating it with iron salts and are exposed by placing them in sunlight for around 30 minutes. We made some cyanotypes in class using transparent layers to create an image.
I personally am interested in creating cyanotypes and either drawing or painting on top of them to bring more color into the photos.
This cyanotype by Egill Ibsen was hand painted with acrylics and I really love how the different colors added dimension and more depth to the image.

 Egill Ibsen 

Extra Stop Motion

Final Emulation

You & I Stop Motion Animation

Utopia // Dystopia Short Films

Magazine Mock-Up

Claire Magazine:

Cora Spread, American Apparel Ad & Michael Kors Ad: Eloise Reverman

Potter Spread, Coal Ad & Movie Ad: Alice Harbeson

Project 9: Fine Art Portraiture

In these images, I painted my friend Maya gold and used a background and lighting to make the shadows more dynamic and had her try poses that made her seem more statuesque. 

In these portraits, my idea was to do the exact opposite. I took these photos of my friend Lizzie in the forest relatively covered in mud, contrasting from the gold. I tried to make the gold images to show more beauty and grace, and for the muddy pictures to depict an image of strength and nature. 

This is an extra fine art image I took that I took with film and I decided to add it in just because I really liked the composition of how the light hits her face and makes the photo more dramatic and I like how if it was cropped it could possibly be used for a commercial portrait. 

I used photos from both of these shoots and played around with using them as magazine covers, and for these went with a slightly more natural look with the images used.  

Portraits Pre-Work

Shayna Colvin

Zhang Jingna

Portraiture to me is an art of coincidence. Rather than landscape, still life, or other forms of art, you don't decide every detail of what happens in a portrait, the model does. I don't like the feeling of taking an artificial photo, I like finding a persons personality or creating a spin off of it depending on surroundings and that is such a beautiful aspect of portrait photography. I find it so fulfilling to take a candid photo and be able to capture an image of a person that displays their essence and who they are, bringing light to a persons inner and outer beauty. It is so intriguing to be able to take photos of humans, who are lively and are all so different and being able to capture that moving, always-changing lifestyle of humans and putting it into a photo. 

I like how in these portraits they are very to the point and are generally just trying to capture the persons looks in a good way and their makeup is done in a way that enhances their looks and also shows a bit of who they are and their personality but it is a more straight forward type of portrait. 

Compare & Contrast

I think the difference between fine art portraits and editorial portraits is that editorial is to use to show what you look like, to portray an image of how you display yourself, whereas fine art portraits really are more geared to telling a story, to distract from what you look like and shine more light on personality and capturing that rather than a headshot. 

Surrealism & Photomontage

This is a photo montage/surrealism style photo in which I used a photo of a "mermaid" by Carla Nicolella and mixed it with around 3 of my own photos to manipulate it and turn Alice into a mermaid. The most challenging aspect of editing the photo was taking the light differences in each photo to be able to turn them into one. 

This photo I feel is the best that I have composed. I used a photo I took while driving on the vista bridge and paired it with a photo I took of the ocean at the Oregon coast and added another image on top of it all to put more color in the sky. I love the way the images fit together and looked like a tsunami almost. I simply put both images together and erased the section of the water that was over the street and put the multiply filter over it to make it suit the colors of the rest of the image. 

Inspiring Surrealism

Surrealism is an art style that is generally composed of unrealistic ideas and sights in a very real setting. I love this style of photography because there is no limit to the creativity of what you make. 

Christopher McKenny

I love this photo and how the use of photoshop editing took out every piece of the image in which we could see the person under the sheet and gives the photo a very eerie feel and is very profound in my eyes. 

Noel Osvald

I love this photo and how the composition of it changes the whole aspect of what the photo portrays. I really love how the different pieces come together and really tie the photo together. 

Alternative Digital Process

Daguerrotypes 

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After:

 In this daguerreotype I used a photo I had taken of a leaf and followed the usual process of selecting different textures and images to use on top of my photo and changing the style of the layer in order to alter the relationship between the multiple images and I really liked the way it turned out with a negative color look on the leaf and the overlaying images.


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For this daguerrotype I went for a more sepia toned look and basically followed the same steps as the first image but with a lighter texture coverage and a stronger vignette.

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For this daguerrotype I used a picture of my cat and added around 3 different texture images and used different styles to change how they reacted with the image. I turned the image black and white and tinted it to a very sepia-toned color and added a border and really like the way it turned out. 

Cyanotypes

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This cyanotype I really like because of how the lighter colors and buildings in the background fade into the white and make it look more painted and how the different textures affect the image's tone. 

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In this cyanotype I followed the same procedure of altering the contrast and using different brushes to change the shape and look of this picture. 

Gum Bichromates

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In this photo I used the same process for the cyanotype and then proceeded to layer on other colors to create a painted artistic look that I really like. I like how the contrast in the photo brings out the color choice and the sparkling aspects in the photo. 

For this gum bichromate I used a slightly blurry photo to alter the aesthetic of how the photo turns out. I used different brushes to give more of a decaying/splattered look to the edges and really like how this turned out.

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In this photo I used contrasting effects to really bring out the glow of the lights and used the same process for the other gum bichromates with different colors to bring out a cooler tone in the image and show a bit of darkness all around the lights.