Act 3 Invitation to Create

For this Invitation to Create, I decided to find a modern song that had a similar concept to the passage that I was given, which was Act 3, Scene 2, Lines 100-115. The song that I chose was Be My Downfall by Del Amitri. Even though this song was released in 1992, meaning that it wasn't the most modern song that I could have picked, I still chose it because I thought that the concept of it aligned well with this passage.

Annotation of passage:

Lyrics of Be My Downfall:

Well the bus is pulling out

And I guess I'd better go

Before I make a grave mistake and let my feelings show

And twenty miles away 

She waits alone for me 

But when I try to picture her you're the one I see

And in another situation I could put up a fight

But you will be my downfall tonight

So the night is coming down 

Drowning us in blue

And it all points towards the things we know we shouldn't do

And as I look at you

And I fall under your spell

Well, I know I should be thinking of her lying there herself

And when faced with temptation you know a man should stand and fight

But you will be my downfall tonight

Be my downfall

Be my great regret

Be the one girl

That I'll never forget

Be my undoing

Be my slow road to ruin tonight

Well the bus is pulling out

And I'm grounded here with you

And I want to say the sweet things babe I've always wanted to

So tell me now the tail-lights have gone out of sight

Baby won't you be my downfall once again tonight

Literary Analysis Paragraph:

First, before I delve deeper into the specific lines in the song and passage, I want to point out the similar concepts between these two pieces of writing. The idea of the song above is that a guy is dating a girl but is in love with someone else, and in the end, he chooses to be with the person that he loves. The relation between this and Romeo and Juliet isn't too obvious, however, this becomes clearer when we look at the overall meaning from the excerpt of Romeo and Juliet. The message is that Juliet is battling with her emotions as she tries to choose between Romeo and Tybalt, however in the end, she chooses to side with Romeo. This demonstrates that conceptually, these two forms of art already share a common theme, even if the relationships between the characters are slightly different. Below, I will write about what is specifically common between the two arts. 

In Be My Downfall, the third line is, "Before I make a grave mistake and let my feelings show". The use of the word, "grave" is similar to the death imagery that is portrayed several times in the passage as Juliet uses the words, "slain", "kill", "murd'red", etc. In both these pieces, this morbid imagery is used to show the seriousness of the situation and how important these relationships are to the character. In addition, it foreshadows that there will be dire consequences if the main character's give in to love. This is further emphasised in the line in the song, "Be my slow road to ruin tonight.", which demonstrates how the main character giving into temptation is slowly corrupting who he is. The use of the word, "road" also symbolises that the consequences of the main character choosing his lover are permanent or long lasting, and will therefore hurt him in the future. Similarly, the last line of the passage is, "Like damed guilty deeds to sinners' minds:". Since, Christianity played an important role in Romeo and Juliet, the word "sinners'"and "damned" show how destructive Juliet's choice was and how this would impact her for the rest of her life. As Juliet weights these dark messages, her contrasting feelings are also shown in the passage. For instance, she uses the repetition of the words, "husband" and "cousin", to imply that she feels conflicted and that it is difficult for her to choose between her family and husband. This is similar to the repetition of the words, "fight" and "downfall" in the song, which represent the main character's contrasting feelings of fighting to stay loyal to his girlfriend or accepting that he would rather cheat and be with the person he loves. All in all, this modern song and the passage from Romeo and Juliet share many aspects ranging from the language used to the overall concepts, thus showing that even though Romeo and Juliet was written over four hundred years ago, it is still applicable to our world today. 

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.

Act II Invitation to Create Personal Sonnet

Sonnet:

In the still universe, her thoughts were born,

Murderous angels banished to mankind.

She was a bleeding rose embraced by thorns,

Imprisoned in the lies of her own mind.

Lost fragments of light taped together,

Torn shadows dancing in her glazed eyes.

She tore apart her fairy godmother,

Because she lit her sky with happy lies.

Sweet tears of silence were an oasis,

Illusions empty of satanic rage.

Emotions were always her nemesis-

They screamed for Life in their ivory cage.

She howled to release her soul from Hell,

‘Till finally she bid her ghosts farewell.

To give a brief summary, this sonnet was about a protagonist who is essentially stuck in her mind which is her version of Hell. The sonnet talks about how happiness is an illusion which makes joy feel unreal or similar to a lie, therefore she doesn't trust her mind. In addition, it talks about how broken the protagonist is and how she'd rather be numb than feel what she is feeling right now.

Process:

The first thing that I did was write down the requirements for a sonnet since I wasn't very familiar with them. Then, I brainstormed some possible ideas by listing important events and the emotions that I associated with them, trying to write down a wide range of emotions so that I would have more options. After listing these ideas, I delved deeper into my two favourite ideas, one of which wasn't even on the list as I came up with it a little later on. Finally, I bolded the idea that I wanted to use for my sonnet. The picture below shows my plan.

After that, I didn't really know where to start so I searched up a few sonnet examples that I could use as mentor texts. I first found a popular Shakespeare sonnet but also wanted a more modern one, so I kept looking until I found a sonnet based on an Ariana Grande song. When I worked, I kept the first line of the Shakespearean sonnet at the top of my notebook so that I wouldn't forget the rhythm. Below are the sonnet examples that I used.

Modern Sonnet                                                      Shakespeare Sonnet

Now, I was ready to try writing my first line. This turned out to be much more frustrating than I anticipated as I would write down lines that I loved but was unable to use. After a few tries though, I realised that the constraint of an iambic pentameter was actually a good thing as the line that I ended with turned out to be my favourite one. I, then, moved on to writing my second line which surprisingly only took me a couple of tries. When writing these two lines, I had already planned out the words that I would use the end them so that it would be easier for me to write the third and fourth line, since they had to rhyme at the end. Therefore, it was also fairly easy for me to write the next few lines and soon I finished my verse. Below is a picture of the page I used to write this verse.  

Usually, I have a specific plan for when I write, however, for this piece I only had a brief idea. Therefore, the next page was just repeats of the same idea of fear phrased in different ways. When writing all of these lines, I marked where the stress was with a "u" or "/" to make it easier, but none of the lines that I drafted here were iambic pentameter. Therefore, I decided to come up with a more detailed plan. In the end though, I realised that I was forcing my initial idea of numbness into the sonnet when really my sonnet had morphed into a darker theme that was almost the opposite of what I had started with. When I realised this, it was much easier for me to move on. Below are the pictures of the work that I didn't end up using.

                              Unused Lines                                            Unused Detailed Plan

After opening up my mind to this new idea that the main character's mind wasn't actually her sanctuary and was the opposite of it, I suddenly got some ideas. I quickly wrote down the first two lines but then I realised that in my haste to jot my ideas down, I had forgotten that I needed to rhyme the last word. This didn't prove to be difficult for the second line, but I ended the first line with the word, "together". After using a rhyming website and testing out different lines, I was finally able to string together a meaningful line. In this verse, I repeated the word "lies" which I had used in the first verse to emphasise how the main character couldn't tell what was real and what was her imagination. I also used two similar words: "torn" and "tore", to emphasise how broken she was. Below is the drafting for the second verse of the sonnet.

My third verse was the hardest verse to write as I made the same mistake that I made earlier, as the word "oasis" isn't exactly easy to rhyme. When, I used the same rhyming website, I was happy to find the word "nemesis" but I soon found it challenging to end a line with it. I manoeuvred around this problem through trial and error. However, a bigger problem was that I wanted to write about how the main character was bursting with emotions, but I didn't know how to phrase this without using the sequence of one emotion per line, which I thought wouldn't be very interesting to read. I overcame this by flipping through my earlier drafts and remembering how I initially wanted the first line to be about silence. This sparked up a few ideas which is how I ended up with my final verse. The pictures below show how many times I had to rewrite this verse.

Lastly, I only had to write two more lines to finish my sonnet. I didn't know how I was supposed to end it but I knew that I wanted to reiterate the madness that the main character felt. Earlier, I had tried using the word "Hell" but didn't end up sticking with it. I decided to give it a shot since it was easy to find words to rhyme with it. After drafting this line a few times, I moved on to the last line, which proved to be more challenging in terms of making it an iambic pentameter. In the end though, I managed to come up with a conclusion that I was happy with. Below is a picture of the drafting I went through to finish this sonnet.

In the end, I was very happy with how my sonnet turned out even though it took a long time to write. I loved challenging myself with this new form of poetry and might try it again for my remix. This sonnet ended up being much more metaphorical than I thought that it would be, which is great as I want the lines to be left for interpretation, but my only worry is that people won't think that it is cohesive. In addition, this sonnet didn't turn out to be too personnel because I didn't really use a specific event but rather used emotions that I felt and intensified them. Overall though, I am pleased with the final product.

Aperture Project

For this project, we focused on the aperture of the camera by taking photos with varied depth of fields. We practiced this at school as we experimented adjusting the aperture while walking around the campus, then we experimented in more interesting locations. Before I describe a few of the photos that I took, I would first like to introduce what the aperture of the camera is and it's effect on the subject.

The aperture controls the size of the opening that allows light to enter and hit the image sensor. Therefore, a larger aperture lets more light in and therefore brightens the picture, while a smaller aperture permits less light in and darkens the image. In addition, the aperture affects the focus on the subject. The f-stop values are changed based on the blurriness desired. Smaller f-stop values increase the depth of field so that the foreground and background are more in focus, while larger f-stop values decrease the depth of field which sharpens the subject but softens the background. Therefore, we had to learn how to balance the amount of light that was allowed to enter the camera and the blurriness that we wanted. We also learnt a new concept called the Bokeh effect, which are the small out of focus circles that appear in the background of an image, however, I didn't manage to achieve this effect.

Above is my Digital Contact Print which showcases my top twenty photos. The first ten photos, up until the second light blue box, have a shallow depth of field, and the remaining ten photos have a deep depth of field. I chose these twenty photos from the larger body of photos that I took because I thought that they were the most interesting pictures. For the shallow depth of field photos, I had many photos to choose from since I preferred taking them, so when deciding which photos to use, I decided to go with the ones that had different perspectives and unique ideas. As for the deep depth of field pictures, I didn't have as many to choose from, but still when deciding, I realised that I liked photos of nature the best and therefore chose the ones that I played around with sunlight a lot with. Below, I will write about my two favourite shallow depth of field photos, and then my two best deep depth of field photos. I will put the original photo above and the edited photo below it.

To edit this photo, I first used Adobe Bridge. Using this software, I added more shadows, blacks, and highlights, and increased the exposure and contrast. After that, in Adobe Photoshop, I cropped the image so that more of the focus was directed towards the statue. Here, I used a new technique called the Gaussian blur. This made the background slightly blurrier and the sides next to the boy much blurrier, which is easy to see when you look at the red leaves. The emotion of this picture is almost sad because the statue, the only man-made object in this picture, is in focus, while all of the beautiful nature is out of focus. The tone is also slightly ironic because the boy is holding a turtle like it is saving nature, when really it is ruining the view of the lake.

I decided to take this photo in bird-eye view since uncommon angles usually make more interesting photos. I also wanted to test my skill with controlling the aperture by focusing on the petals and leaves only, not the ground below nor the stick on top. To edit this, again, I first used Adobe Bridge. I saturated the image a little, as you can tell in the pink colour of the flower and the brightness of the green leaves, decreased the exposure a little, increased the contrast, and added some more shadows. Then, in Adobe Photoshop, I used the colour isolation technique so that the background would be black and white and the bright pink and green would pop out even more. The emotion of this can be interpreted in many ways since the black and white colour gives off a sense of sadness while the contrasting pink is joyful and energetic.

For this photo, I first used Adobe Bridge. I drastically changed the image just by increasing the shadows and darkness of the photo, as I wanted to give off a mysterious, enchanted sort of effect. I also wanted the reflection in the lake to pop out more, which the decreased exposure did. In Adobe Photoshop, I used the graph tool with the curve to darken the hue of the leaves and decrease the highlights. I wanted the emotion of wonder but also a foreboding sense to add to the fairytale look.

I loved the idea of enchantment and wanted to recreate the feeling that I had earlier encompassed in the previous photo. I decided to shoot at a lower angle looking up, not so far down that it would be considered worm's-eye view but not so high up that it was the usual way that we see the world. In addition, I wanted it to feel like there was a canopy above and that you were in a forest, even though the setting was just a few rocks and a couple of trees in a garden. In Adobe Bridge, I darkened the rocks and leaves so that the sunlight would seem brighter, therefore drawing the eye towards it. After that, in Adobe Photoshop, I used the High Pass Sharpening tool to enhance the image.

Personal Reflection:

Some challenges that I faced during this project was how to make my photos original. This is especially true for the shallow depth of field photos, since the most common pictures that people took were flowers. I wanted mine to stand out which is why the Adobe softwares helped me so much. Another challenge was taking photos that had a deep depth of field as initially, I didn't really understand what a photo needed to have a deep depth of field and went in with the mind set that I should take landscape-like photos. However, after taking many photos and discussing with my classmates, I learnt that I was narrowing my mind set too much which opened a new realm of possible photos for me. 

For the software aspect, I learnt a few new techniques namely the isolated colour technique and Gaussian blur technique, both of which draw the viewer's attention to a specific area of the photo, which is especially helpful if a photo is very crowded. When learning how to  master these techniques, I made a few errors. One big one was when I tired to add the Gaussian blur to the first photo in my digital contact print. The flower had many buds which made it very hard to select and mask, therefore after outlining the photo, my subject was still slightly blurry. This made me realise that certain techniques work better on specific photos. Finally, as a photographer, I learnt that I tend to edit photos so that they have warmer tones. Therefore, this time, I tried to add a few cooler toned pictures which turned out to actually work better in some scenarios, like the lake. In the end, this project helped me enhance both my skills in taking photos and in editing them in Adobe Photoshop.