Tag Archives: photographs

How i see the world – Final

Artist statement

“Freedom of memories” is about showing the different types of freedom in the form of my memories through my life. 

I wanted to work on the theme “free” because of the funny dream I had when I was a kid. I have always wanted to be like a cloud. As a kid, I really liked to lie on the floor of the playground and look up to the clouds that is floating so ever peacefully  in the sky but yet I am just in this world, not understanding anything but the fact that I just have to live through it and survive.

Through this I have put together the images using double exposure. Since I am trying to portray the image of memories, I have thought about how the effect of double exposure actually gives the photos a type of faded and yet nostalgic feeling. “



Reflection:

After having actually gone through the whole assignment, I found out that double exposure really requires a lot of trial and errors. The fact that I have to go through  the many photos i have taken and still have to pick another suitable one to overlay it. Sometimes even when I thought that they fit but when i overlay them over one another, the tonal values that allows certain details to pass through may not be the one that I want. Also, somehow my photo looked like really bright and cheery but somehow it had a tinge of morbid sense to it, kind of ironic I guess since I was trying to make it a happy thing.

It is actually a tiring type of photography but I had fun still. I got to learn a lot of things like manipulation of photography, how I actually frame my photos, the painstaking testing of trying out black and white photos and also learning more about myself.

I realised that my thoughts can be very scattered at times. I struggled through assignment one a little because I was like jumping sort of everywhere before actually settling down and knowing what I really wanted. I guess I really need to focus on a specific subject especially when it comes to photography since a subject can be shown in many different ways.

How i see the world – WIP 04

I thought that since I am doing a topic on memory perhaps I could make use of old photos and mix together with a recent one that I actually took. After through all the different thought processes, I have actually thought up of a few freedom that actually means a lot to me or kind of shaped me into the person I am now. Freedom from life, insecurity, loneliness, responsibilities, emotions etc. I thought that maybe I would elaborate more together with my final photos.

This is just the photos i used to get my final outcomes. I was actually really struggling choosing between the colour version and the black and white. As much as I really wanted to do my images in black and white somehow the photos all turn out to be in such a negative tone even though I wanted my meaning of freedom to be more light-hearted.

I will show both the black & white and colour version. The bigger images for the final pieces will be in the final post.

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Why I have posted WIP 02-04 seperately instead of a post because I thought the post would be too long. I have actually documented everything in a post but I realised it would be too much to read everything all together, so i decided to separate them from the trial and error to my final processes.

How i see the world – WIP 03

I also went to a few other places within the few weeks with my friends and family. I went to the Botanic Gardens to actually get information for the module but I thought Hey! Botanic Garden is also a place that I really would visit from time to time because I am a nature person. I also visited the S.E.A Aquarium with my family just for fun.

After trying out the black and white edits, I figured that maybe I can try out colours for the project too. It was just to try out whether I can also portray the same feeling using colours since I am not really a black and white person, I realised I have a few difficulty when it comes to adjusting the contrast between the value. The trial and error for the black and white really help me learn a lot and observe the different tonal values better.

So I went to the Botanic gardens, it was a downpour before I reached there. Everything was pretty much wet but hey that is actually a good thing because that would mean the flowers would have water droplets on them which can actually make them prettier. I kind of forgot I went there on a Sunday so the number of people kind of eek me. This would mean that it is more difficult to take photos of the landscape without the people swarming everywhere. Morever the recent Pokemon craze isn’t helping either.

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I tried to put together the process of the blooming of flowers since I was actually thinking about how as our life, or rather my life, proceeded on it felt like you as a person becomes a better person. This in turn shaping us into a more defined being different from everyone.

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I did not want the colour to be too vibrant since I did not want the whole image to come off as too strong. I just wanted it to be subtle and the I have sort of decided that I want my photos to all have the washed out feeling. Somehow it just felt more calm and collected instead of the thing shouting out at you.

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I did not edit too much for this photo but just mostly tweaked with the level of the images to bring down the contrast. It was somehow actually much more natural for me while doing colour as compared to black and white.

Somehow the black and white photos seem to make me depressing in a sense. The feeling of it being very solemn is there and I feel like I am not a person who can bring out a happy tone from a black and white image. It feels more natural to me in expressing my feelings in colours. Perhaps my animation background has something to do it since I am constantly told to try not to use muted colours.

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I actually merged 3 photos together to give it more details instead of having something just in one place. For this photo I actually thought that it reminded me of being free of constraint. The cloud being “me” trying to control myself, the pink flowers indicating the problem growing and the yellow flower making it look like it exploded.

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I actually had to change the colour of the whole image because all 3 of the images have very different tone. The flowers have a very yellow greenish tone to them while the image of the cloud is super bright and blue. I gave it a little more reddish tone because I thought that it has a more fluttering feeling to it, since warmer colours  give a happier feeling.

After trying out even more on double exposure and putting the images together. I thought that maybe I could actually use a different meaning of being free for my photos. They would still be from my memories but the different memories would represent a different type of freedom that actually means something to me.

Extra photos that I actually tried to edit :

How i see the world – WIP 02

Honestly speaking for two weeks, i just went to different places to shoot photographs of places or people that mean something to me, apart of my memories in a sense since my topic is about being free from my memories. What do i actually mean by being free from my memory, is that perhaps that is a particular incident or a place that stuck to me ever since because of something big that actually happened there or it just sort of changed me as a person on a whole.

So after trying to figure out exactly what I am trying to show through my photos after the first consultation/presentation during class, I thought of starting it simple with just shooting around my neighborhood. It was what I did for the first presentation but I was actually kind of lost still that time. However after the feedback, I realised actually what I wanted. I went around taking photos of the HDB flats, the trees, the temple, the playground and even the sky – even though the sky might not have been the same since last time but it was that particular spot that I would look up to the sky.

I thought was actually just testing out the different pictures and just putting them over each other.

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The images I picked out was a photograph of the temple at the front of my block and a photo of my block behind the shades. At this point of time I still do not really have a specific idea of what photos I really wanted to overlay over each other. It is still just experimental.

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I remember that among the two paragraphs, my black and white image was said to have a more define feeling of faded memory because of the softness the layers were over one another instead of the harsh one for the coloured one. So I tried also using the blending method that our lecture, Robert suggested. However, for this photo i did not use that method.

15I changed the layer of the temple to screen and toggled with the opacity and fill. That was only managed to change a little of how I wanted the photo to look because the contrast between the tonal values were still pretty harsh among each other. I ended up pushing the darker greys into more of the mid-tone range to give it a more washed out feeling.

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Also as seen in the photo to the left, the white of it is too harsh, eliminating too much of the information for the temple. I ended up trying the channel mixer and toggling with the different colour to bring out the different shades which in turn gave a more clearer view that it is a temple.

I went ahead and got a photo of my kindergarten, the first time I made so many friends.

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The sky photo was supposed to be vertical but I decided to rotate it in a way to fit the image of the kindergarten. For this image I tried out the blending method, I kind of realised the method is more easier to use and control is the tonal value has a difference between the darkest and the lightest shade.

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This photo was actually more difficult to edit because I realised the photo of the Kindergarten when taken then value were mostly all the same. It kind of affected the whole image when I tried to put them together. The leaves were really much darkest part of the whole image so I needed to balance out the contrast between the two images, if not it would have looked like a very harsh contour between them. Also, I will ended up over exposing the sky part since it was the brightest part.

17aThis is what the photo would actually look like. I do not know why but somehow I feel like everything is too harsh and a lot of the details of the leaves around the kindergarten are lost.

I have always like double exposure photography but maybe I just haven’t the sense of style that I like yet. Maybe that is why I still feel kind of lost through the process.

Botanic garden

We had to choose different places to visit and write an essay about it. It could be about introducing the place, how the place could be special to you or even the possibility of you disliking the place and explaining why. Among the different choices i decided to pick botanic gardens. I figured since i like flowers a lot why not do something on plants. So today i went to get some documents of why i like botanic gardens and how i can introduce it to other people.

I have always like botanic gardens since there is so many pretty flowers and trees there. It has always make me feel calm. I realized i have something for bright vibrant colours. They make me feel really happy. The orchid garden was especially pretty with all the different breeds of it. The dogs are also a really why i like to walk at parks. You get to see all the different dogs that you do not get to see since the HDB do not permit of this dogs.

I saw two chow chows today. One was caramel colour and the other was white. They were so fluffy i was almost scared that they would suffered from heat stroke. You could see show many people trying to take photo with them and of them, i was one of them. I have always really wanted a husky, so whenever i saw one i will get very excited. They are such a pretty dog and they are the closest to a wolf. It was like a childhood dream to have a wolf but after i grew up i realised you could not. I am still very sad about it, that was until i know about husky.

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There was also the swan that always circle around the lake. They will also try to attack little children with food. It is pretty funny to watch since the children intended to feed them the food but got so scared from it. I was lucky to catch it away from the area it would usually be. The place was pretty romantic looking.

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I really like the little huts they have at botanic gardens. You can really feel at peace at there. Have pinic there together with your family or friends. Maybe it was because i went there on a Sunday there were a lot of people with their pinic mats all around. Also it was kind of like the off day for the workers, you could see many pinoy maids and their Bangladesh boyfriends there. Recently it was also the craze of the pokemon go that brought the crowd over there to catch the pokemon. Suddenly, you will see a group of people gathered in one area and swiping their phone. It is pretty funny but terrifying at the same time.

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I really like the big trees they have here. It gives off a very serene feeling to the area. Like the movie totoro where they found it underneath the tree. Do you think there might be one there just that it is not visible to us?

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We managed to get discount for the orchid garden at $1. The last time i went in, it was for free. Guess we need to pay for everything nowadays. But even so it was really worth it. I really recommend people to go there. The different type of orchid there astound me. I did not think that such a pattern could appear on flowers. Before we went there it was raining, the raindrops on the flowers really make them even more beautiful then they are before. As the raindrop makes them glisten under the sunlight.

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There were also interesting looking trees that look like they are out from those chinese/japnese paintings. They look so graceful but yet they feel so empty at the same time. The more you look at them the more you get taken in.

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Why do they even destroy the tree by craving their names on it? Sometimes i do not understand the  things that people find romantic…

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My friend was really done with me

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Inside the cool house there was this really cute orange flower, i was really surprised how it looked like inside since it was not fully opened. It was pretty cold inside the cool house considering how there is air conditioning and also the “waterfall”. There was also something like a pitcher plant inside, it could almost look like a character design.

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I am really glad that Singapore has such a place here. As much as i really like the green city, i enjoy the little space without buildings and cars around. Somethings just being within the trees in peace is really nice. I hope the pokemon go trend die down soon. There is just too many people there now. It is not as peaceful as before with people that actually appreciate some nature time.

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How i see the world – WIP 01

Continuing from the research we were tasked to do test shots. I tried to put a few photos together and create the double exposure feeling. I did one in black & white and another with colour. Both of them give off a very different vibe. The black & white photo gave off a pretty mysterious feeling. The other one has more of a yellowish green tone to it, making it a more mellow feel. It was more closer towards nature while the other was more like a faded memory.

In the black and white shot i took a photo of myself with an overlay of a playground. I was trying to show more or less how the playground is part of my faded memory. Something that was once important.

In the coloured photo, i took a photo of my shadow and overlay it with the grass patch. I tried to make it seem like I am the one that happened to be fading away. Together with the nature. It is also a way of saying the grass is greener on the other side.

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Foundation 4D : Image and Meaning

1. Something that is not “NTU” at all

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– What do you think could be in that tank?

2) Somebody not studying in NTU

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– Hi there

3) Somebody studying in NTU

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– Guess who?

4) Useless image you see

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– Because destroying meeting table is a thing

5) Useful image you see

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– Stop the bleeding!

6) Nature

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– Trees, trees more trees

7) Urban nature

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– The dandelion which can never make your dream come true

8) Urban

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– Anybody hungry for some macdonald

9) Singapore

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10) A place where art is shown

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– Our own school gallery

11) A place where art is made

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12) Photograph with a faculty

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13) A photograph that shows what Earth observatory is  about

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– Their logo ( Earth) ; Water – blue ; Yellow – sand ( ground) ; Red – fire ( volcano)