Here is my video for the first assignment on cropping:
The next exercise I chose was the Border Variation Exercise.
I chose to crop a picture of apples from a recent apple picking excursion. I pasted it into a Publisher document and then tried to play around with the borders. I liked the first two, which created the white frame and the black border. They both have a certain organic feel because the border is not solid and I think that matches the picture and my aesthetic the best. I think that the black works because it picks up on the shadow in the picture. The third one was just a very thin black line that keeps the focus on the picture and sharpens the border a bit. Then, I tried to pick up some colors in the picture. The fourth picture uses a red and I liked the double line because it didn’t seem as harsh and looked a little more natural. The fifth picture went back to black but used a bigger border. It is a bit more severe, but also a bit more formal if that was the look that you were going for. Finally, I used a green and a dotted border in order to try and blur the edges a bit and keep the natural feel that echoes the natural theme of the apples.
Finally, I did the Conveyance Exercise. This was challenging and while I feel like I understand the concept, I am not sure I can explain it well. The photographs in the video are some I took when I was away recently and tried to find scenes or objects that were examples of conveyance. The focus was on nature.
Hi Jess,
ReplyDeleteI'm glad that you're creating screencasts for some of your blog assignments, as opposed to writing all of your reactions out. I think it's that much more effective to hear your voice when you're commenting on the exercises, because it's that much more clear when you're frustrated, or excited about, or pleased with something you did. The combination of writing and the screencast works well - breaks up the post!
I agree with your comments on the cropping exercise. It was amazing how many different, almost entirely *new* images you could get out of cropping from *one* photograph! It's nice to see that you're using some of your *own* photographs as well. Puts a more personal touch on the exercises! I thought the first shot of the trees looked even BETTER when you cropped it out. I feel that in some cases, cropping enhanced a lot of the pictures everyone took/used for this exercise, making them look much more "professional" in a way. I thought that the cropped shot of the garage looked GREAT! It's sort of an "uninteresting" angle that most people would never think to take a specific shot of, but when you get to playing around with cropping shots, it actually looks pretty good! The same applies to the shot by the river bank. I, too, thought the curves along the bank were "interesting" - again, another nice cropping job. The shot of that statue in Chicago is great. I know that you commented a couple of times that some of the images were a bit blurry or unclear, but that you liked how it ended up coming out. I liked them a bit blurred or grainy looking, too! Nice job!
As far as the border exercise was concerned, the first border was my favorite. It's always good to experiment with multiple borders to see what looks best. I know in the case of one of Jeri's borders, she felt that a metal border probably wouldn't look "right" with her picture, but it turned out to be her favorite! I, too, thought that it was one of the nicer borders that fit the shot well. You never know until you play around. That's what these exercises are all about!
For your conveyance exercise, again, I appreciate your comments about being unable as to how to articulate the assignment. I believe that you *definitely* "got" the assignment, despite your unease about how to express your thoughts about it as easily as you've done in previous exercises.
Well done!