Cultural Convention

Description

This photograph was captured by ISB student Beam Lertbunnaphongs titled "This is Because of YOU". Within this photo, a person is gaping with his mouth wide open under a clinging sheet of plastic. Immediately, the red colouration of the image stands out at you, emitting a sense of danger, pain, and anger. The image also contains contrasting shapes as the round oval of the person's mouth contradicts the stretched out lines of plastic, adding more dimension to the image and exemplifying the tightness of the plastic. The crinkly texture of the plastic also creates visually interesting shapes and lines that draw your attention across the image. Overall, the theme of pain stands out with the choice of colour, expression, and use of plastic.   

Analysis

To me, the bright red element in the photo greatly sets the mood of it by immediately giving the viewer a sense of urgency, reminding them of ambulances and sirens. Additionally, the different shades of red within it help unify the image while simultaneously ensuring that the image remains engaging and varied. Playing around with the usage of shadows, particularly in the face to morph features like the eyes and nose into darkness, helps draw the viewer's eye directly to the screaming mouth. Furthermore, the dark background ensures that there is nothing distracting in the image and that the spotlight is completely and entirely on the subject of the image. By forming a sort of dance with the red shades and varying shadows, the photograph has an abstract feel to it like there is an underlying, implied darker theme beneath it. 

Interpretation

I believe that the message the artist portrayed had to do with suffocating under the pressure of your problems. To me, the plastic could represent a number of issues we face in our world whether that be betrayal from certain friends, academic pressure from parents, peer pressure, or simply the weight of society's problems slowly choking us. The pain of the person in this image is apparent and in a sense, I feel like I can affiliate with him and understand how daunting the future and stressful living in the present can be. I feel like the reasoning behind this photographer's choices to capture this image was to showcase to us the immensity the effects of pressure can have on us, to the point where we feel like we are suffocating. Perhaps, the purpose was to then incentivize and urge people to support others or to explain to some that they are not alone in feeling the pressure in this world. 

Judgement 

I think that this work has intrinsic value for several reasons. To begin with, the originality and uniqueness of the photograph helps draw the viewer in and overall, makes it an interesting piece of art. Additionally, because this photograph is expressionistic with an exaggerated expression of pain, the tone of the image is clear and dramatic. Because of these emotions, a message on how all consuming and suffocating the issues in society can be is portrayed, either helping call people to action or reminding others that they aren't alone. Thus, I find this piece valuable and insightful.

Composite Images

Introduction:

For the Composite Project, we were asked to create four final photos using Photoshop editing techniques. We had the freedom to choose any photo that we wanted and could create whatever effect that we desired, however we had to ensure that we used the editing techniques of different blending modes, a filter gallery, layer masks, and transform tools somewhere among our final photos.

Digital Contact Prints: 

Above is my digital contact print containing the original four images that I edited as my final photos. This print helps show the effect of the editing techniques that I used as you can see the "before" of my edited photos. 

This digital contact print contains my four final photos. Using various Photoshop videos, I edited these photos using different editing techniques to achieve the specific look that I wanted. Below, I will go further in-depth into each photo. 

Final Photos: 

Polar Bear by apgroner, Desert by wstera2, Eagle by Andy Morffew

This was the first photo that I edited in Photoshop so I didn't do anything too dramatic. I began by putting the black desert photo as my background. While, I liked how the photo looked, I wanted to give it some motion so I searched through the filter gallery until I settled down on the filter: Angled Strokes. I chose this filter to make the sand look like it was being swept by the wind which you can see if you zoom in. Next, I inserted a polar bear photo. Using the quick selection tool, I cropped out the polar bear from it's background and placed it the way that I wanted onto the sand. Finally, I found an eagle photo and, once again, used the quick selection tool to remove it from its background. I wanted the eagle to look somewhat like a silhouette so that it wouldn't be too distracting. I did this by using the black and white tool to desaturate it and and the Angled Strokes filter to make it blend better into the background. The photo above is the final product of this. 

Along the way, I realised that the message of this photo was about global warming and its impact on life. When I learnt that I could send a powerful message through my photo, I continued to stick with plain shades of white, grey, and black to represent how in a sense, climate change is taking away the "colour" or diversity out of our world. The stance of the polar bear also gives the feeling that the bear is crying out for help and the emptiness of the desert shows how isolated it is. Therefore, the tone that I was trying to convey was a sad, lonely one that called for attention. 

Taken by MAT + KAT

To edit this photo I used a Photoshop tutorial linked by Mr. Lawrence. I began by using the quick selection tool and select and mask tool to pull Troye Sivan (the person in the photo) away from the background. Next. I created a layer below the one of Troye Sivan and filled it with black, effectively making the background black. Then, I used the levels tool to darken the photo and copied and pasted the lyrics of the song, BLUE, which is sung by him. After that, I made a copy of the layer and chose the adjustment of gradient. Lastly, I chose the blend mode of overlay which let me toggle around with this rainbow filter until I settled on this. 

This photo was more for me than to send a message, however I still purposefully made the editing choices that I did. To begin with, I chose a photo of Troye Sivan covering his heart to give a comforting tone. This fit well with the lyrics that I selected since the song is about being there for someone. In addition, the song has a lot of colour imagery so I painted Troye Sivan with a rainbow. He is also an openly gay artist so the colour choice was also to represent the LGBTQ+ community. 

Owned by WallpaperCave

To edit this photo, I followed a Photoshop tutorial that I found on YouTube. I began by desatuturing the photo of Billie Eilish, the person in the photo above, so that it was black and white. Next, I went into the blending options and unchecked the red channel. Then, using the transform tool, I shifted my photo more to the left and resized it to reveal the red-blue filter. After that, I created the lines in the background by choosing the new adjustment layer: solid colour. I filled the background with white and then chose the pattern overlay tool to create the lines. Finally, I selected the rectangle marque tool, clicked free transform, highlighted the box over an area and dragged it to the side. This created the box effects that you see in the photo above. 

The idea that I was trying to portray in this photo was that there was a glitch. I wanted to create the tone that this snapshot was happening on an old television, hence the lines in the background, and that there was a glitch in the system causing Billie Eilish to appear the way that she is. I also specifically chose a photo of Billie Eilish because her music style is more solemn and creepy which I thought fit the mood. She is also known for not smiling in her photos which is why I thought that this picture made sense for this effect. 

Credit for Troye Sivan photo goes to Press. Galaxy by Unsplash.

To edit this photo I used the editing technique called double exposure. Below, I will run through the steps that I took to edit this photo. 

Editing Process:

Above are the two original photos that I used for this technique. This gives an idea of what the images looked like when I began so that the progress is clear when you see my final photo. 

I began by dragging this picture of Troye Sivan into Photoshop and doing some minor edits on it. I used the Levels tool to increase the exposure and highlights, and used the Hue/Saturation tool to brighten the colours and add more vibrance. When I was happy with the overall picture, I moved onto the actual technique of double exposure. 

Next, I dragged the galaxy photo into Photoshop and resized it. Then, I unchecked the view button and focused on the layer with Troye Sivan on it. I used the quick selection tool to pull Troye Sivan away from the background and the select and mask tool to make a more detailed selection. Next, I clicked on the visibility of the galaxy photo and clicked the layer mask tool to reveal the galaxy in the shape of Troye Sivan. To move the galaxy photo so that the part with the most stars was shown, I removed the link between the galaxy photo and layer mask and used the move tool to move it. Then, I went into the layer option, scrolled over the layer style option, and chose blending options which opened up the window that you see above. I clicked on the slider tool on the underlaying layer and separated the Hershey's kiss bar so that the galaxy blended into Troye Sivan's face as much as I wanted it to. Finally, I merged the layers by pressing Shift, Option, Command, and E at the same time.  

Now, I was finished with the double exposure technique, however I still wanted to further improve this image. I did so by running through some basic editing techniques. I began by increasing the brightness and contrast to catch the viewer's attention. Then, I further saturated the image to bring more colour to it and used the colour balance tool to make the galaxy a darker shade of blue and more purple. Finally, I used the curves tool to further brighten the picture. 

Personal Reflection:

Almost all of the editing techniques that I used in this project were new techniques that I hadn't learnt before, ranging from the filter gallery to layer masks. However, I soon realised that when creating different effects, I still used the same standard editing techniques like the quick selection tool, select and mask tool, layer masks, and overlays. Therefore, after a while, I began to realise which technique would come next in the editing tutorial videos before it happened. I still require a lot of practice to memorize these techniques, though, as I still heavily rely on the Photoshop tutorials. Along the way, I faced a couple of obstacles that left me frustrated. For instance, when making the text poster, the tutorial said to remove the spacing between letters, but when I did this, the text that I pasted into Photoshop came out really small and cramped. It was only after several tries and failed attempts that I identified this problem. Another challenge that I faced was trying to face paint an image onto someone. I tried following the face painting tutorial several times but couldn't figure out the rectangle marque tool as when I selected the eyes with the tool, so that the face paint wouldn't cover them, the rectangle wouldn't work or disappear. Eventually, I realised that I was spending too much time trying to get this effect so I did the glitch effect instead. When creating the glitch, I faced a similar problem with the rectangular marquee tool but after experimenting, I realised that the issue was that I hadn't chosen the option "free transform" and that I could easily deselect the tool by pressing Command and D. One regret that I have is that for the picture of Troye Sivan for the double exposure technique, I didn't choose a picture of the best quality. Because the photo was big when I searched it up, I assumed that it was high quality so it was only after I completed the technique that I realised that the quality wasn't the best. Overall though, I am very happy with how these photos turned out and despite spending hours editing them, I think that the product was worth it. Therefore, over the summer, I think that I'm going to further enhance my editing techniques in Photoshop. 

Portrait

For this project, we took portraits inside the studio and in an outside environment, focusing on telling a story. In both, especially in the studio, we learnt different lighting techniques and experimented with their effect on the tone of the image.

Images of Inspiration:

Studio Portrait:

Photo taken by Joe McNally

There are various aspects that I like about this photo such as the sombre tone portrayed through the dark background and shadows. I also like how the subject is elderly as it gives the feeling that the subject is remembering his past or his youth. His wistful gaze adds to this feeling, as well. In addition, I think that the angle suits this picture because it's almost like we are witnessing a scene happening in real life. The lighting also helps guide the viewer's attention as it brings our eyes across the photo from right to left. The choice of using the compositional device fill the frame adds to the intensity of the photo. I also think that this photo may of possibly used the compositional device of rule of thirds since the lighting is in the third of the photo.

Environmental Portrait:

Photo taken by Henrik Knudsen

Once again, I like the calm, solemn tone of this picture. I feel like the monotonous colours and simple use of the compositional device of lines(in the background) represent the subject's emotion of helplessness. The simple background also emphasises the lack of life which makes the viewer think that there is a history to this picture and a story to be told. I also like the idea of the small light directly above the subject as even though the whole image is lit, most of the light is focused on the center of the picture. In addition, the angle gives the feeling that the viewer is sitting at the table across from this man and is looking at this scene in real life. Lastly, I think that taking a photo in an ordinary place, like a coffee shop, but giving meaning to it through the emotions of the subject is an interesting concept. 

Quote Portrait:

Photo from Niche

Maya Angelou // "When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time. People know themselves much better than you do. That's why it's important to stop expecting them to be something other than who they are."

I especially like how this photo is black and white because it gives the feeling of sadness. Mostly though, I love how the subject's hand is in front of her face because it's almost like she's unveiling herself to us. I think that it is also clever of the photographer to ensure that there was a gap between the subject's fingers so that her eyes are shown. Therefore, I may use this idea of unmasking in my project. Unlike the previous photos, in this one, the subject is looking directly at the camera which I thought made the viewer feel more exposed like they are being scrutinized. I notice that the lighting is on the right side of the photo which leads the viewer's eyes across the image. I believe that the compositional device used in this photo was fill the frame.

Detailed Plan:
Studio Portrait:
For the studio portraits I have already signed up to take photos on April 17th after school, since I want access to the studio alone so that I can use it more freely. My subject will be my friend, Sille, but I will also have two friends, Ella and Inara, to help me with the lighting. As for the style of the images, I will play around with the theme of identity as I'll take photos of Sille doing what she is passionate about as well as pictures of emotions that she expresses a lot. I want to try taking a few zoomed in portraits of her applying lipstick or mascara because make-up is a big part of her life. I will ensure that she is wearing fashionable clothes as well to portray her love for fashion. In addition, I want to play around with lighting the photo from the back to represent her love for being the center of attention. As for the software component I don't particularly have a technique that I want to use in Photoshop, but I will likely mainly edit the shadows, lighting, blacks, whites, and exposure. If I feel like it's validated, I may also try isolating certain colours.

Environmental Portrait:
For the environmental portraits, I will mostly take photos of my sister, Samara, since she has a wide range of passions that I can capture. I'll take photos in various environments like at the horse stable at the Polo club and in the study room where she paints. If I, for some reason, don't take enough photos, I'll go down to Arab Street and capture various portraits of vendors, waiters, tourists, etc. For most of these photos, I will use props that help represent Samara's passions. Some ideas that I have are taking a close up photo of her face next to her a horse's and her painting next to a window in the study room. Like for the studio portraits, I don't have any post processing techniques in mind but I will probably, again, adjust the exposure, contrast, and vibrance. I could also possibly use the isolating colour tool and gaussian blur tool.

Digital Contact Prints: 
Studio Portrait:

Above is the digital contact print for my top ten studio portraits. I chose these photos from the large array of photos that I had taken because I feel like they either showcase certain lighting techniques the best or are taken in a unique manner. In addition, I chose these because I think that they portray my model well as they display my model's personality and passions.

In my print, I have highlighted four of my favourite photos with blue boxes. From these four, my two favourite ones are the photos highlighted on the top row. I especially love these because they portray interesting lighting techniques which set a meaningful tone to the picture. Later on, I will describe these photos further in-depth. As for the other two photos, I especially like the photo in the middle on the bottom row because it freezes the motion of the scarf in the air. I believe that this makes the photo more appealing to look at. In addition, I liked how this sets a playful tone to the picture, exemplifying the model's lively personality. Lastly, I also like the photo on the bottom row on the right because it captures my model laughing. Her face is well lit, as well, as the light is pointed directly on her face but melts into a shadow towards the very edge of her face.

Environmental Portrait:

Above is my digital contact print for my ten best environmental portraits. These photos are my favourite ones from my larger body of photos because of the different angles that I shot them at. For the three distinct environments that you can see, I captured my model from various views depending on the tone that I was trying to portray. In addition, I think that these pictures best capture my model's personality.

There are four pink boxes bordering my favourite four pictures. I especially like the photos on the top row because I like how I captured the relationship between the horse and my model. I also think that these photos are interesting to look at since you don't often see portraits of horses alongside riders. Below, I will further explain one of these horse portraits. As for the second row, I really like the portrait of my model sitting on a table outside. I like this portrait because I think that the lighting is bright and helps highlight my model's face. In addition, I like how this portrait shows the front view of my model as my other portraits are mainly side views. Regarding the last highlighted photo on the bottom row, I like how the light from the window illuminates my model's face. Furthermore, I like the expression of happiness on my model's face as it reflects her joy for drawing.

Final Portraits:
Below are my best portraits both in the studio and out in an environment. For all of the portraits, the first photo is the original picture and the photo directly beneath it is the edited version.

Studio Portraits:

Divided. 30/4/2019. Nikon D3400.

I took this portrait of my friend, Camilla during class time when we were given time to use the studio. This photo show cases the lighting technique of split lighting. It is clear that this technique has been used because when you look at Camilla's face, half of her face is lit while the other half has a shadow. To take this photo, I set up a light at 90 degrees and directed it straight at the left side of Camilla's face. However, this created too much contrast so I further dimmed the light and placed a smaller light further away from Camilla but still directed at the left side of her face. After some trial and error, I finally achieved this lighting.

To edit this, I used multiple techniques, although they were all very subtle. I removed her baby hair, whitened her teeth, darkened her eyes, and removed most of her blemishes. I also used regular editing techniques like adjusting the exposure, shadows, and lighting, as these elements are very important to this specific lighting. I used these post-processing techniques to help send through the idea that Camilla was, in a sense, taking off her mask. I wanted to portray that the shadowed part of her face represented her insecurities while the lighter section represented what she showcased to the world.  Therefore, her pulling back her hair from her face helps add to the feeling that she is ready to unveil her "darkness".

Illumination. 24/4/2019. Nikon D3400.

I captured this portrait of my friend, Sille after school. I wanted to test out the lighting technique of rim lighting to exemplify Sille's love for being the center of attention. I wanted to contrast this attention-seeking persona with a serious expression to acknowledge her many layers. Furthermore, I asked her to wear fashionable clothes to display her passion for fashion and to once again, contrast her serious expression with what she shows to the world. Going back to the lighting, I achieved the rim lighting by placing a strong tunnel-like light behind Sille directed at her head. I played around with the distance of this light from Sille to see how the size of the light on Sille's hair changed. In addition, I placed a box light in front of her to light her face up. I will explain the post processing techniques below.

This picture shows the editing techniques that I used for this image. The arrows each represent an editing technique and point to where I used these techniques the most. First, I edited the blemishes on Sille's face. I did this by zooming into Sille's face and using the healing tool in Photoshop to erase all of the blemishes that I noticed. After that, I edited the the hair sticking out of place. If you scroll up to the original image, you can see that the rim lighting really emphasises Sille's baby hair and reveals that there actually is a lot of it. Therefore, this process was painstaking as I, once again, used the healing tool to select each of the strands of baby hair. Finally, I edited Sille's eyes. I did so by using the sponge tool to saturate the blueness of her eyes and the doge tool to brighten them. However, I wasn't satisfied with the colour of her eyes. So, using the select and mask tool, I selected both of her eyes and refined the edges of them. Next, I dived into the hue and saturation tool to increase the blueness of her eyes.

Environmental Portraits:

Focus. 30/4/2019. D3400

This is a portrait of my sister, Samara, and was taken at Holland Village. I decided to take this photo from the front to make it seem like the viewer was sitting opposite Samara and having a conversation with her. I wanted to give the tone that Samara was bored of being with the viewer and was thinking about other things in her mind. I wanted to do so to represent how Samara loves adventure and how she, therefore, gets bored very easily when sitting in one place with no distraction. To edit this photo, I used the isolating colour tool in Photoshop to separate Samara from the background because the background was very noisy in both shape and colour. Next, I used a red overlay to smooth out her wavy hair as the selection tool made it very bumpy. After that, I used the healing tool to clear out any blemishes, mostly in the forehead region, that I saw.

Galloping. 28/4/2019. D3400

I captured this photo at the horse stable at the Polo Club just before Samara had her riding lesson. I played around with different angles of her and the horse before settling on this photo. I especially like this photo because I think that it captures Samara's relationship with the horse well, as the expression on Samara's face is loving. In addition, I wanted to give Samara and the horse around the same amount of attention in the photo to demonstrate how Samara regards herself and the horse as equals rather than seeing herself as superior to the horse. In addition, I feel like the warm tones in the image bring out the feeling of comfort and joy. To edit this photo, I mainly used the spot healing tool to remove blemishes from both Samara and the horse, as there were some pieces of dirt on the horse. In addition, I used the sponge tool and dodge tool to adjust the saturation and brightness of Samara's and the horse's eyes.

Final Print Documents:
Below are two documents with my final portraits. These documents reveal how my photos would look if they were printed.

Studio Portrait:

Environmental Portrait:

Personal Reflection:
Overall, I really enjoyed this project and discovered that I thoroughly enjoy taking portraits. However, I did face some difficulties during this project. For instance, in the beginning, understanding how to set up the lights in the studio and connect them to the camera was quite challenging. Specifically, it was difficult to take a photo that used split lighting as there was often too much contrast or my model's face wasn't perfectly divided in half. Through trial and error though, I was able to finally achieve this lighting. As I used the lighting more often, I got more comfortable with it until it was no longer challenging for me to adjust the lighting. A second difficulty that I faced was taking unique environmental portraits as I didn't have too many ideas that I was passionate about. What I didn't capture in real life though, I made up in editing. This is especially the case with the first environmental portrait above as I tried to make the photo more interesting by adding in a black and white element to it. This brings me to my final difficulty which was isolating Samara from the background in this environmental portrait. This proved to be hard because her hair is so wavy and frizzy, but after spending some time on it, I managed to achieve the look that I wanted.

During this project, for the first time I learnt how to take studio portraits, leading me to discover how much I enjoy taking them. In addition, I learnt valuable skills on how to take portraits in the studio. I also learnt a wide array of editing techniques for portraits like whitening teeth, removing blemishes, reducing baby hair, and adjusting the eye colour, which will also be useful in the future. Regarding my action plan, I mostly followed it for my studio portraits, although my idea of taking close-up make up shots didn't work very well. As for my environmental portraits, I followed my action plan quite well but didn't end up using as many props as I wanted to nor did I take as many photos as I had thought I would.

All in all, this project helped me enhance both my photography skills and Photoshop skills, both of which will help me as I carry on taking photographs in the future. 

Macro Workshop

For this project, we experimented with using a macro lens by taking photos of small objects. An expert came into class and explained to us the best aperture for the lens, why a tripod was necessary, and showed us some examples of macro photos he had taken. To take the photos, with a partner, we found different coloured sheets of papers to use as backgrounds and chose various small trinkets that we thought would be interesting to capture. In addition,  we experimented with the height of the tripod and angle of the photo. Below are my top 6 photos. 

Final Images:
Final image #1

Final image #2

Final image #3

Final image #4

Final image #5

Final image #6

Peer Feedback:
Student Name: Camila

Which of their 6 images is a good exemplar for Macro Photography? What do you really like about the image?
I think that image #1 is a good exemplar because you can see the macro effect on the photo and all of the details in the photo are very clear. The contrast between the colours and size of the objects also make the photo look very aesthetic.

Could any of their images be improved simply by adjusting the placement of the camera or the settings used, or by doing some cropping or post-processing? Explain how you think the image could be improved.
I think that image #3 could be improved because if it were to be a bit more cropped on the right side, the viewer's attention would be more focused on the object on that side(horse shoe), and more focus would go towards the middle of the photo. This would help the viewer better see the macro effect. 

Do any of the images “completely miss the target” of Macro photography? Explain how their image does not show something that is bigger than life - be specific!
I think that image # 6 misses that target as it doesn't look zoomed in and could be a lot more focused, therefore it doesn't look bigger than life. My advice would be taking a few more photos of it and do a stacking process.

Student Name: Giorgia
Which of their 6 images is a good exemplar for Macro Photography? What do you really like about the image?
I really like the second image because I think it is set up in a really fun, creative way and I just love the way it looks and how in focus everything is in the image.

Could any of their images be improved simply by adjusting the placement of the camera or the settings used, or by doing some cropping or post-processing? Explain how you think the image could be improved.
I think the 3rd image could be improved by maybe focusing on one of the few subjects out of the few in the photo.

Do any of the images “completely miss the target” of Macro photography? Explain how their image does not show something that is bigger than life - be specific!
I think that none miss the target but I think that the 3rd image could be improved to hit the target a little bit more.

Student Name: Sasha
Which of their 6 images is a good exemplar for Macro Photography? What do you really like about the image?
I like image two because it is a clear representation of macro photography and I can also see the compositional device balance portrayed in the image.

Could any of their images be improved simply by adjusting the placement of the camera or the settings used, or by doing some cropping or post-processing? Explain how you think the image could be improved.
Image three can be improved because it's a little bit cramped and fills up the entire picture frame.

Do any of the images “completely miss the target” of Macro photography? Explain how their image does not show something that is bigger than life - be specific!
Image six misses the target because there is no blur and I don't see the macrophotography intention in this image.

Final Reflection:
Once you have finished giving feedback to your peer group, read through the feedback you received. Reflect upon this workshop by answering the following questions:

What aspect of taking Macro shots did you find to be the most challenging or difficult? Explain why.
Even though to take stacking photos all I had to do was shift the dial, I think that taking these photos  was quite challenging as I wasn't sure how far I should turn the dial and if I was capturing the images correctly. In addition, after taking a few photos, I soon discovered that it was a bit difficult to come up with unique, creative scenarios with the trinkets to capture. 

What aspect of taking Macro shots did you find to be the most enjoyable or fulfilling? Explain why.
Although, it got a bit hard to think creatively, I found that arranging the small objects in designs that I liked was really fun. I loved choosing which objects to emphasise and deciding how they played a part in telling a story. It was also fun shooting from different angles and seeing the effect of using different coloured papers as backgrounds.

Of your 6 best images above, which one do you like the most? Explain what you like about this particular image. Did your group agree with your choice? And if you go back and take this image over again how would you change it or improve it?
I liked image 5 the best because I loved arranging the letters in different positions and adding the gold star fish as accents. I also like the angle that the photo was shot at and the shadows of the letter blocks. Lastly, I like the mellow, grey blue tone to it as it feels simplistic and calm. My group didn't agree with this choice but I see why they chose the photos that they did as their favourites. If I went back and took this photo again, I would shoot it at a lower angle so that the viewer looks straight at the letters. I would also focus on the front letter (L) some more as it is slightly out of focus, and would move the starfish at the very back a little in front since it's mostly hidden. 

Compositional Device Practice

Compositional Device Practice

1/Balance

2/Fill the frame

3/Lines

4/Rule-of-thirds

5/Leading Lines

6/Symmetry/Pattern

7/Framing

8/Point of perspective

9/Follow the eyes

Peer feedback:

Student #1 (Name): Eric

3 examples that best demonstrate the compositional devices:

8, 2, 6

3 examples that can be improved and suggestions to make them better:

1, 3, 9

Student #2 (Name): Ariana 

3 examples that best demonstrate the compositional devices:

8, 7, 5

3 examples that can be improved and suggestions to make them better:

9, 6, 1

Self-Reflection:

Successes:
I think that some successes were capturing a good fill the frame picture and point of perspective photo. I also liked my framing picture but if I was to redo it, I would sharpen the greenery so I would increase the depth of field. Overall, I think that my photos are fairly interesting to look at given the time constraint which I am happy about. 

Challenges:
One of the biggest challenges that I faced was taking a frame photo because it was hard to find a frame that bordered something interesting. In addition, it took a few tries to take the balance photo as I had to move Camilla around until I thought that the photo seemed balanced. The time constraint was also a challenge as I only came into the classroom with five minutes of class time left. 

Compositional Device Project

Preparation For Taking Photos

Theme:
The theme that I have chosen for this project is shop houses. Shop houses are buildings that are houses on top and shops at the bottom. I chose this because they are all over Singapore and are usually colourful and pretty to look at it. In addition, I can vary the photos that I take because for some pictures, I can zoom into the shop part of the building while for others, I can show the entire shop house. I also chose this theme because I think that it is fairly unique so I hope to take some uncommon photographs.

Plan of Action:
My plan of action is to take all of these photos outside of school since there aren't any shop houses at school. I plan to try and finish taking all of my photographs this weekend, but if I don't have enough or are unhappy with my photos, I can always go back and take some more the following weekend. I know that Haji Lane and Arab Street have many shop houses so I plan on going there to take most of my photos. If I end up needing to take more photos, I might go to Duxton Hill, China Town, or Little India. Since, I will have spare class time, even though we don't need to edit all of our pictures, I will likely edit many more photos than I need to in Adobe Bridge to practice my editing techniques.

Inspiration:

I want to recreate something similar to this photo because it uses the compositional device rule of thirds and is interesting to look at. I like how there is a splash of colour amongst the greyer tones (the canopy) so I might try to recreate the shadowy mysterious theme of this photo either by finding a good location or by editing in photoshop.

I like the perspective of this and how the angle completely changes the photo by making it more dramatic. I also love how the photographer has gone all out with the angle, instead of just tilting the camera a little bit, which adds to the tall, menacing vibe of the photo. Again, I like the chosen colour scheme since orange and blue are contrasting colours. If I can find a location to do this, I would replace the modern skyscrapers with shop houses and try to show a small part of the sky, similar to this picture.

I love this photo because I like the use of leading lines, as the shops houses are celebrated but also provide a pathway to the subject. I also like the sunset as it is a unique subject and the warm tones makes the photo more comforting to look at. In addition, since my previous photos have darker tones to them, I like how this contradicts that because I also want a range of tones in my portfolio.

9 Compositional Devices

Balance Digital Contact Print

This was one of the hardest compositional devices to capture as it was difficult to find two things that were perfectly proportionate to each other. However, after a while of searching, I discovered that it wasn't too hard to find places that already had balance so I didn't need to use any props or people for this device.

To edit this photo, I played around with the shadows, highlights, whites, and blacks a lot to make the faces more detailed and to add definition to them. In Photoshop, I used the spot healing tool to remove an electric box that was above the man's head because even though it was tiny, I felt like it was making the photo less balanced. I tried adding vibrance to the photo which actually brought out some subtle blue, pink, and red tinges to the picture, but in the end, I decided that I preferred a black and white scheme with just the pop of blue on top. 

Fill the Frame Digital Contact Print

Even though this compositional device is known for being fairly easy to complete, I found it difficult to find objects to take pictures of. I knew that I couldn't take a picture of a shop house so I decided to look through various shops for objects that I thought looked interesting. After figuring out the right aperture for this, it was easy to take pictures.

To edit this picture, I added more shadows and blacks to it and removed a few of the highlights as I felt like the reflection of light on the necklace was distracting. In Photoshop, I used the Gaussian Blur tool to further emphasise the necklace, even though the background was already blurry. I also used the tool to blur our the black bar on top of the necklace since I didn't feel like it added anything to the picture.

Lines Digital Contact Print

This device was one of the easiest ones to capture since there are so many types of lines(curly, wavy, straight, etc.). After taking two photos of graffiti walls though, I wanted to take pictures of a different subject. So, I tried taking a few photos of sun rays but the lines weren't too clear, even after editing, so I ended up choosing the graffiti wall as my final picture.

Since this picture has a variety of colours, I spent a lot of time playing around with the different hues and saturations of each colour. In the end, I darkened the purples and pinks and brightened the yellows and oranges, to add some contrast in the photo. I also played with the sharpness of the photo and decided to give this picture a softer, more flowing feel to emphasise the white curvy lines. By adding more highlights and increasing the luminance, I further singled out the lines.

Rule-of-Thirds Digital Contact Print

These photos were fairly easy to capture but coming up with original ideas and finding subjects that were unique was a bit challenging. Luckily, as I continued walking down Arab Street, I saw that there was a wide variety of different subjects that I could take pictures of, so this ended up being one of my favourite compositional devices.

To edit this, I first played around with the exposure, highlights, and shadows until I found the right balance. Then, since the background of this photo was busy with so many different colours, shapes, and textures, to single out the subject better, I used the Gaussian Blur tool in Photoshop. It was a bit tedious selecting the fine chains on the top and bottom of the lantern, but it proved to be worth it. 

Leading Lines Digital Contact Print

I thought that this compositional device was going to be the easiest one for my theme as all I needed to capture was the rows of shop houses leading to a subject. But, this was actually one of the hardest devices to capture because of how crowded the area was, so I didn't have enough space to get a good leading lines photo the way I wanted. But, I remembered Mr. Laurence showing us a photo of someone using a doorway for a balance photo and decided that I could make use of this window, which ended up being my final photo.

This was one of my most edited photos since I wasn't too happy with how I had captured it, so I wanted to fix the parts that I didn't like in Photoshop. To begin with, I edited the highlights, exposure, and whites to give the gold a shiny effect. Then, I changed the navy blue door frame to a more turquoise, sea green one. I also made the gold more yellow tinged instead of red. After that, I realised that even after cropping the photo, there were some objects on the wall (photo frame, nearby window) so I used the Spot Healing tool in Photoshop to remove those objects.

Symmetry/Pattern Digital Contact Print

Capturing these photos was quite easy as there were so many multi-coloured, diverse, objects around me, especially in the shops. But, I wanted at least one final picture to be of an actual shop house so I challenged myself to take a photo of one that fit this compositional device.

This photo didn't require too much editing as it was already in good shape. I mostly edited the brightness, hue, and saturation of the yellow as I made it a darker, brighter shade. Then, I once again, used the Gaussian Blur tool to blur out the background. 

Framing Digital Contact Print

This was one of the most difficult compositional devices to capture since I didn't feel like there were too many options. In the end, I managed to find some frames that I could use and even used the shop houses as a wide frame, but I still felt like this device constrained me more than helped me.

I decided that I wanted to give this photo an old, Hawaiian feel, since I felt like the long palm trees and colourfully dressed people made the picture seem relaxed and fun. So, I saturated the photo and turned up the vibrance. I also played around with highlights to make the sky bluer and the frame darker. In addition, I changed the hues of specific colours like the yellows and greens so that they popped more. 

Follow the Eyes Digital Contact Print

This was also one of my least favourite compositional devices as I didn't really like how the end photos turned out. I struggled to find things for my dad to look at, and many times accidentally shot less than half of his face, which wasn't allowed. After a while though, I did take a few photos that demonstrated this device.

I didn't edit very much for this photo as it was really hard to use the quick selection tool in Photoshop to select the stand with the bags. This narrowed down my options since I had tried selecting it to use the Gaussian Blur tool, but had ended up with a photo that didn't look very clean. So, I played around more with the exposure and light and used the High Pass Sharpening tool in Photoshop to make the photo look more pronounced.

Point of Perspective Digital Contact Print

This was one of my favourite compositional devices to shoot and edit. Although, I later realised that I should have stood further back when shooting the shop houses to make the angle more drastic and apparent, I really liked the photo of the lantern that I had taken.

I am going to describe the editing techniques that I used for this photo below.

Above, is the original photo without being edited in Photoshop. However, I did edit the photo in Bridge first. There, I cropped the photo down so that it followed the Rule of Thirds to make it more visually appealing. I also increased the exposure, added more shadows and blacks, decreased the highlights, dimmed the whites, and increased the contrast.

Then, I used the Gaussian Blur tool in Photoshop to blur out the background. While, I only made the background slightly blurrier, I felt like the subtle detail helped further emphasise the lantern. I felt like too much focus was given to the green awning on the right corner so blurring the awning some more helped direct the viewer's eye to the main subject.

After that, I used the Spot Healing tool in Photoshop to remove parts of the photo that I thought distracted the viewer. This photo only shows this technique. I removed the small Chinese lettering beneath the lantern and the honeycomb of white light in the left corner of the picture, as I didn't think that they were adding anything to the overall photo. 

This photo only shows the effect of the Black and White tool in Photoshop. This is clear when you look at the once green awning in the corner, and just by looking at the overall photo, you can see how the subtle tones of blue are gone. I did this because I felt like colour was taking way from the final photo. I had played a lot with shadows and highlights so I felt like the photo was complete enough without colour and that the lantern was celebrated more in black and white.

Final 9 Photos

Successes and Challenges

Overall, I faced both many successes and challenges. For taking the photos, some compositional devices were easy to complete while others, like follow the eye, leading lines, and balance, were harder. In the beginning, I struggled a little with how I was going to approach this theme since I knew that I couldn't complete all of the compositional devices by just clicking pictures of the shop house buildings themselves. But, when I got there, I realised that I could go smaller and take photos of objects in the shops and around the houses which suited this project much better. When taking the photos, I also often lost track of which devices I had completed and which ones I still had to take photos for, especially since I had put off doing certain devices that I knew would be difficult. To solve this, I first went through my photos and tallied the devices that I had completed, and from then on, I continued marking down which photos belonged to which devices.

Editing wise, almost everything went smoothly. I experimented with different tools in Bridge and learnt what style of editing I usually preferred. I also practiced quick selection a lot in Photoshop and got more proficient in using the Gaussian Blur tool. However, I didn't manage my time the best as I edited all of the photos in the digital contact prints in Bridge even though I didn't need to. This was merely because I have fun editing and wanted to make the prints look better. After that, I edited my final photo further in Bridge and in Photoshop. One regret that I have is that I wish that I had used the isolating colour tool in Photoshop at least once, like it would have worked for my final photo for pattern, to practice using it. At the end of the day though, I am happy with how this project turned out. I loved challenging myself to take photos in different styles and loved exploring new areas (Haji Lane, Arab Street) that I'd never really looked at before. I also liked coming up with my own theme as I felt like it pushed me to go to places I wouldn't of gone to otherwise. Lastly, I think that editing these photos helped me hone in some skills that we had learnt earlier, which I can apply to my photos in the future.