Blog posting #6, for week ending 2/26

For this week's blog entry, take a break from generating your own content (!) and:

1. Thoughtfully comment on at two classmate blog entries (1-2 short paragraphs)
2. Comment on a another student's comment. Do you have something to add? Agree? Disagree?

Digital Photographic Montage

Due Dates:

3/1 -- three strong comps due for initial critique and discussion. The best idea gets developed into final piece.

3/8 File due, if Chris will run print for you.

3/10 Final image (print and layered photoshop file) due

Using photoshop as your platform, create an effective work of digital art that combines scanned and photographic elements in a compelling fashion. It should work as a coherent design. Whether abstract, figurative or conceptual (or all of the above !), it should be meaningful and convincing. Try to gain visual appeal through the effect of blending your layers together. The results will look much more original. Refer to work by various artists for inspiration.

Criteria:

At least 11 x 14, 300-360 dpi.

File must make use of:

1. At least one scanned element (scanned objects, textures, or artworks).
2. At least two photographic elements.
3. Some sort of visual idea or concept to hold the piece together
4. Required skills (as covered in class):

• Good input (appropriate scanning techniques, strong imagery, etc.)
• Multiple layers with varied levels of opacity
• Masking with layer masks
• Use of blending modes
• Advanced blending
• Fill layers (solid color, gradient, pattern, etc.)

Suggestions for "Place"

Check out the multitudes of landscape photographers, also:

Hiroshi Sugimoto (especially his diorama photographs)

Craig Kalpakjian

Julia Scher

Joel Meyerowitz

Joel Sternfeld

Richard Misrach

Jitka Hanzlova

Doug Aitken

Uta Barth

Andreas Gursky

Justine Kurland

Suggestions for Time presentation artists

The artists for time may deal directly with time, or things like duration, deja vu, altered time, cultural ideas of time, or related themes such as "the past" or "history" or "memory".

Photographers / artists that deal with sequence over time, such as Eadweard Muybridge (old), Harold Edgerton (stop motion, also old), Duane Michals (events over time), Sam Taylor Wood (time lapse still life series), Bill Viola (Video), David Hockney (specifically his multiple Polaroid images of human interactions, such as his "The Scrabble Game"), Douglas Gordon (Video), Shimon Attie, (photo, video projections on Berlin's former Jewish Quarter commemorating the past). This should get you started. Also, browse through the photo blogs from this page.

The Photo Extended

Due Dates

2/8 Initial shooting due (discussion in class)
2/17 Final piece(s) due, printed with associated PSD files

Create a group of diptychs, triptychs, or extended grid(s) that covey meaning beyond the individual photograph.

The images should function within a theme or concept.

The images should creatively explore how multiple photographic images working together in a group can expand/contradict/confound/provoke what we might normally expect from our experience or of a singular image.

While the concept is wide open, it will be helpful to work from your own personal experience, interests or expertise. Also, review the links to artists presented in class.

Some ideas:

• Consider conveying non-literal notions, such as memories, perceptions, symbols, or dreams
• Consider creating a typology or classification system of your own invention and explore its visual (or other) implications.
• Take an existing classification system and subvert it. For example, create images that undermine common stereotypes or attitudes
• Create a linear or non-linear narrative

For whatever approach you take, try to push beyond the “one-liner” or the trite, and create something you can really stand behind. Get started early and work through several possibilities before committing to your final direction.