Photography Study- Advanced Digital Photography

Notes from my ACM202 class at Deakin Uni :)

[photogstudy4lyf-blog]

The initial layout of my website was complicated and a bit too busy. Instead of having the each of our outfits displayed side by side I had decided to have two separate tabs open so that the viewer could have more freedom. This idea meant that with each different style they clicked a new tab would open, and in the end there would be (at least) 20 tabs open... I can improve this by having each style open into a post with our two different interpretations side-by-side for comparison. 

Another problem I had was that the individual silhouettes were too big and therefore when they were being displayed the click through links (via image mapping) were not in the right place. 

[photogstudy4lyf-blog]

[photogstudy4lyf-blog]

Week 10- notes

An important lesson I learnt was that the price of an exhibition art piece depends on context, reputation and quality. To get a good idea you could look at the prices of other artist's work at similar stages in their career. The value of an artwork is also dependent on how many copies there are. If you sell your work in lower editions it will become more valuable and attractive to collectors.

When pricing your photography you could think about it in these terms: how much would you need to get paid to feel good about handing over the print to another person?

[photogstudy4lyf-blog]

Identity Online- Editing

I initially thought that the editing process for these photographs would not take that long, because unlike my last assignment the models do not have heads. I chose to shoot this way for privacy reasons, and also to emphasis how unique our different style choices are (I know for a fact that if my friends were to look at the images they could easier tell us apart).

On second thought I discovered my meticulous nature would mean that all eight of the portraits would have to be perfectly in line in order for my idea to work. This was fiddly work and it took me a long time to align them. And when this was done it was time to set my attention to the overtly orange tinge on our legs. It turned out harder than I thought to edit this, but when I found a technique that worked the process was easily applied to every image.

I then had to crop the images to cut out the unwanted space on either side, and using a layer mask I cut out the body of each of us to make a silhouette for the main page of my website. 

[photogstudy4lyf-blog]

Identity Online- photo shoot

For my final assignment I needed professional looking photographs to showcase the array of styles we were modelling.

I set up a backdrop, with two studio lights, and connected them to my DSLR camera that was on my tripod. This allowed me to focus the lighting on the body of my model and illuminate each style. 

The backdrop was useful in providing a white background that would not distract viewers from the model's outfit. It was a bit challenging to set up as we had not learnt this in class, but with some help from my step-dad we figured it out and the shoot could begin!  I used a softbox on one of the lights and in order to get the lighting perfect I had to fiddle a lot with the positioning of both the fill light and the key light. I settled with a direct technique which meant the clothing was the focal point. Even with these two lights in position it meant that the legs/ feet were in darkness. I then had to resort to using a lamp to even out the lighting, but this had its downside as the light from this particular lamp had an orange tinge to it (which I knew I would have to edit later). 

With that all organised I began shooting my twin sister's outfits and taking three or so photos of each just in case. I tried to keep the camera/ model in the same position for each photo (this was done with the help of some Blu-Tack on the floor) and that meant that when she was wearing high heels I had to adjust the camera angle and move the camera slightly back. 

After I had finished with her photos, it was my turn to dress up! As she is not a photographer she did not understand the concept of moving the camera back and forth and how important it was to keep the model in the position. This just meant that when i was aligning the photos to edit them I had to tweak the angle/ size of some of them. 

[photogstudy4lyf-blog]

Identity Online- Development

-The viewer could pick a twin, and open up a hyperlink about their identity and style choices. This would showcase their individuality about how they want to present themselves. 

Even though we have grown up in similar circumstances, it doesn't mean you can't be different and unique. We may be similar but we have individual ideas about how we want to look and act. 

This way the two hyperlinks can still be compared side-by-side.

Styles: 

-edgy -sporty -chic -hipster -preppy -girly -lazy/ sloth -tomboy -classy -rock/ goth/ punk -vintage -going out

To present image mapping there could be a page on my website with a silhoutte of both of us, with each section of the body clicking through to a different style. They can then compare each twin and easily understand their individuality. 

[photogstudy4lyf-blog]

These are screenshots from Tom Hancock's Idle Self  where we are being lead through a house via image mapping techniques. 

[photogstudy4lyf-blog]

Week 9 inspiration/ thoughts

Tom Hancock's Idle Self Instead of journeying through a house the viewer looks into the person’s identity by clicking on individual parts of the body.

This could be a more effective way to present my images rather than using GIFs. It will allow viewers to gaze at each style for however long they like, and they have the freedom to choose which style they want to look at first and which twin they compare to the other. 

[photogstudy4lyf-blog]

Week 9- readings

'Photographers & Copyright in the digital age' Books & Arts Daily, Radio National, 9 October 2012http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/booksandartsdaily/photographers-and-copyright/4302514

Sadly there is a compromise for showcasing art on the Internet; it means that anyone can view it and anyone can easily copy it without acknowledging the original artist. It is hard for artists to monitor their work and protect their copyright claim. 

[photogstudy4lyf-blog]

Reflective Statement- About Face

“What counts as human in this post human world? How do we rethink the unity of the human subject without reference to humanistic beliefs, without dualistic oppositions, linking instead body and mind in a new flux of self? What is the view of the self that is operational in the world of the “informatics of domination”?”

            -Braidotti cited in Toffoletti K 2007, Cyborgs and Barbie dolls: feminism, popular culture and the posthuman body, I.B. Tauris, London, p. 3-4

In this technological age where our identities are hand-crafted artworks presented through social media websites on the Internet, it is becoming more and more difficult to define ourselves without incorporating our ‘second selves’. These two worlds are increasingly intertwined and people have begun to lose touch of reality. We now struggle to talk about self as a coherent entity, instead feeling a constant tension between our human self and technological self that prevents our sense of being from developing naturally (Toffoletti 2007, p.4).

                    With so much technology embedded in our lives we are slowing becoming a nation of cyborgs. A cyborg is traditionally defined as an organism “to which exogenous components have been added for the purpose of adapting to new environments.” (Case 2010) Through this meaning we understand technology in the past has allowed us to explore environments that we otherwise couldn’t, but presently we are growing into technology and using it to define ourselves. As a result the word cyborg is now “a commonplace term to describe the (con)fusion between the human and the machine (Toffoletti 2007, p.2). With photo editing programs such as Photoshop this distinction can become seamless. The real and the virtual are blended together and the viewer is left with knowledge about its unauthentic state. Knowing these techniques though, an individual will have doubt in the back of their mind about which particular aspects are actually part of their identity. Over time we have lost the clear distinction “between what is real and what is virtual, where the body ends and the technology begins” (Toffoletti 2007, p.2)

                    Social media has become a new means of connecting with others that essentially allows us to trick them into thinking we are something we are not. Our individual qualities can be accentuated or diminished depending on how we choose to represent our ‘second self’. Without being compared too closely to our real identity we can utilize a meticulous process to control our representation with these unbiased and empowering techniques. (White 2009, p. 606) This can become necessary in order to conform to social norms. After all, we are products of society and are continuously striving to fit into society’s confined cube.  The image we are trying to mould is evolving with technology and perfection is a never-ending struggle.

                    My self-portrait was edited with an aim to create an idealized version of myself. That is how I think I look normally; with my eyebrows perfectly aligned and my eyelid perfectly opened. I do in fact realise my facial expressions are not necessarily controllable and my face will therefore not be set how I want it to be 24/7. Without being able to look at my self in the mirror at every second of the day it is a lot easier for me to say ‘oh yeah, that’s my natural face’, but for others looking at my portrait they notice the seemingly insignificant changes I have made and it tends to freak them out. After assessing it through the eyes of others I look at the finished product and discover a trance-like expression that blocks out any insight into my personality. And as on my other portrait all the lines from his face has been removed, and with them the signs of laughter and curiosity and life‘s experiences have been washed away. He has been wiped of emotion, turned almost zombie like, but nonetheless the final product would still seem ‘natural’ to anyone who does not know him. Therefore I was successful in making subtle changes that are only significant to me.

  References: Case, A 2011, 'We are all cyborgs now' TED Talk, retrieved January 9th 2014, <http://www.ted.com/talks/amber_case_we_are_all_cyborgs_now.html

Toffoletti, K 2007, 'Introduction', Cyborgs and Barbie Dolls: feminism, popular culture and the posthuman body, IB Taurus, London, pp.1-8, retrieved January 3rd 2014, <http://encore.deakin.edu.au/iii/encore/record/C__Rb2292719

White, M 2009, 'Networked Bodies and Extended Corporealities' Feminist Studies, Vol.35, Iss.3 Fall, retrieved January 3rd 2014, <http://ezproxy.deakin.edu.au/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=47191498&site=ehost-live&scope=site

[photogstudy4lyf-blog]

Emergency Interpolation

After completing the editing process for my About Face assignments, cropping them and starting the last step of sizing them I encountered a problem… 

As I had cropped a large amount of the image (and therefore a large amount of the pixels) I had lost the high quality that my original captures possessed in CR2 (Canon's raw file) format. 

So that when I tried to size the image to A3 I could only get a very low ppi, resulting in an inadequate sizing. This meant that all my hard work during the retouching process (using undestructive editing techniques) had gone to waste. 

In order to compensate this mistake I needed to cheat and create 'fake' pixels: Set the image size to the correct size (it will lose quality because pixels have been lost), but you can compromise by unchecking 'resample' and manually increase the resolution (240ppi or 360ppi). Probably best to keep it low though because the pixels aren't real.

[photogstudy4lyf-blog]

As part of my Identity Online assignment I wanted to make a header image of my twin sister and I. I thought it would be a good way to show us in similar outfits side-by-side, but also allow our individuality to shine through. 

From first glance we don't look very similar at all, and when most people meet us for the first time they find it hard to recognise the fact we are even twins. 

I thought the process of making a panorama would be simple, using the Photostitch program to simply have the photos arranged into a panorama for me. This theory turned out incorrect. Photostitch did not recognise that the images were similar and overlap them automatically, and instead just put each frame side by side (which meant the image contained three separate trees and stretched longer than I needed it to). 

I decide that I would need to use Photoshop in order to have the freedom of getting it perfectly presented. This was a bit challenging as some of the images were different sizes and angled differently. But with the help of layer masks I blended all five photos into a seamless panorama! 

[photogstudy4lyf-blog]

Proposal- Identity Online

As social creatures we have expanded our social needs to fit this technological age, and are now satisfied by a conversation or interaction that takes place through a device even if we cannot see the person physically. The internet has thrived off “the desire felt by a multitude of users to be part of social networks, to share and make public their interests, to dialogue, to communicate with others, to express themselves publicly, to feel useful, and to cooperate.” (Prada 2009, p.1). Within this broad online world I want to focus on an individual’s need to express themselves publicly and in doing so, establishing their own identity built exactly how they like it. Social media profiles allow for a presentation of self within a controlled environment. Certain aspects of our lives can then be hidden while highlighting what we feel are the central ingredients to a ‘good’ life.

            I’ve always found it interesting how a single individual can have an array of styles that they dress up as. It often seems to match their mood and is seen as an extension of their personality. Each day they make a conscious decision to present themselves in a certain way. They choose a style, and go out into the world showing this particular ‘self’. When we share images of our daily outfits our desire to impress other people is multiplied, it may become important to plan each outfit in order to meticulously control how we present ourselves. We are living in a different world when we access the internet, and that’s why it could be defined as a ‘cyberculture’. This refers to “ways of life in cyberspace, or ways of life shaped by cyberspace, where cyberspace is a matrix of embedded practices and representations” (Bell 2007, p.5) and our lives begin to revolve around our interaction with the internet.

            I wanted to address the myth that twins are very similar by displaying the stark differences between my twin sister and I. The internet has been used as a means to create identities that do not necessarily include each other and in that sense allow us a little more freedom to be ourselves. A side-by-side comparison would highlight our different personalities that are expressed through our individual dress style. Showcasing these images of a multitude of outfits on a website allows for the audience to interact with each individual style at their own leisure. They would be able to mix and match the outfits by simply changing to the next one with the click of a button. The images would flip through to different outfits and in turn different representations of self. One technique I could utilise would be a ‘glitch’ taking place during the transition from one outfit to the next. This could appropriately symbolise a jump in style, showing a single person’s identity as something that is merely broken down into images. Or for a smoother transition between images a flipping motion could be used to create a modern version of a traditional flip-book displaying a person divided into the three sections of their outfit.

The inspiration for this project came from Kevin Meredith’s ‘Fragmented Portraits’ series.  Kevin shoots for Source Magazine, as well as doing family and wedding portraits. His work for Source is aimed to showcase the street style of individuals walking around Brighton. Each portrait is made up of 5 shots taken on a film camera, then they are arranged using Lightroom and Photoshop. His style of portraiture is a mash of both analogue and digital photography, though once he uploads it to his website it is viewed in a very modern context.

  Bibliography:

Bell, D 2007, ‘Why Cyberculture?’ in Cyberculture theorists : Manuel Castells and Donna Haraway, Routledg <http://reader.eblib.com.au.ezproxy-f.deakin.edu.au/(S(ftllfwfggqm2kok0j3mydvd1))/Reader.aspx ?p=356004&o=154&u=GPIwEjgV9b5Mp2OyUEEEoQ%3d%3d&t=1389817576&h=941DC0FBDCED8282DF579E53BFAD1BE9CE63971D&s=10998949&ut=484&pg=16&r=img&c=-1&pat=n >

Downy, ‘The Fashion Spot’, 12th January 2014, <http://demo.assets.thefashionspot.com/__usa/downy_coco/hub/buildout/r01b01/>

Meredith, K, ‘Fragmented Portraits’, 13th December 2013, <http://fragmentedportraits.tumblr.com/>

Prada, JM 2009, ‘Web 2.0’, The Fibreculture Journal, Issue 14, 12th January 2014, <http://fourteen.fibreculturejournal.org/fcj-098-web-2-0-as-a-new-context-for-artistic-practices/ >

[photogstudy4lyf-blog]

Week 8- reflections

I think its fascinating how our lives have changed now that we utilise technology every day. We don't require the same 'people skills' now that majority of our interactions take place via the Internet. We can plan our conversations and connect with people on the other side of the world so much easier. 

But this can be dangerous thing for the younger generation. They have access to strangers through their computer screens and because it is not face-to-face there seems to be no caution. People are often distracted by their technological devices and therefore have a shorter attention span than before. 

Some positives that have come out of technology is that on the Internet artists can develop a wider audience a lot quicker. The travel time of images, stories, etc means that with the click of a button it can be transferred to the other side of the world and becoming a trending topic within less than 24 hours. It is a very powerful platform for people to have their voices heard and recognised, and when it is being used for as a positive influence it can be life changing. 

[photogstudy4lyf-blog]

Vilém Flusser - 1988 interview about technical revolution

An interesting interview explaining the effects technology are having on humans. 

[photogstudy4lyf-blog]

Week 7- readings

White, M 2009, 'Networked Bodies and Extended Corporealities' Feminist Studies, Vol.35, Iss.3 Fall. http://ezproxy.deakin.edu.au/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=47191498&site=ehost-live&scope=site

The term 'new media' is used because it references an array of digital technologies and related practices. It also supports wide-sweeping claims about objects and processes and distinguishes these sites from earlier tendencies. 

Using specific strategies, these authors (Kozel, Munster, Wegenstein, Toffoletti) provide critical methods for considering how bodies and embodiment are connected to, changed by, and elided through Internet and computer technologies. 

Bell, D 2007, ‘Why Cyberculture?’ in Cyberculture theorists : Manuel Castells and Donna Haraway, Routledg http://ezproxy.deakin.edu.au/login?url=http://deakin.eblib.com.au/patron/Read.aspx?p=356004&pg=16

Combining all kinds of things together in cyberspace leaves us with an extensive list; not just computers and software, but also digital devices such as MP3 players, or BlackBerrys, or new medical imaging technologies, cyberpets, digital animations and simulations of all kinds. But cyberspace also exists in the imagination, in fiction, in the stories we tell ourselves about this world. 

"Cyberspace. A consensual hallucination experienced daily by millions of legitimate operators… A graphical representation of data abstracted from the banks of every computer in the human system. Unthinkable complexity. Lines of light ranged in the non space of the mind, clusters and constellations of data. Like city lights, receding." (Gibson 1984; 67)

Cyberculture is a way of thinking about how people and digital technologies interact, how we live together- so the suffix 'culture' is used to talk of ways of life. Culture can also be defined as 'a network of embedded practices and representations (texts, images, talk, codes of behaviour, and the narrative structures organising these) that shapes every aspect of social life'.  Cyberculture therefore refers here to ways of life in cyberspace, or ways of life shaped by cyberspace, where cyberspace is a matrix of embedded practices and representations. 

[photogstudy4lyf-blog]

Important Tip

A GIF won't play if it is too big. It will only work if the file size is less than the width of the layout.