Hands and an Exquisite Corpse

The hands and Exquisite Corpse was a very stressful yet interesting project that really helped when we began to animate our font poems. For both designs, I was hoping to follow the directions and achieve an almost identical picture of both the hands and the corpse, and I do believe I achieved that. I wanted the corpse to have the right colors, a golden color around the body parts and a blue in the background, and for the hands I wanted a turquoise color and both hands together.

Some decisions I made involved placement of the body parts. The hands were my first project, and successfully placing them on the same photoshop window was hard enough, placement was the least of my worries. The hands are somewhat off centered, but I kept it because I think that it gives it a character and emotion. These two hands could be handshaking, holding hands or high-fiving...and the fact that they aren't perfectly positioned on top of one another makes the viewer question the cause of this hand-to-hand interaction. The corpse was less difficult because I had already gone through the process of the hands. Where I wanted each body part, the size of each body part and the positioning were big decisions that affected the whole work. I decided I would place every body part in it's designated place, but move the arms so it looks like he's in motion.

I found following the directions extremely challenging, because transitioning from the directions to Photoshop was very confusing. There were many steps that if I lost my place in the directions I would ruin the whole work, so backtracking and starting from scratch happened more than once. It was so frustrating that during the first class, I left the room in order to step away and clear my head. After rereading the directions and making sure I covered each and every step, the hands began to come together. Arranging the corpse body parts and then merging them was difficult, especially adding the gold to only the background of the body parts. It was challenging because the whole background would turn gold. As I kept re-reading, however, it became easier and I eventually finished the corpse.

Solving certain problems I encountered was easy, as long as I made sure I covered every part of every step. For example, I could not figure out how to resize the hands so they were the same size, nor could I figure out how to add the second hand into the first hand's window. It took forever, because the directions said to use the "move tool". It wasn't until I found out how to arrange the windows side by side that I successfully transferred the resized image over that I became successful, and this arrange option helped me in my font poem, as well.

I am most proud of the corpse, because it really gave me some trouble. The hands I'm proud of as well because they took me FOREVER to achieve, but the corpse is my favorite because of the two-toned colors and different body parts. I remember looking at the corpse the first day and thinking "I don't know how I'm ever going to do that!" and sooner or later, I got it. I also love how the hands are in the background, because the hands are joining together like the body parts, representing unity. I think it looks great, and sends a message about unity because there are so many different objects that are united.

If I had more time, I probably would have made the edges less harsh and straight. I probably would have blurred the lines, and made them blend more into the background. Although I do like the edges straight because it further demonstrates the difference between the two images and the colors, I would have blurred them somewhat if I had time.

Contact Sheet Finished Product

The contact sheet was a great way to discover the capabilities of Adobe Photoshop and how simple changes can improve, distort or zoom in on everyday photos. I hoped to create every picture with the correct changes, but what I wanted to gain from this contact sheet the most is a grasp on which Photoshop applications change certain aspects of each photo, and that is exactly what I learned. I also learned how many different changes one can make to a photo to severely increase the photos quality, color or size.

One of the biggest decisions that had to be made during this project were the pictures chosen, mainly because this project involved following directions. The photos I decided to choose were picked because of their color and their potential. For example, when working with format/mode, I knew I wanted a photo with many colors, so I chose feathers. However, when I was working with Framing which involved zooming into photos, a picture with more of a landscape worked better. Deciding which picture to use for each Row is extremely important to the outcome of the contact sheet as a whole because each row caters to a specific type of editing. If I used the feathers for the orientation row, it would not have the same drastic effect cropping a portrait from a landscape because the feather photo is already a portrait size.

One of the biggest challenges was cropping each image, and fitting it onto the screen while still maintaining the image's clarity. Many of my previously picked photos, when cropped or zoomed in were unrecognizable because the image became blurry. Although we were taught how to fix the blur to a degree, it took many attempts before finding the correct picture to represent each editing technique. The city landscape in the orientation row 3 took three attempts at finding and cropping pictures before I found one that was not too blurry. The strawberries in the Content row 5 were also extrmely difficult. Although there was a very high clarity when I began to crop the image, zooming into the image of the strawberry to the "abstract" picture made the image somewhat blurry; however, I attempted to fix it using Photoshop capabilities as best I could.

The problems I encountered involved, like I said before, finding correct images and once found, making sure that they remained clear. This project was about editing images and using Photoshop tools, so to solve some of my issues, I used other Photoshop tricks to help the amount of blur in each photo.

I am most proud of the fact that each picture I picked was completely independent from one another, and they all demonstrate the editing abilities they are supposed to. My favorite row, the framing row 4 is the one I am most proud of because I successfully zoomed in on an object in the picture that would otherwise be overlooked. The ferris wheel in the opposing corner draws the eye, and so the house on the left side of the picture is not even noticed. Zooming in, or "framing" allowed me to examine smaller parts of the picture and make them noticeable, which I think is a really interesting editing tool. I am most proud of learning about and executing that editing ability.

If I had more time to work on this contact sheet, I would most likely attempt to find more pictures that represent myself. I like each picture I chose and they all represent the editing techniques they are supposed to, but if given more time I would have used all images that represent me and my interests in some way.

Font Poem Finished (finally!)

Font Poem Design Rationale

When I first read this quote, I knew I wanted to attempt to configure the words so they would resemble a sailboat. Mark Twain's poem was about dreaming and exploring, which I figured would best be resembled if I took the emotion and concrete imagery from the poem and created an actual image for the reader.

Once I realized that I wanted the words to resemble a sailboat, the main challenge I encountered was how I could possibly accomplish that. Originally created in black and white, the image was hard to decipher as a sailboat: people critiquing my image thought it was too symmetrical and pretty before they realized my intentions when they first saw it. Once I changed the words "explore. dream. discover" from being wavy under the boat to curving out and creating the bottom of the boat, it started to take form. Changing the background from plain Black to a beige flowing into a blue also allowed the words to pop out more, and the image began to come together. The change from beige on top of the image to a blue resembled the sky and water, like the boat was floating on the water. It became more lifelike. Another small change I made was moving the words in the bottom of the boat around so they weren't in a straight line. This was accomplished in an attempt to create a feel of the boat being rocky while it's sailing on the water. Changing the structure, color and placement of the words helped make the image more recognizable.

I am extremely proud of this image, because not only is it a quote that uses different typefaces and colors to convey an image or emotion, but I was able to visually create an image for the reader. Inside the image, I am most proud of the colors used. I was at a complete loss as to how I was going to use colors to demonstrate a boat; I got so frustrated after class that I decided I needed to take a break and come back to the project later. Once I decided that simply using different colored browns to make the bottom of the boat would make certain words stand out and better resemble a sailboat, everything began to come together. Using different swatches, like outlining the words on the sail and making "explore dram discover" under the boat bold, it completely changed the way the poem looked.

If I had more time, I would probably try to make the sail stand out more by playing with the background colors. As much as I like the background, I feel like a warmer top color and different blue would allow the sail to stand out and be a little more recognizable.

Font Poem Revised

Font Poem