Recreating Childhood Pictures

 

Surrealistic Theme

For my surreal photo-montage I would like to take a picture of myself or another person and make it look like there are butterflies coming out of it. I am inspired by the photographs of Chris Rivera. His photograph Mind The Birds is kind of what I want my photo to look like. My theme would be to free your mind and have the butterflies symbolize the clutter in your head that is going away. In order to do this picture I need a portrait picture, picture of butterflies flying away, and the sky for the background. The background will be a little faded and the whole photo will be in black and white to make it look more interesting.

Surrealist Artist Research

Erik Johansson
was born in 1985 outside a small town called Gotene in the middle of Sweden. He was first interested in computer engineering and moved, in 2005, to Gothenburg to study computer engineering at Chalmers University of Technology. During his time studying, he took up his interest in photography. After publishing some of his pictures online, he started to get request for commissioned work for local advertisement agencies. He started out freelancing along with his studies. He finished his education and received a master’s degree, but felt like he would rather take the photography path. Today he works with both personal and commissioned projects. In November of 2011 he began to take street illusions and spoke at the TED conference in London about photography and in May of 2013 at the Adobe MAX conference. He’s been working with Google, Adobe, and Microsoft, but still thinks personal work and concepts are more important.

Rene Magritte
was born on November 21,1898 in Belgium. He became well know for a number of witty and thought-provoking images that fall under the umbrella of surrealism. His work is know for challenging observers' preconditioned perception of reality. Magritte's earliest paintings, which date from about 1915, were Impressionistic in style. From 1916 to 1918, he studied at the Academie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels. Before finding success as an artist, Magritte designed wallpaper and advertisements. After a poorly received solo show in 1927, he moved to Paris and became firmly lodged in the surrealist movement. Some of his famous works include Golconda, Son Of Man, and False Mirror.
  

Artist’s Name: Erik Johansson

Title: Fishy Island

Date: 2009

Description: This is a picture of a of an oversized fish in a pond, one so big that it takes up the whole depth of the lake and became an island, complete with red houses and green bushes on it.

Analysis: This piece is somewhat symmetrical vertically, balanced by the trees on both sides and the picture is horizontal. The angle the picture was taken from was straight on.

Interpretation: I interpret this picture as the love for nature and that it might look peaceful and nice on the outside, but it might really be empty on the inside. As you can see in the picture, the pond looks clam and simple; however, when you look in the pond there’s nothing there but one giant fish

Judgement: I think this photo was done successfully. The illusionary aspect of the piece made the picture even better. This piece had the same tones and colors throughout the photograph. I really like the fact that the photographer was able to capture every little detail, like the person on the boat fishing, even though the picture is of a large landscape.

Artist’s Name: Rene Magritte

Title: False Mirror

Date: 1928

Description: The reflection of the sky in someone’s eye.

Analysis: This piece is both vertically symmetric and horizontally symmetric. There is also symmetry of color with the black pupil drawing the most attention, making the definite emphasis in the picture, the pupil.

Interpretation: The art piece seems to be challenging the viewer to question whether what they are seeing corresponds with what they think they know. When I associate this piece with its tile, I thought that the person was staring into a mirror or sky trying to find his/her true identity because what he/her is right now is false or not what he/she is on the inside. What they see on the outside world reflects what they think about themselves.

Judgement: I really liked this art piece. The real, deep meaning behind the piece makes the picture more interesting and enticing. The colors are bright and the size of the eye (pupil), gives your eyes helps guide your eyes to the painting.

These two artist are really different in the way they try to portray something in their work. Johansson doesn’t have as much true meaning behind his work as Magritte. Magritte’s paintings have deep meaning that might take a while to understand. However, both artists have a much defined color palette, giving them both unique works. Because Johansson is a photographer and uses photoshop, his pictures have a different quality and feel. Magritte, on the other hand, is a painter and uses paint resulting in uniformed paintings. Both artists have a unique style of surrealism, use intense colors and tones, and are really good at what they do.

Removing Head

Primary Colors

 Yellow

Red and Blue

Camera Photo Apps

The Beauty of Pixlr

            Pixlr is an app used to edit pictures you have already taken, pictures you want to take by using the camera mode, and make a collage. There are a lot of effects, filters, and ways to adjust a picture, which are all really easy to use.

To make a picture brighter, more vibrant, or to sharpen and blur the photo, you would click the adjustment tab and then choose one of the features to help make good photos better. You can also use the effect tab and the different filter to amplify the photos. Another great feature on this app is the overlay, which can give the pictures a faint tint or background.

                My experience with this app was great. It was really easy and simple to use, but still gave you great results. In the picture below, I first clicked on the adjustment tab and used the brighten, sharpen, and vibrance features. Then, I used the bokeh and paper overlay to make the photo unique and different. After discovering this app, I have used it ever since. This makes taking pictures and editing them so much easier. 

David Hockney Inspired Collage

Landscape

To make this landscape collage, I first took a picture of the whole landscape. Then, divided the picture in a grid and started taking picture of each square. After I used Photoshop to connect the pictures together and put some on top of others, as if putting a puzzle together. 

Portrait

To make this portrait collage of Hiral, I took a picture of her, shoulders up. Then I started to take close up photos of her face (eyes,nose,mouth). I also took a picture of each side of her face. Using Photoshop, I started to put the pictures together and added a drop shadow to make the pictures pop. I overlapped the pictures, some of the same features, to make it look more artistic. 

Depth of Field

I'd Rather Be

I'd rather be playing basketball on the WNBA team, Atlanta Dream. To replace my face with a players face I first took a picture of me and only selected out my face and hair. Then, I pasted it on the original picture and scaled it to size. I played around with the contrast/brightness and the curve tool to make my face's skin tone match the body of the player it was sitting on. To make the picture look more realistic and simple I made the picture black and white.

Partner Portraiture

This is a picture of me kicking a basketball, as my partner Hiral, who has shrunk down, is standing on top of the ball. I took a picture of Hiral on a chair and then selected her out of the picture and shrunk her. To make the picture look more realistic, I made a shadow of her and placed it behind her based on the lighting in the picture. Then, I played around with the contrast and brightness so my partner blended well with the background.

Self Reflection