Today was the last day - the deadline. And so, I mostly spent the day carrying on with evaluations and finishing off with my sketchbook. I also had time to create my beard film.
Using Adobe Premier Pro, I grouped all of the footage together and arranged them, as well as adding a floral background with the top layers with an opacity of 55%. The film is of a documentary sort with everyone explaining or telling a story as to why they grew their beard, the film finishes with a poem by Jack Hilditch and the guitar playing of Matt Fair.
Monday, 2 June 2014
Week 10 - 21.5.14
I spent most of the day going through my sketchbook and typing up the missing evaluations that I'd not done yet. I find non-fictional writing hard to do, so this is a very time consuming task.
During lunch, I went back to the printing place and had gotten my prints made, although we did have trouble from a worker when we were there. He said that whoever gave me the quote before was wrong and that it'd cost a lot more that £2.50 per A3 usually, as they usually work for company's and not individuals. After being a nuisance and practically blaming us for his mistake, he let me have my prints at the price that I was quoted. When returning back to college, I had told a lecturer about my situation with lack of money to mount my prints, but she informed me that I could mount the images myself, by first buying the foam board from Jollies art shop, and spray mounting them myself.
Week 10 - 19.5.14
Having had done my research already with the prints, I had planned to go to the Hanley printing place. I had first gone into the Cobra framing workshop to ask if they mounted onto foam board, which they don't, so I'll have to think of an alternate plan for that situation. When going into the printing place, only a couple of the workers were there, the first man directing us to the other who had given us a quote of £5 for two A3 prints, which seems incredibly cheap and ideal, so I plan to go back on Wednesday to do that.
When getting back to college, I printed off the pages of my lookbook to create a mock-up, so that I could look through it in a different perspective and make the appropriate changes. I also got some other students to look through and give me feedback which I intend to use. One point made, is that the humour works, and that there could be more of it throughout, using the same fictional characters from the first page.
Fixing some of the layouts and balancing some of the colours and ratio of images:text, I finished the lookbook and ordered it, with it being due to come during the half term.
When getting back to college, I printed off the pages of my lookbook to create a mock-up, so that I could look through it in a different perspective and make the appropriate changes. I also got some other students to look through and give me feedback which I intend to use. One point made, is that the humour works, and that there could be more of it throughout, using the same fictional characters from the first page.
Fixing some of the layouts and balancing some of the colours and ratio of images:text, I finished the lookbook and ordered it, with it being due to come during the half term.
Week 9 - 14.5.14
I needed to think of a way that I could convey the opinion of many that "beards are for men" in a creative way that I could turn into a print to display at the exhibition. From the question I asked my bearded models, which is 'why' they chose to grow their facial hair, and the ever repeating theme of manliness coming through in most answers, I wanted to be able to put this view across to people who saw the prints, and even pose the question "are you a man?" - i.e. do you have a beard? or does the beard make you a man? - I wanted to be able to provoke thought with my display, not just presenting some pretty pictures.
I thought of a few ways to do this; a compilation of portraits on one print and a compilation of answers on the other, I also thought about having all of the images displayed on a large panoramic print. But then I thought about creating a mosaic. It'd be a way of displaying many images, as well as being able to put them into a bigger picture - both literally and metaphorically.
I had downloaded a piece of software called 'Foto-Mosaik-Edda' which I planned to use to create the mosaic's. The start of this process was to create a database of work - I created a new folder, and inserted all of the images that I wanted to be in the mosaics. I then filled out the crucial information in the software, including the size of the image, the resolution, number of tiles, the maximum number of times a tile may be repeated and of course, the main image that the smaller images will create.
After playing with and testing the software, I started to think about what I wanted the main image to be. I initially thought about using a floral image, to put across the theme that's been running throughout my project, I also tried using a street style image, but neither of these spoke the message well. And then I thought about using portraits. The idea of using portraits, got me back to thinking about how I wanted to look at 'double standards' towards the beginning of my project and how I could possibly still address that now.
I chose images of two different people, with two different belief systems, who still seemed to agree on the idea that 'beards are for men'. I chose profile shots, so that I could have them side by side, looking at each other.
When I first tried this, there seemed to be a consistency issue, in that the first image was a location shot, and the second was shot in a studio, so I removed the background in the first image and turned it black. I then tried to even out the spaces of black on both of the original images, to create balance as well as allowing space for text. When I'd fixed these issues, I ran them through the software and had gotten my results. I then got the images up onto Adobe Photoshop and added the words "Are you a man?", in both English and Arabic, to add to thought provocation.
I thought of a few ways to do this; a compilation of portraits on one print and a compilation of answers on the other, I also thought about having all of the images displayed on a large panoramic print. But then I thought about creating a mosaic. It'd be a way of displaying many images, as well as being able to put them into a bigger picture - both literally and metaphorically.
I had downloaded a piece of software called 'Foto-Mosaik-Edda' which I planned to use to create the mosaic's. The start of this process was to create a database of work - I created a new folder, and inserted all of the images that I wanted to be in the mosaics. I then filled out the crucial information in the software, including the size of the image, the resolution, number of tiles, the maximum number of times a tile may be repeated and of course, the main image that the smaller images will create.
After playing with and testing the software, I started to think about what I wanted the main image to be. I initially thought about using a floral image, to put across the theme that's been running throughout my project, I also tried using a street style image, but neither of these spoke the message well. And then I thought about using portraits. The idea of using portraits, got me back to thinking about how I wanted to look at 'double standards' towards the beginning of my project and how I could possibly still address that now.
I chose images of two different people, with two different belief systems, who still seemed to agree on the idea that 'beards are for men'. I chose profile shots, so that I could have them side by side, looking at each other.
When I first tried this, there seemed to be a consistency issue, in that the first image was a location shot, and the second was shot in a studio, so I removed the background in the first image and turned it black. I then tried to even out the spaces of black on both of the original images, to create balance as well as allowing space for text. When I'd fixed these issues, I ran them through the software and had gotten my results. I then got the images up onto Adobe Photoshop and added the words "Are you a man?", in both English and Arabic, to add to thought provocation.
Week 8 - 8.5.14
I scanned the illustrations from my book, and also all of the answers given in my notebook, as well as some fabric samples that could use for backgrounds. I also started planning a garden shoot - capturing floral images to use for backgrounds also.
Using the layout planner I'd devised in my sketchbook and the example lookbooks I had researched, I started to assemble my book further on cewe, being sure to balance the ratio between text and imagery, using the notebook answers and quotes throughout. I also made sure to involve a lot of illustration, creating another level to the photography based book.
When considering the first page, I initially thought about introducing the book, project and myself. But when thinking about what I could say, It sounded drab and like I was trying too hard. Also, I needed a way to intrigue the reader, not bore them with words. And so then it hit me, comedy! Using humour is an easy way to keep people interested. I didn't think too much about how I would create the humour, I just found myself writing a monologue between to characters. One being a witty young boy, and the other a slightly foolish 'man' without a beard.
Week 8 - 7.5.14
With having my images from Aidan's studio shoot somehow gone, I re-scheduled Aidan's shoot for today. With him being a good friend, it meant that it was easier to organise, and also easier get him to re-do the shoot. Again, the black backdrop hadn't been put up, but that's fine, because I liked the previous outcomes for the high-key shoots, and so I thought I could continue with the high-key in this shoot. Having a full half hour to work with Aidan alone, meant that we could spend more time experimenting with poses and ending with a larger range of photos to choose from. The colours of his t-shirt and eyes worked well in the high-key lighting, giving the images an overall young, pure, fresh look.
Week 8 - 5.5.14
Today is a Thursday, which means that the day started with a life drawing session. Responding to the illustrations in my sketchbook, I decided to use a fine liner and create illustrations of our life model.
I then spent the rest of the afternoon making plans for my lookbook, by researching places that I could get it made. I had been given a resource that had names and web addresses' that I could look into - the one that was recommended for me, was 'blurb.com'.
After trying the software from blurb, I had decided that it wasn't flexible enough in terms of creativity and professionalism. Having had already tried the software from Cewe photoworld prior to this project, I knew that It'd be easier to work with and there were many positive reviews, commenting on the quality of the books, so I chose to start the creation of the lookbook using the cewe software.
I then spent the rest of the afternoon making plans for my lookbook, by researching places that I could get it made. I had been given a resource that had names and web addresses' that I could look into - the one that was recommended for me, was 'blurb.com'.
After trying the software from blurb, I had decided that it wasn't flexible enough in terms of creativity and professionalism. Having had already tried the software from Cewe photoworld prior to this project, I knew that It'd be easier to work with and there were many positive reviews, commenting on the quality of the books, so I chose to start the creation of the lookbook using the cewe software.
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