Pani's Photography ;)

During this first half of the school year, I've learned a lot about photography in Beg. Media Arts. I took photos and made sure that they were the way I wanted them and they were my artwork. We used a program called Adobe Photoshop to enhance our images or make them look completely different in some way. I liked using this software a lot because it helped me get rid of glitches that I didn't like in my images, I could crop, I learned to use the gradient tool and try out different fonts. This was one of my favorite part about this class because I could play around with my images.

Something I learned that was important about photography was how you framed your image and to develop your own style. That was something I tried very hard to do. I took photos from various angles, up, down, straight, etc. Only a few of the 200 or so photos that you take turn out to be really good. I felt I've perfected this almost and I could still improve but the way my images turn out like tells of how and who I am. A part of me is within that image and it shows. This class was really fun and I'd like to take it again.

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This is the slideshow of my typography work. For this batch I've decided to use more of the personal photos in my life. I took quite some time making decisions on what type of font I wanted for each image to represent it well. As you can see, I was trying to be creative with my photos. In one of the images I had the words "Ahahahaha" in the shape of a fish because it was a funny photo. For the photo with the heart, I made the words "Love" wavy to sort of conform around the heart. In other images, I just made the lettering horizontal across to make a cold statement of what the images were about. I didn't want to be too fancy but I wanted to show another side. I really enjoyed working with my images using Adobe Photoshop and this project made me realize the originality of type fonts and how they could be used to set moods.

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So, the movie we watched was Helvetica and therefore my blog title being Helvetica. In any case, this movie was really interesting. It's funny how you never really notice something until someone puts it right in front of you for you to see. That's exactly what the creator of Helvetica did BUT it's been used on everything we see and we see it everyday of our lives that we cease to see it as for what it is anymore.

Helvetica, the font, has not yet been modified in any way and it's quite modern in our time. In the movie it was described as "Helvetica fits into the modern world in an intelligent way. It has clarity, readable, and straight-forward." I agree with this and it's in every way an awesome font. I learned during the movie that it was originally from Munchenstein, Switzerland. Helvetica is a Swiss type font. I also learned that Helvetica meant everything. This is quite interesting because we use the font Helvetica in everything. Haha, overall, I wish we could've finished the movie and it was great. (:

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Okay, so this is my new slideshow of my completed retro project. (: I had fun using Adobe Photoshop. This idea of replacing another person's head, arm, body, table, cup or whatever was pretty hard to do. At first, I forgot a couple steps on how to copy the image over but I soon learned. Next, I had to make sure the image I wanted to replace the original with, wasn't too out of place and I tried hard to cover those up by using the blur tool. Sometimes if that didn't work I'd use the smudge tool. I also added text in a couple of my images. I hope you guys enjoy.

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This is one of the photos I've edited using Adobe Photoshop. I used a Beatles image and I replaced one of the band members' faces (I don't know which one) with my own if you can see. :) This was really fun to do and I've named it "Life with the Beatles."

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Panhia Lee
Beg. Media Arts/P.2

Artist Statement

Most of the photos I take I try to make it look interesting in a natural way and for it to look in the moment. When taking my photographs, I don’t want my focus to be on center because it would look boring. I’d take it from different angles such as a 90 degrees angle or from the side or back or front but off center. I also frame my images from different viewpoints because that way I leave my viewers or audience curious as to what I was trying to capture but it’s not hard to see because I prefer plain backgrounds so there isn’t so much going on as distractions to the photo. The ways of taking an image and learning how to make it look interesting without being too fake is what I like to show in my work.

A few of my favorite framing techniques are the bird’s eye view, grounds view, side views, or vanishing point. I would say these techniques make an image look the most interesting and that’s what I try to incorporate into my photographs. Also a lot of my photos are very standstill like nature and are candid. I don’t have to think much when taking my images because I already know what I want and how I want it.

After taking my photographs, the editing part comes. I used the Adobe Photoshop Software to beautify my images. There are numerous things I could do to change and distort my images. I’m more subtle and natural so I don’t want to do much to change my image completely.

Something I really liked doing was changing the hues and saturation of my images. By doing this I can see the different color combinations and variations. Another editing style I used was the gradient tool and I found out I could change the opacity so as to not let much light through to my images. I used this tool when the lightings in my photos weren’t so good or to bring down the brightness of the photo.

For our last assignment I used the three distinctive editing styles to cartoonize my images or add some color effects. Using the gradient tool was really nice and helpful on getting my pictures to look smooth. I used this tool to make my photos look more subtle and relaxed at the same time having a sharp edged look to it. This was something I liked in my images.

My artwork consists of various framing techniques so my object isn’t always in the center of the image. I try to do still life scenery shots and use plain backgrounds so there aren’t any distractions as to what I’m focusing on in my image. Lastly, I take photos that are candid and try my best to make it look natural. These are what I value in my photography.

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This is one of my favorite photos I've worked on using the gradient tool alone. I made the opacity of the colors more dull so as to not have any light passing through. You can see the colors in the sky and it surrounds the picture in a realistic way. At first I had trouble figuring out what to do to this image but once I figured I could change the saturation and opacity of it, it wasn't hard anymore. When I took this image, the lighting wasn't all that nice and I took it from the grounds view. So, I didn't want to make the picture get any brighter by upping it's contrast or else the image would've looked too bright. I figured I'd focus on the sky and decided to use the gradient tool. That worked out fine for me and I was happy with the outcome of my image. (:

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