Surrealism: Urban Fantasy

Surrealism???

Most of us having no background in artistic concepts had a hard time grasping the concept... is it this?...or that? is it a composition of elements that are real, but arranged in a way that makes it unreal?
Nevertheless, this is my attempt at a surrealism piece:

The concept behind is this piece is:
A young girl's fantasy of her favourite dolls which takes place in a urban setting. The dolls have just awaken from their sleep. The paradox is that the dolls have become humans and the buildings are their toys.

I got this concept from Godzilla. However, firstly I do not have a Godzilla toy and secondly I did not really want to symbolise doom.

The technical work involved were:

• Taking pictures of the building and the dolls. It was tedious as I have to estimate an appropriate angles to place the dolls. It took me three tries to get them right.

• Next was tracing the building and MRT tracks into paths so that I can copy and paste and to change the colour of the sky.

• I have to crop out the dolls from their white background
  

• I used the brushes available in photoshop for the stars.

• I blurred out the frontmost and backmost dolls to create an effect of different depth of field and the focus will only be on the doll in the purple pajamas.

• Finally, I took some pictures of my white polo tee to add a layer of texture on the piece to create a 'fabric' feeling which symbolise softness of the blanket.

Comments given by the class and Ms Chiang were:

• The sky resembles the national flag...red and white? Probably I got to change the colour
• The major problem with the piece is the lack of interactions between the dolls and the building
• Need to reduce the size of the buildings to make them more toy like/ or to change their colours to resemble lego buildings
• the picture is too dark
• I could use more real elements like cars and trains
  
• Could add some details to the dark MRT tracks
  

After the first tutorial, I decide that it would be rather impossible to add in interactions between the dolls and their surroundings since the figurines were fixed. Hence, I employed another set of dolls and a new background. Although it is a new piece of work, but the underlying concept remains.

The concept is still about a girly fantasy with the personification of the dolls. Instead of using a cloth texture, I overlay the entire image with a picture of bubbles. I blurred the two dolls in the foreground so as to direct viewers to focus their attention on the doll at the back. The image of the river taxi was duplicated and they were made to float in the air, enhancing the surreal and unrealistic aspects.



























Some comments were

• Viewers focus firstly on the doll on the left before looking at the rest of the image, which defeat the purpose of directing them to view the doll at the back by blurring
  
• I read somewhere that readers generally read from left to right, hence probably this is the reason who the doll on the left gets noticed first
• The blurring of the ships was not obvious enough
  

CNM classroom shoot

Some students commented that the posters behind are distracting. I tried to crop the picture. However in order to maintain the appropriate canvas size, some important details like the book is lost. Hence I chose not to crop it.














The comments for this picture is that the hand which is holding the book is rather disturbing since it does not belong to the girl on the left. There were suggestions to darken the picture to play down the effect generated by the hand.

The comments for most of the photographs were that they were yellowish looking.

A3: Focal Length, Sensor Latitude

Low Key 1:

Aperture:F/5.6 , Shutter Speed: 1/40, ISO: 100, Focal Length:55.0

Took this picture while trying to work with the different kinds of metering. However, a classmate commented that it could be use for low key.

Low Key 2:

Aperture: f/5.6, Shutter Speed: 1/3200, ISO: 100, Focal Length: 50.0 Exposure Bias: -2.00

Went over to Tioman for a diving trip last weekend. Thought that I could take more pictures for the low key shot.




















Long Perspective:

Aperture: f/3.5, Shutter Speed: 1/800, ISO: 100, Focal Length: 18.0

Jing initially commented that this picture might have been taken from a lower perspective. But after contemplating for a while, she decided it is fine...phew... I cant retake this since it was shot in Aur during my weekend dive trip...














Close up:
Aperture: f/5.0, Shutter Speed: 1/1000, ISO: 100, Focal Length: 41.0




















My attempt at a zoom shot:
Aperture: f/16, Shutter Speed: 1, ISO: 200, Focal Length: 18.0





















Symbolic of the Sun:
Aperture: f/3.5, Shutter Speed: 1/4000, ISO: 100, Focal Length: 18.0

The sun is at the back of the trees, symbolizing it as the source of all life form. Although its presence is subtle, yet it plays an important role in our daily life. Without it, there will be no life on this earth.

A2(a): Exposure Triangle

Shallow depth of field:
Shutter Speed: 1/100, Apeture: f/5.6, ISO: 200

Deep depth of field:

Shutter Speed: 1/200, Aperture: f/8.0, ISO: 200

Motion Blur:
Shutter Speed: 1/3, Aperture: f/22, ISO: 100

Motion Freeze:

Shutter Speed: 1/320, Aperture: f/3.5, ISO: 200

Motion Freeze 2:
Shutter Speed: 1/100, Aperture: f/8, ISO: 100

Went to Tioman for a dive trip, decide to add this in for Motion Freeze. Captured when she was halfway through her purge into the water.

Assignment 1

The aim of this assignment is to teach us the basics of photography in exploring elements such as shape, line, form, colours and texture.

Texture

Lines

Forms

Colours

Colours of the flowers and grass taken by Xue Hua

Shape

Shape by Xue HuaShape by Jamie