Digital Photography and Imaging/ Project 1: Physical and Digital Collage

Leong Jia En 0348366 Bachelor of Creative Media Design (Minor)

Digital Photography and Imaging

Project 1

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1. Bezier Game 

During the first week of lessons, we played a game called Bezier. Since I have played this game before in Illustration and Visual Narrative class, it was not very challenging for me and I scored 14 nodes for this game.

2. Pinterest’s Moodboard

https://pin.it/5yybcX1

3. 3 favourite graphic design work from Pinterest

Design #1

https://pin.it/7ArviDB 

This Photoshop was designed by American artist Matt McCarthy. This surreal work shows a giant cat walking in a busy street, creating a strong contrast with the characters and buildings. I love this graphic design work because it is imaginative and shocking.

Design #2

https://pin.it/2snwzZg

The monochromatic color of this design piece is blue, creating a sense of harmony and peace. I love the way author Murat Akyol combines the seaside and the earth and photographs a man walking with a surfboard which makes this work even more vivid and thematic.

Design #3

https://pin.it/bteU1om

Australia-based photography artist Phonsay Phothisomphane creates this unique artwork by using Photoshop to manipulate the road cave which we can normally see as a beautiful and clean island. This work has stimulated my imagination and inspired me to observe and pay more attention to the environment in my daily life.

Instructions

Exercise 1 (a) Physical Collage

In this task, we need to use old magazine, newspapers, poster or printed materials to make a physical collage. As I didn't have a magazine before, I went to Popular and chose Bazaar magazine which I think the material is quite rich. I also prepared white and black background paper to try which fits better.

In the process, I tend to look for elements that fit with retro, zesty and aesthetic themes. I gathered a lot of elements, mostly in green, red or black and white colour.

       

 

(7/9/2022) 

PRE-COMPOSITION #1

(7/9/2022) 

Green With Envy

The phrase Green With Envy is full of desire for someone's possessions or advantages. Dark green is associated with ambition, greed, and jealousy. Followed by the king of the forest, the tiger with innate predatory and superior status also gives full play to the desire for victory and ambition. The bold and dauntless red lip is feminine, yet daring and powerful. Red and green colours create a contrasting effect, while the colourful sunflower also contrasts with other snobbish elements, making the piece richer and less monotonous. The green circle lemon, headline and lipstick are used to make the focal point (character) to stand out. 

PRE-COMPOSITION #2

(7/9/2022) 

All For Love

The second composition simply conveys that the meaning of life is that as human beings, we need to keep moving forward, whether it is for the people we care about, the life we yearn for or the goal we pursue, everything is for love and comes from love. I placed the green circle element behind the character and the headline to the left so that the focal point is towards the character. In order to make the colors harmonious, I also used the mountain image and black tape to create a sense of a mural. A red lip and colorful sunflower also serve as decorations.

PRE-COMPOSITION #3

(7/9/2022) 

Life Escape in Imagination

I have come out with the idea of escaping life in the imagination. There are always trivial and heavy things to deal with in our life, but we can escape the world temporarily by closing our eyes and falling into our own fantasy world. In our own fantasy world, we can be anything. For example, allow ourselves to rest and escape into the tranquility of nature. In keeping with the theme, I used mountain and tiger as natural elements. The character is black and white to convey unrealistic meaning. I also kept the colourful sunflower and green circle lemon to make the composition more saturated.

Feedback

Looks good, but needs to add more material for improvements. The font of the third combination is too neat, the mountain picture and font paragraphs can be cropped and reorganized by adding more materials.

Final Composition

I found other print materials to reorganize as the materials I used before were not very suitable for the "life escape" font theme, and the color was too dim to use a black background, so I found some materials on  Internet to print out to use. This composition is much better and I got approval from Mr. Martin.

(12/9/2022) 

Exercise 1 (b) Digital Collage

After learning how to cut out objects using the Lasso Tool, Quick Selection Tool, and Magic Wand on Adobe Photoshop, we set out to compose three digital collages. We were asked to download the images provided in this exercise.

COMPOSITION #1

(11/9/2022) 

COMPOSITION #2

(11/9/2022) 

COMPOSITION #3

(11/9/2022) 

Feedback

Overall, the compositions are interesting and all have different meaning and style, especially composition one and two. Can choose composition one or two to apply blending mode.

Blending Progress

After receiving Mr. Martin's feedback, I tried applying filters and blending modes to my previously selected collage to make it more appealing and dramatic. I used blending mode to mix rubber plants on paper planes, added noise filters on the TV, and created adjustment layers for multiple layers.

Chosen Collage (27/9/2022) 

Progress  (27/9/2022) 

Final Composition

 (27/9/2022) 

Reflection 

(Week 1 - Week 5)

The collage exercises are fun and I enjoy the process, especially doing the physical collage since I haven't done physical handcraft in a long time. Although it was not very smooth at the beginning as the composition is challenging, I learned some design principles in the process of completing this project, such as the white space, composition (golden ratio and rule of thirds), contrast, etc. In digital collage, we gained the opportunity to improve our creative skills as we are required to use a limited set of photos which challenges us to create different collages with the same photos as others. Throughout Project 1,  I improved my skills in Photoshop and learned a lot of practical tools such as lasso tool, quick selection tool, clipping mask and blending modes. I'm looking forward to applying what I've learned to my future work and learning more skills to make my design journey more proficient.