Lecture 5/Class Exercise 3

Mid-term break is over! Lecture 5 was about digital collages and photomontages, which were very very interesting concepts because each artwork really tests the viewer's eye for detail. Jing spoke about how these digital collages and photomontages challenge the viewer's visual perceptions because, often, people take things they see for granted. Digital collages and photomontages therefore alters these perceptions by co-existing things within an artwork that do not seem to be connected in "real life". This idea of altering people's perception seems to be what I was aiming for in my previous assignment (Assignment 1), just that I chose to achieve this through jarring colours.

The main difference between digital collages and photomontages is that digital collages leave the edges rough and show distinct boundaries between objects that do not seem to relate to one another. On the other hand, photomontages seek to smoothen out the edges, blending the images into a seemingly coherent piece of work. Besides challenging people's perceptions, digital collages and photomontages also seek to address certain issues, be it within society or not.

Jing then showed us many examples of photomontages and digital collages, speaking about Dadaism and Surrealism in the process. Assignment 3 was also handed out, which involved creating either a digital collage or photomontage with the theme "Urban Fantasy". Checking out the meaning of "Urban Fantasy" online gave me a better understanding of what can be done. Basically it involves a work that is located in an urban setting and has aspects of fantasy in it. These works usually addresses psychological aspects of people, like some deep set insecurity of some sort, for example. This ideas made me relate to Inception, where buildings in people's subconscious were altered according to their emotions and such. I could delve deeper into such a concept for Assignment 3.

But before that, Jing also gave us class exercise 3 to do, where we had to look for a photomontage or digital collage online and comment on it. After looking for some time, I found this:

The artist of this piece was not specifically mentioned, but the names Corey Eiseman and Gustavo Romano were mentioned. It is said that this work is like a Blog, where the digital collage is consistently reworked, and everyday the "previous entry" is used as the starting point. The work is consistently updated, like a documentation of current issues and other things. Since it is like a documentation, news from the media can be seen within the artwork. Of course, the artist(s) could be trying to question the value and concept of Art by putting in the text "IS IT ART?" and "OR IS IT SPAM?". Perhaps what the artist is trying to say is that, Art is starting to lose its value, where everything can be made and made to be like Art. In the process, the "purity" of Art is lost, making it become like "spam". Can this digital collage be considered as Art, then? But then, maybe the artist is just trying to fool the eye with these texts; maybe the texts were just placed there, not intended to be read and comprehended at face value?

Lecture 4/Tutorial 3

Keitai Aesthetics continued for another week, with Jing touching on the tension between mobile phone art and the traditional notion of photography art. With IPhone applications like Instagram and Hipstamatic, can anyone become a professional photographer, making these professional photographers appear foolish, as their line of profession seem like one that can be undertaken by anyone with a smart phone. Is the art of photography diluted now? On the other hand, mobile phone art is becoming more and more recognised, with exhibitions of mobile phone photographs being held. Documentaries are also being taken with the video function of smart phones, emphasizing on the whole notion of a "mobile multi-modality era".

Tutorial 3 was hands-on fun as well. We had our second class exercise, where we had to take an extraordinary sighting amongst the mundane, ordinary everyday life. So I walked around school again, looking for inspiration, until I saw, just opposite the bus-stop outside the Central Forum, the row of flowers along the walkway to the Engine canteen. People were walking pass that walkway, minding their own business, but who will stop to look at those flowers, which were in full bloom and vibrantly coloured? So I took a photo of the flowers, highlighting their sense of neglect, and only then were people taking notice. I added some effects from an application of my phone, creating a "sense of loneliness" for the flower.

Assignment 1/Tutorial 2

Arriving at Changi Airport, I was a little disappointed to see that it was more crowded than I had hoped it would be. The last time I was there taking photos, Terminal 3 was not yet open, so it was relatively deserted, and made photo-taking much more enjoyable. People's movements hindered the overall capture of the interior patterns of the terminals, giving less texture to the photo taken. But by the end of the day, after much experimenting with different shutter speeds and aperture values, I got the shots I wanted.

The process of editing the photos were fun, as well. I did not have much experience with Photoshop, so there was much experimentation with the different adjustments I could have with the photos. I prefer photos that speak the word "desolation" to me, so I always prefer my photos to be black and white or in monochrome colours. I believe that colours are often taken for granted by the human eye, so I purposely alter the colours of each shot, in hopes that my photos would sensitize people, forcing them to take into account and pay attention to every detail of the photos. I played around with the Colour Balance, Level of Exposure, Brightness and Contrast, Shadows and Highlights, and even the Hue and Saturation functions of Photoshop to end up with these:

1.

Deep Depth of Field (DDOF): I like how the patterns of the ceiling, floor, and each check-in stall stretch towards a common horizon. I still wished this shot did not have people in it, but I was still satisfied with the overall effect. I desaturated the original photo, edited the contrast, and played around with the colour balance.

Critique: During tutorial 2, we brought our photos to class and had some of our fellow tutorial classmates critique our work. For this photo, the feedback given was that it would have been better if the two black boards were not there on the left side of the photo, and that the photo was not tilted (albeit slightly) to one side. But they liked the composition, and how the "layers" of the photo were very distinct.

2.

Shallow Depth of Field (SDOF): Again, I like how the lines and patterns stretch towards a common point in the photo. There is also a successful balance of blur in the background and focus in the foreground, by putting the clock as the point of reference. I edited the photo by altering its colour balance and contrast.

Critique: It is not obvious that the clock was the point of reference. Also, the background could afford to be more out of focus, to emphasize on the foreground.

3.

Blur Motion: I was stuck on the concept of this photo, unable to find inspiration for a satisfying Blur Motion shot, until I remembered the shot Lionel said he took in Orchard Ion. So, taking inspiration from him, I rode the escalator up and down, with minimal shutter speed, taking photos and trying not to move much, until I got this shot. Aesthetics-wise, I edited the colour balance, shadow and highlight colours, having contrasting colours like blue and red to make the photo jarring and more dynamic.

Critique: They liked the colours and effect, but felt that perhaps having a clear subject somewhere in the photo would make the it seem less flat, because having an entirely blur photo would make the photo appear somewhat flat.

4.

Freeze Action: This was the trickiest shot of them all. I tried taking shots of water dripping onto a plant, but it failed terribly because my camera could not capture the droplets (they were too inconsistent) at the right time, and the background was not flattering for the photo settings. So I resorted to taking water sprouting out from a water cooler, trying to capture the frozen movement of the water.

Critique: The composition is nice, but the subject matter could be better (and I agree). The water movement is also not that in focus.

Reflections for Assignment 1: Definitely had fun playing with the effects of the photos and the overall experience of photo-taking, but it seems I need to re-take some of the photos, especially the one of Freeze Action.

Lecture 3

Keitai Aesthetics!! Somehow this week's lecture was something that I could relate to, possible because I use the mobile phone camera function frequently as well. This week's lecture was about Mobile Imaging; how the mobile phone's camera function and its popularity has evolved throughout the years, and the issues alongside its evolution. Besides statistics showing the growth in camera-phone functions and sales, Jing also spoke about how the camera-phone is becoming ubiquitous and is increasing connection between people. She also talked about the rise of personal photography with such camera-phones, and how the camera-phone is a memory-capturing, communicative and expressive device, all in one.

I could relate to that, because my mobile phone has brought me so much convenience in photo-taking, be it with friends or just my surrounding environment. Looking through the photos in my phone, memories of that day would surface to my mind, reminding me of the people and events of that day. Seeing beautiful or peculiar sightings or objects would urge me to take out my mobile phone and take a picture of it because I bring my phone with me wherever I go. Sometimes, I even take photos of mundane things in life. But with such ubiquity comes issues of privacy and voyeurism, which is the issue I would like to explore for assignment 2. The basic concept I had thinking about the assignment when Jing gave it out, was how with mobile phones, people's privacy are deprived. Is there truly a place where we can feel safe now, a place away from the prying eyes of such technology?

Tutorial 1/Class Exercise 1

First tutorial! I was late for 10 minutes or so, but I was glad I did not miss attendance taking. Lionel was guest speaking again, teaching us more techniques in taking photographs with the manipulation of exposure. This time he spoke about panning, a technique of having the subject be in focus, with the subject's surroundings being blur. It sounded so complicated and foreign, but basically it is about using a slower shutter speed, and moving your camera along with the subject to capture a shot full of movement and speed.

Jing proceeded to give us our first class exercise - to capture a panning shot by the end of class. I wandered around the school campus and finally decided to position myself at the first level of the ADM block and take pictures of moving people and vehicles.

I started out with a rather fast shutter speed, so the results were not very ideal because the subject's clarity hardly differed from the background. So I adjusted to a slower shutter speed (1/30)

The results were significantly better! A little more adjustments to the shutter speed and my hand movement, and I finally got what I wanted.

This is what I got at the end of the class. Yay!

Lecture 2

Lecture was more than fun because a guest speaker came to speak to us about manipulating the exposure of a camera to create optimal results in photo-taking. Our guest speaker was Lionel, and it was a little odd to see him speak to the entire class because he used to be my tutorial classmate when we took NM2208 together. Nonetheless, he carried himself well and spoke with a lot of confidence, like a true, professional photographer!

He spoke to us, mainly, about the Exposure Triangle. The Exposure Triangle comprised of 3 elements - ISO sensitivity, aperture and shutter speed, and each of the elements controls an aspect of the way a camera reacts to light. He also showed us photographs of varying degrees of exposure. He taught us the logic behind the aperture, shutter speed and ISO's number values, and how adjusting each one had different results. He also taught us how to balance between aperture and shutter speed to create shots of deep and shallow depths of field, motion blur and freeze action. And then he touched on how ISO determined how "grainy" our photos were going to turn out. All these were vital information, as they related to our first assignment of the module, which was capturing photographs of deep depth of field (DDOF), shallow depth of field (SDOF), motion blur and freeze action.

When the assignment was given out to us, I had a basic idea of what I wanted for the deep and shallow depth of field shots. Changi Airport was ideal for such shots; the architectural patterns and tessellation within the terminals would help enhance the "layering" within the photograph, making the foreground, mid-ground and background more distinct. Previous experiences of going to the airport and taking photographs taught me so. The tricky ones were the blur motion and freeze action shots. I had no experience in taking these shots, so I knew I would need more time to experiment with movement and camera possibilities.

First Contact

Stepping into this module, I thought I knew what it entailed. Thinking that it was a photography module, I was prepared to act the part of a professional photographer and snap artistic photos at free will. I was part of the Photography Society in my Junior College, but that committee never really taught me much photography skills. Either that, or it never retained in my memory. So I was all prepared to learn all the techniques I could to make me a better photographer. But it turns out the module was not about photography after all. It was more about digital imaging and its manipulation.

I have to admit I was a little disappointed that the module was not what I expected, but nonetheless I was eager to learn because before this, my Photoshop skills and other relevant computer software skills were very very limited. So I am more than happy, and looking forward to learning the skills required to excel in this module.

The first lecture did not touch much on the technical aspects of digital imaging. It was more like an introduction to the module, so Jing went through the assessment criteria and the workload that we would be expected to handle. The highlight of the lecture was definitely when Jing showed us various photos that won awards. It really altered my perception of what was defined as a "good photo". A visually blur photograph could win an international award based on the moment that it was capturing. It challenged my long-belief that "good photos" needed to, at least, be clear. Looks like I have much, much more to learn, after all.