Week 5: Mini Art School #3

Required exercise from p. 193

I will start by showing an uncropped image:

1. Here, a friend of mine is standing on a bridge that appears to have been damaged by a flood. ( I would not have walked out there...)  With a little bit of cropping, it only seems like the picture was taken at a funny angle, and you lose the sense of danger from the original picture.

2. The cropped image below shows a bluebird. Admittedly, I think this is a cool bird to see, but nothing special. 

 The image is a lot more interesting when you see it cropped like this...

...because now you get to see that he (I think) has a friend. Where the first image puts a bird right on a gridline, it loses a lot of what makes it more unique.

 

 

3. Here is another image that after cropped, you have no idea what anyone would take a picture of this. But again, when restored to the full size...

 

...you see that it was actually a small island in the middle of a lake.

 

4. This one starts off with a cropped image of what may seem like a harmless bug:

 



Ok, so as long as you run into her while outside, its no big deal. However, add back in the rest of the background and you get a better idea of where this harmless creature was...

 

 ... in my bathroom. (it was under construction at the time)  Oh, and without the rest of the image, you can't really tell how big or small it was. Those are 4 inch tiles...

5. Next we have a picture of my wife, taking a break from a bike ride by sitting on a log.

Not that there is anything wrong  with a picture that focuses on her, but this is not really anything special. (I am referring to the picture, not my wife) Although the original may not be as much of a portrait of her...

...by focusing only on her you miss the fact that this small downed tree is hanging over a lake.  Again, I would not have sat on it.

 

6. So for my last one, I will start with an un-cropped panoramic photo my wife took while hiking in Vermont.

 

 

 

If you have ever tried to take a picture using the panoramic setting, you know how difficult it can be to get one that doesn't look choppy. With a little bit of cropping and playing with effects...

 

 

... I can make it look like she was hiking on the surface of Mars.

 

Reflections:

By simply changing what is included or excluded in a picture, you can completely change its meaning and focus. I know that I have often broken rules about where the focus of a picture should appear by trying to include extra background in order to put the focal point into better perspective with its environment.

 

Part 2: Border Variations, p.197

I want to start by briefly explaining the picture I am using. My wife and I were visiting the Camden Aquarium, where they have a glass tunnel that goes through a huge tank filled with sharks. Because of that it kind of looks like we are under water. Also, just to explain the forced look of happiness, it took her several attempts before she got one she liked. Anyway, here is the image with a few different borders:

 I don't feel that this border is to distracting, but I also don't think it serves much purpose other than separating the picture from the background of the webpage.

This one is not too distracting either, although a little less plain than the previous one. I do like how this one makes the picture to appear to be somewhat blending in with the background.

I don't really like this one. First, I don't think it make sense to have a "wood" frame around a water themed picture. Also, I feel like the brown is such a big contrast to the cooler, light colors of the picture that it becomes too distracting.

Both this one and the next one are based off of the same them, with two different colors on the outside of the stamp-looking edge. Even though the top one uses colors close to our skin tones, it simply looks funny to me. However, when that peach color is replaced with a baby blue...

...I feel it better matches the theme of the picture instead of clashing with it.

Finally, where this is the busiest border of all of the ones I chose, I feel that the sea-shells are subtle enough to not draw attention away from the actual picture, but at the same time work as more than a divider between the image and page background.

 

Part #3: Color Echo, p. 219

I started with a picture of my wife at the top of a mountain.

The top, left image is the original. Added a short caption to describe the feeling of accomplishment portrayed in the picture, as well as an up arrow, because...well... it was pretty high up. Using the dropper in Microsoft Paint, I first tried to grab a green from the grass. This took a few attempts because of the fact that although it all appears green, there are so many pixels that make up that part of the picture that are actually black or other color. Where I felt having the caption in green did not seem to take anything away from the rest of the image, it simply did not seem to fit the idea I was trying to convey. Next, I tried the using a grey from the rocks, but it seemed to get lost in the sky. Where I could have avoided this by putting the caption somewhere else, it just did not make sense to put it at the bottom, or cover the focal point of the image (my wife, of course). The last one, where I took the orange from her shirt is the one I like the best. First, I feel that it helps the caption stand out; which makes it feel more exclamatory. Second, I think that it helps to better clarify that the focus of the image is the hiker, not the background. Even though the orange represents only a small part of the colors that appear in the image, by adding the caption in that same color it seems to be the best fit.