DEM art&design

photography mushroom edits

Before and After edits

crop, levels, colour and light.

crop, filter(transfer), light and levels

I did like just the original photo below, but I have found that I need to consider the final image more with regards to things that will be in the final shot.

Here I just squared the image and I do prefer this to the zoomed in cropped one above

Here I lighten and cropped the image

I do like this one below as it is. Unedited

unedited

Next I wanted to try and get a close up detail of the underneath gills. I think using the black and white filter gives you a greater detail than the original. I also flipped this one below

I did try to find out on another mushroom if this would be the case also

The black and white gives I feel a softer natural feel to the mushroom. motherly and fragile. Also adds depth to the image.

Here I cropped and enhance the colour. Again I used the transfer filter. This has help to make the image jump out at you more

Below I took the image and tried to blur the background. However the editing I think takes away from the image and I prefer the first one. I like the fact you can see my legs. I think it helps take your eye up to the mushroom because of the angle it was taken. The other images seems to boxy.

Black and White vs colour Photography

Visualizing

Monochrome - when your thinking back to the age of black and white photography, it gives a sense of time gone by. But it wasn't actually that long ago. Before this digital age photographs were always monochrome. Nowadays with the digital world we have smart phones, technology and cameras capable of capturing colour with great accuracy. I can recalled taking a photo or snap with my phone of a snail, what I didn't bank on was the colour and detail of the tiny stones beside the image. Detail I was unable to see with my eye alone.

I feel that like in life, many things are overlooked or ignored in our modern day quick pace. We don't need to understand how or why things work. We just click away and capture the image without thinking. Many not even considering composition, light, distance, depth, symmetry, exposure time. Like in life, were all on auto. Think of the details we miss. As usual my over-thinking begins to play a part into just how fast paced life is.

For me, I think of black and white photography as a time gone by, a memory and gate way to the past.

If asked now to go out and take a monochrome image of a landscape I bet half, if not more wouldn't know or could consider how colour would translate into a black and white image. Colours like red and green together! these are said to be similar when converted to mono. The shape or form of things can be enhanced and the blocks of light and dark can seem exaggerated. Foreground and background can easily merge together. what does make a good image? I will try this out.

This women below I found in my nanna's box of photographs. I thought it funny how the embroidered top she wears is in fashion. I wondered at the image of how she would have looked today. The colour of her lipstick and her eyes, the detail of her top. If translated into colour could the image be modern. Would this become an image of a girl taken on this very day. Real and less of a time or memory. Will we lose our sense of time because of this colour technology? Does it matter?

Please see link below.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4156812/Brazilian-artists-adds-colour-historic-photographs.html

The Brazilian artist Marina Amaral has used Photoshop to add a new dimension to black-and-white photographs

Fascinating really and while I personally prefer some of the original images, colour does give a sense of real life. It makes the figures real and gives us a different sense of time. Thinking of the images of war, would the photographs of the men that died, give us a greater sense of loss? I believe it would and for that reality alone I think we should consider the importance of photography.

So with all these images the question I ask is what power has photography got?

For me, a creative person, I think that this area has many things such as :

communication
expression
educational
enjoyment
experimentation
inner drive
inspiration
emotion

Also see edward weston post.

Sources

https://pulptastic.com/black-white-color-40-photos-will-change-feel-past/

www.google/images.com

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4156812/Brazilian-artists-adds-colour-historic-photographs.html

printmaking final

This year I have found tough in regards to my personal life.

At the start of this topic I found out I was pregnant, it was a shock and I didn't know what to feel. A mixture of emotions. The decision to keep or abort was something I didn't want to address and while I longed for change in my life, this change was massive. The father wasn't a close relationship and he told me he didn't or wouldn't support me through this. Frightened, alone and unsure the work I was creating became apart of me expressing my situation.

life drawing

To abort - this is one of the hardest things I had to consider. Not only for my myself, but also for my family. Having 3 children already my time is pushed and trying to juggle time for everyone was a struggle already. The fact that I had postnatal depression with my last son made me worry that I would not cope if it happened again. I always said that I would like another little girl, but saying and doing were to different things. Now the saying be careful what you wish for. I think if the father was indeed happy my mind would have been more settled. Instead his words were " I can't believe this happened after JUST SOME SEX" just some sex these words haunted me, how could I have been so naive about what we had!

wear a fucking condom arsehole

paper I made to print on later

Miscarried - A blessing in truth, but a very sore and hurtful one. The bleeding started and I was in a away happy because the decision to keep or abort was looking like it had been made naturally. The loss I was feeling at the same time made me sad. For the 2 weeks I'd known I was pregnant I do believe I'd created some kind of bond and protectiveness over my baby. After two scans it was confirmed that I had indeed lost the baby.

Moving on I kept working on my prints. This time I think a mix of annoyance at the way the man had used me, the way I'd been so fucking stupid to believe we had a connection in the first place and what was I feeling now came out.

I was lying in bed half asleep and I seen on my blind an image of a bull. I couldn't help this was relevant somehow to what I was feeling at the time. Its the first time I've really had a powerful encounter of this kind.

The Minotaur for me was a way of expressing my own feelings of how I felt towards the other partner and also the wish of what I wished I was or could be sometimes. Able to be cruel selfish and powerful. To destroy and take what I wanted without a care for myself or others.

Meaning of minotaur (dream) -

A minotaur in your dream can mean you may be facing more challenges than usual and a trusted friend has no sympathy. They may even be happy at all your misfortune when you pour your heart to them. There also may be someone around you that takes great delight pointing out your mistakes and failings with never a nice word to say. Is this happening to you? This is soul destroying so you may need to weed out those who cause added negativity to your life.

The women I created from my life drawing blind drawings. I liked the strange detailed figures, ugly but somewhat welcoming. I could relate to these figures as I myself felt, ugly sad and drained.

I found myself changing lots of things and I guess I wanted to try and keep the feelings I was having. My work I feel comes from what is happening in my life. But life changes all the time and I guess its hard to keep the same pace with these things.

I wanted my final scene to be dark like the beast coming for the girls. A rape or attack of a dark side of the frustration I was feeling. To take it to another level and far away from the pregnancy stuff. but also the light coming in to protect them. to show the good and evil and the balance the two can have.

I looked at lots of prints and printmakers.

Picasso

Image result for picasso vollard suite prints

Image result for picasso vollard suite prints

Rembrandt

Goya

Emil Nolde

Image result for emil nolde etching sick man

Edvard Munch

Image result for edvard munch etching

So my composition I felt was lacking and I began to add more natural figures of the girls. I did try also with making marks into the ink and printing. I wished I had more time to consider adding trees and depth. scale of the foreground and background as well as the figures.