The theme ‘Human:Nature’ is something that can be decoded on many levels. In my perspective, I am finding the missing ‘link’ or the relationship between the two entities (Human & Nature). Upon much brainstorming, I find that Human->Nature is a process that is happening every day. It is a process in my understanding, how a human (soul) goes through change that grants its classification from being part of the Human race into another classification group of Nature. This thought is heavily influenced by Animism;a philosophical, religious or spiritual idea that souls or spirits exist not only in humans but also in other animals, plants, rocks, natural phenomena such as thunder, geographic features such as mountains or rivers,or other entities of the natural environment.
In the transitional phase when a soul leaves its human physical form for the Nature space is the relationship I found in the theme “Human:Nature” and I define the “:” as Death. Not only in Animistic beliefs, but most religion do believe in the Human soul, surviving the physical human death and enters the spiritual realm.
In this assignment, we are to capture emotions... without the use of a living object.
Here are my submissions. I always love Gummy bears and when i was young, i always thought they are actually real bears. Thanks to the Gummy Bear cartoons on TCS 5 back then.
Intimidated
Mourn
Lonely
It's amazing how simply playing with the placement of an object brings a different meaning..
It is interesting to notice how photography originated and its evolution; inspired from an alternative to painting, the value of an image I shall say, deteriorated. The economics of an image in the past is driven by the demand ofa highly skilled artist, a painter, to duplicate what he sees onto a canvas, or a painting medium. Accuracy is key and that adds value to an artwork.
Countless research had been done to improve the technology to capture light and embed an image to a film. From taking hours to expose for a picture, today films are so sensitive it takes a fraction of a second to expose and an exact duplicate of a scene/object is achieved. In my standards, I see photography as a medium of great respect for its nature in perfection.
It is indeed come to a surprise when this invention of perfection comes to the “wrong” hands in the subculture “Lomography”. The Rules of Lomography follows:
Take your camera everywhere you go.
Use it any time – day and night.
Lomography is not an interference in your life, but part of it.
Try the shot from the hip.
Approach the objects of your Lomographic desire as close as possible.
Don’t think, just shoot.
Be fast.
You don’t have to know beforehand what you captured on film.
Afterwards either.
Don’t worry about any rules.
The technology have become very affordable that a camera is now used more like an accessory, a toy, and lost the deeper meaning of what the technology holds in the past. Rule number 5, 6, 8 and 10 certainly provokes my belief in photography. The purpose of the viewfinder, is to see the object of interest, to frame it nicely, the purpose of choosing the ASA speed, the ability to control aperture and shutter speed gauge one’s understanding of light and a good photographer need to think about his exposure and of course, a film exposed can never be deleted, thus we need to know what we captured on film.
The belief of ‘freedom’ is what defines the Lomography culture. The accidental overexposed photographs, the light leaks from the lower quality toy cameras and blurred image is recovered with the name of art photography. This deviant culture further provokes my strong traditional belief of having a concrete idea and meaning before executing and art work.
Nonetheless, who have the right to define what is right and what is wrong in art. Art is evolving and the value of an art piece is subjected to the audiences’ own standards and perspective of how things should be based on their influences, at that specific time. Cliche as it sounds; the only constant in life, is change.
Ok, following the class discussion, we now have to create a montage of 4 photographs to produce a surrealistic image.
.... and i got this!
Old tyre and Rocks from Punggol Beach, a sunset sky from Pasir Ris and a flying pic of yours truly. I select the rocks with magic wand to make them look like asteroids and meteors. Added motion blur to it to bring out the element of me flying through the rocks. I reversed the picture of the sunset sky and liquified it to make it curved, resembling the curvature of planet Earth. About the tyre... alien spacecraft?
For this week, we are required to portray our understanding on focal length and sensor latitudes. A total of 5 photographs to show:
1) High Key 2) Low Key 3) Zoom shot 4) Perspective 5) Close Up
I find that this week's assignment is rather interesting, especially high key and low key. It is indeed interesting how different exposure levels can create different mood and brings different meaning of the photographs. Both high key and low key too are executed very much on advertisement creatives.
Presenting my pictures for the week:
I am getting good reviews on High Key and Low Key photographs. For my close up of 50cents coin, my peers commented it is much of a macro shot and not a closeup. My zoom shot can be executed better with a tripod. I guess, i have to re-shoot these photographs for the final submission.
Edit:
I find that the 50 cent coin is more of a macro shot than a closeup. Thus here is another photo.
For assignment number two, we are required to present pictures to reflect our understanding of using shutter speed and apertures and how these 2 variables affect Depth of Field and Motion Blur.
I got these pictures this morning, presenting the sleepy Nirej.
