my lost thoughts @sxpernovasblog - Tumblr Blog

pre-reg

i've still gotta catch up on a lot of stuff, but i do have a new idea. i wanna do something with masking and cloning to represent imposter syndrome + a really far away shot in a very empty environment to represent isolation. i've still got some details to work out but that's what i'm kicking around.

this week, i don’t have any new ideas. i’m gonna try and complete my previous few ideas fo catch up.

floating away

this is kinda still a work in progress but i’m gonna submit it for now. concept is the idea of drowning in one’s thoughts, etc. so i took it literally and took some photos in the bath then overlayed the sky over the water to kinda convey the idea of being ‘lost’ in thought. the multiple face overlays are supposed to be like hyperactivity in thought and the multiple things running through my brain all at once. i’m messing around with colors still and i feel like the composite is messy but yeah this is what i’ve got for this week.

pre-reg

next week i’m planning on doing something with the idea of tunnel vision (hyperfixations). i’m heading out this weekend and exploring around the city, so i’m thinking of overlaying a portrait of me sat at a computer or something and then blending the background so that the tunnel points all at my computer. it’s a rough idea but it’s what i’ve got kicking around in my head rn.

racing

this photograph was basically based on the idea of visually representing a panic attack. i used an image of a busy street to convey the feeling of a racing heart and how everything inside my body may feel moving super quickly and all over the place but how my physical surroundings feel dulled out and still in comparison to myself. i’m continuing to try and use colors to represent that, only colorizing the parts of the photo that convey the emotion i wanna get across.

this coming week i wanna deal with the idea of codependency but i’m not quite sure how. i know i wanna do something with the idea of wilting, so i might do some flowers, but i wanna try a new form of compositing. instead of overlaying, i kinda wanna try like masking out my head and replacing it with a wilting flower entirely, but i’mma keep sketching and thinking over the weekend.

frozen

hi! okay so this was basically to represent depression! it often feels like i'm frozen in bed and unable to get my body moving no matter how much i want it to. i composited a snowy landscape i'd taken a while back over my body and blanket to represent this! i also played around w purposely letting the masking leak around a bit to make it almost seem like light was being given off and i experimented more w blending modes this time around. next week i wanna play with light painting in the portrait.

originally my plan for this week was to do the cars + panic attacks project i mentioned last time, but it just didn't work out so i switched to this intead. i'll be returning to that again next week and hopefully getting it done!

head in the clouds

this is the first of my sustained investigation series into mental health. i originally was planning to do something with motion blur to represent a panic attack, but i kind of switched the concept to representing how it feels to disassociate and to not be able to focus in on a conversation. with mental illness and neurodivergence, following conversations can be super difficult, and even staying in reality can be hard. i decided to do a piece that showed that 'head in the clouds' idea in a literal way. i outlined the glasses with a glow in the dark effect to maintain some of the shapes on my face instead of just having it be sky, then masked over my features with a shot i took of the clouds to represent my mind being in a place far away from the conversation i might be having at that time.

next week, i'm planning on revisiting my original plan with motion blur and focusing in on another symptom. i wanna do a picture of either my hand shaking, or a picture of my body and then mask out my heart/chest with a photo of cars racing by. i think i'm gonna commit to this motif of combining landscapes with bodies to represent the feelings that come to me with my mental illnesses.

sustained investigation - pre-reg

a double exposure photo where the outline of my body is solid but the inside is filled with motion blur.

i wanna try and see what i can do with making things glow. we learned it a while ago back in class but i haven’t gotten around to trying it! either that or doing way more color grading using palettes, etc.

the idea conveys the idea for my project by representing how my panic attacks feel, which plays into the larger idea of the project being based in mental health and its symptoms.

sustained investigation idea

 i want to do a project that visually represents the symptoms of mental illnesses and the experience of living with them through surreal portraits and multiple exposure composites to represent the multifaceted and oftentimes messy/confusing nature of living with a mental illness.

i’m having a bit of worry about how to keep consistency in this project. i wanna expand out and represent mental illness in a variety of ways through a ton of different design choices in all honesty, but i’m having trouble figuring out how to tie it all together. i’m thinking maybe a color scheme choice could help, but that’s the main problem i’m having.

this article does a great job of showing what i want to do, and the focus on human subjects and using space to represent loneliness or wrapping up the subject to represent a feeling of being trapped are definitely great ideas that i can take inspiration from.

this article shows a ton of cool photos with surrealism and outlandish editing to represent how mental illness (in this case, depression) makes you feel like you’re ‘losing your mind’ in some literal ways. i really want to dive into some surrealism in this project, it’s something i’ve been lacking and want to experiment with.

this article does a great job of setting some examples up too, specifically i’m really in love with arielle willis’ decision to keep her colors bright and shining despite the tough subject matter. i think i want to keep my color palette bright too, with really strong, distinct colors for each photo.

this project is something i’m trying to achieve with this project too, to show that people of color struggle with mental illness too. i found myself frustrated trying to find examples because it was only white people being represented when it came to struggles with mental health. their struggles are important and shouldn’t be minimized, but we deserve representation too, and mental illnesses manifest differently for us due to the racialized environments many of us grew up in.

some ideas i have for this project so far mainly surround my experiences with adhd, anxiety and depression.

one idea i have is a vertical photo of me in bed, bu i want to edit it to make it as though i’m sinking deep into it. it’s hard to get up out of bed a lot of the times, and that’s one concept i’m kicking around right now.

another one i have would be a multiple exposure composite, also vertical, but it’d basically be my face from around the chest up but then i’d go in and mask out everything inside, so that it’d just be the outline of my body. i wanna go back in and fill in my body with a collection of motion blur pics. for me, panic attacks feel like i’m stable and fine on the outside but everything inside my body is running around at like 500 mph.

with representing executive dysfunction and adhd, i wanna do something landscape with this effect but have it be between me in bed and an overlayed photo of me trying to get out of bed. executive dysfunction makes doing anything feel like a challenge that requires 9879328749274289 steps that’s way harder than it actually should be.

i wanna do another vertical shot showing my door. i have trauma related to locking my door, and so i was thinking of taking a photo of my door slightly open with red light washing in. this idea isn’t super complex, but i want the aura to be super eery and off-putting and the mood would be set through color grading and contrast with the light leaking in through the door. the focus would be on the door, but i want to do a slow shutter speed so that my shaky hand would be visible, blurry but visibly shaking surrounded by motion blur as the door opens (alternatively, maybe a really threatening looming shadow in the crack of light coming in through the door?).

i wanna do another vertical portrait where there’s a clear version of me standing still and in focus, and then overlaying multiple long exposure shots of me moving my head around, effectively surrounding me in a hazy fog of my own movement. i wanna do a lot of focus around my head since these are mental illnesses, and to represent the idea of feeling like i’m ‘out of my mind’ very literally.

motion x quarantine

last project was my anxiety composite which was a fun expressive project, an energy that i wanted to continue in this week’s focus is on motion. this week’s was motion, and i was asking myself how to represent a certain emotion or experience through the motion i use? my premise was to represent the repetitive motions i’ve been going through during quarantine, using black & white to represent the lack of color or vibrance in these times.

anxiety

multiple composites

previous project was an exhibition based on color, which challenged me to find ways to draw color from colorless environments. this week, using multiple self-portraits, some still and some with motion blur as well as coloring overlays, i wanted to create a hockney composite that represents what my anxiety disorder feels like in a photo. how can i represent an experience that's both emotional and physical as well as complex in a photograph? i decided to essentially composite together a representation of all of my physical symptoms and the final product is purposefully messy and all over the place and a bit hard to follow because that's how panic attacks for me feel. they're fast and hard hitting, and then they're gone the next minute with no explanation. i feel trapped for the few minutes they last, my brain is running at 100mph, and i'm trying to break my body out of it and to show this, there are a few images that are repeats with variations in motion to reinforce those specific symptoms. in addition, the focus is very poor on some photos and sharper on others, to also reinforce and emphasize the messiness and lack of cohesion between the photos in this hockney.

i'm torn on how to feel about this, half of me is proud of the project, the other half of me isn't thrilled. regardless, it felt good to be able to put my experience with anxiety into a project.

sample image

reference

next week i’m doing a focus on motion! i think i’m gonna photograph myself in my room with motion blur/composites to represent mundane motions and a lack of effort/excitement during this pandemic.

link to my flickr!

a colorful arizona

jonathan phan ‘22

The idea of this project is to emphasize color in Arizona through landscapes and still lifes, specifically finding vibrant examples colors in city environments. Additionally, I want each photo to have a distinct mood, one created by the editing and color grading. By blending skyscrapers with multi-colored skies and contrasting bright neon lights against dark night skies, this project’s purpose is to saturate the urbanized desert that these photos were taken in. In some cases, this’ll be done through highlighting what was already there while in other cases, the sky may turn pink in order to add a whimsical element to the piece. All of these pieces will have editing meant to center the focus of the photo on the primary color being shown, and this’ll be done primarily through hue/saturation shifts, selective coloring and contrast. The subject matter will primarily be landscapes and as a result people will serve as a background element at most, the purpose here is to immerse the viewer into the environment they’re being presented with, not necessarily the lives/emotions of the people in that photo. Surrounded by nothing but grey cement buildings, dirt and cacti had me thinking for a long time that there wasn’t much to capture in our state, but the more I explore the more I’m surprised by the variety that Arizona provides. I want to get more comfortable with creative edits as well as push myself to reframe how I see my surroundings to better capitalize off of the opportunities constantly around me.

next project: multiple exposure composite

using multiple self-portraits, some still and some with motion blur, i want to create a hockney composite that represents what my anxiety disorder feels like in a photo.

diptychs

this project's goal was to capture different angles/aspects of the same subject using diptychs. i wanted to emphasize and play with colors in all three pieces, and i asked myself, "how can i take different angles/perspectives of the same thing and make both photos distinct to tell a story while still ensuring they belong together?" the previous projects have all been based singular photos, and diptychs pose a new challenge by requiring 2 combined. these came easily to me, and i knew from the start that i wanted to contrast closer shots with wider ones, with one being vertical and the other being landscape. once i got outside, i just looked for subjects that i thought could be followed up on in interesting ways.

inspirations/references:

1, 2, 3

here’s my flickr!

portraits

the previous project was a really fun exercise on how to pull color out of environments that normally don't have a lot of it in them, and it forced me to get creative with my surroundings in order to emphasize color.

my question for this project: how do i get interesting expressions and lighting without studio lights or natural light to rely on?

for this project, my process was simply directing my family members to make certain expressions or catching candids of them, and my only material was my camera! i'm not sure if my hallway lights count.

this project was a dive into portraits and for me it was a challenge to figure out how to utilize lighting sources within my house to create interesting shadows and good lighting (these photos were all shot at night too, so working around ISO and shutter speed was quite an experience too).

this is a sample photo i took to just start playing with lighting and getting some fun emotive expressions in the portrait!

here are some references that helped inspire me!

1, 2, 3, 4, 5

here’s my flickr!

next project:

diptychs using contrasting wide shots and close-ups to show the different aspects of a subject.

urban color photography

urban still lifes: color emphasis

this project was emphasizing color through contrast and selective coloring in urban still lifes. the question that i was faced with was “how do i find and highlight color in settings that are often filled with repetitively grey concrete buildings?” i found that my answer came in neon lights and night photography. link to my flickr album for the colors assignment!

examples/references: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

next project: portraits

 i’m planning on doing portraits playing with lights and shadows to create high contrast highlighting human emotions.

project concept

My project will be emphasizing color through urban still lifes using selective coloring/contrast.

30 Days Finale

30 Days: Finale (25-30)

it’s over! it’s finally over! i loved this project but PHEW the relief i feel now that it is done is palpable. i wanna take some time and reflect on this past month and what it’s been like to take one photo every day.

Reflections + Thoughts

It’s honestly hard to find motivation and inspiration to take a photo every single day, and this project reminded me of that lack of drive every day.

I’ve been out of touch with photography for a while now, and it’s been so nice to get familiar with my camera again and I’ve gotten some phenomenal shots out of this project

...as well as some not-so-good ones.

The editing on the proportion one in particular is... I don’t want to talk about it.

On some days we had simple, easy prompts and I could fulfill the requirement pretty easily, on tougher ones like figure/ground I was struggling to find a way to represent silhouettes without a studio for instance.

This entire endeavor has forced me to become creative and resourceful, using what I have to create clean white backgrounds or dramatic lighting, etc. I’ve also become WAY too familiar with night photography now, as that was often the only time of day I had to take photos.

My understanding of the principles of design has been strengthened by all of this too, I have a much better understanding of Unity/Variety, Patterns, Contrast, Rhythm, Balance, Emphasis, Movement, Figure/Ground Relationships and Proportion/Scale than I did going into this. I feel like I have more tools to utilize for my own personal projects which leads me into... what’s next?

I’m excited for upcoming collaborations with other Design branches as well as committing to building out my own creative journeys as well. I want to explore more surrealism and out of this world editing, Kanghee Kim’s style has never left my mind since I was shown her photography. I want to get back into doing portraits and self-portraits and to just explore my creative limits equipped with the knowledge I’ve gained from this project. While I’m done with 30 days I’ve still got a lot to learn and I’m excited to see what work I can create in the future.

link to my flickr!

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