Tag Archives: photography

Look Up – Project 3. FINAL pt. II.

VIEW PART 1

GOOGLE DRIVE LINK

CONCEPT

The original inspiration came from Nuno Andrade’s Urban Geometry  series, where his compositions often contrasted urban geometry with a wide sky or space.

In Singapore, however, it is almost impossible to get a full, open view of the sky because of how much of an urban, high-rise jungle we are. Instead of a full sky, we get interrupted by tall buildings or structures, hence came about Look Up – what happens when you look up in Singapore.

 

[Click on images to open and compare]

AN OVERVIEW

 

 

TECHNICAL DECISIONS

Camera Process:
Shot on a Canon EOS 77D, EF-S 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM

Content:
Framing involves a clean vertical ‘half’ cut between sky-structure – images are halved in different ratios for variation. An exploration of the different ways of seeing, the varieties of what would be considered the same type of structure (e.g. housing blocks, construction works).

Real vs. Manipulate:

Real images to of course, keep it real, and image manipulations to add a compelling twist – either to add a little pop of something or to make things seem a little abstract.

 

ONE

Original

Cropped & Final
 

Technical Process
 

 

TWO

Original

Cropped & Final

Technical Process

 

THREE

Original

Cropped & Final
   

Technical Process

 

FOUR

Original

Cropped & Final
   

Technical Process

 

FIVE

Original + Additional Image (Flag)
 

Cropped Original

Final

Technical Process

 

SIX

Original & Final
  

Technical Process

 

SEVEN

Original

Cropped & Final
 

Technical Process

 

EIGHT

Original

Cropped & Final
 

Technical Process

 

NINE

Original

Cropped & Final
 

Technical Process

 

TEN

Original

Cropped & Final
 

Technical Process

Look Up – Project 3. FINAL pt. I.

CONCEPT

The original inspiration came from Nuno Andrade’s Urban Geometry  series, where his compositions often contrasted urban geometry with a wide sky or space.

In Singapore, however, it is almost impossible to get a full, open view of the sky because of how much of an urban, high-rise jungle we are. Instead of a full sky, we get interrupted by tall buildings or structures, hence came about Look Up – what happens when you look up in Singapore.

LOOK UP

  

(P.S. I put the images small so that we can see them together).

TECHNICAL DECISIONS

Camera Process:
Shot on a Canon EOS 77D, EF-S 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM
I used a zoom lens instead of a wide or prime lens so as to be able to reach tall structures.

Framing:
A clean vertical ‘half’ cut between sky-structure – personal artistic style while still getting the idea across. Some images may be directly halved while others may be in different ratios for variation. Series will be better balanced with a full set of 10 images.

Technical Process:

*Types of adjustments are generally the same across all images for consistency. Specific changes are made within each type of adjustment for every image to match the tones, especially the varying blues of the skies.

Pastel is often used to portray dreamy feels, for what feels like paradise (e.g. on a vacation). In contrast to feeling negatively about having our skies interrupted – the pastel tone is used to say this is our sky, Singapore’s version of paradise.

The sky is muted as compared to Nuno Andrade’s vibrant blue, for focus on the structures’ colours instead of the sky, since that’s what we see in Singapore.

A hint of yellow highlight on top of pastel pink to suggest the sun that hits these tall structures in Sunny Singapore.

Image 1:

*Note: Stamp visible layer is made so that I could copy and paste a part of the sky on the other images to compare and match the exact colour for consistency.

 

Image 2:

  

Image 3:

 

Project 2: The Landscape

PSD File Download

Before

After

Artist Statement/ Concept

I’ve always enjoyed the look of hard light and shadows in photography, whether for portraits or for landscapes. I was walking around with a friend and really liked how the light hit this spot in the basement parking lot, and thought since both her outfit and the wall were somewhat monochromatic (albeit the wall’s yellow was too cool for my preference), I decided to give it a go.

Camera Settings

Of course, since I’m new to photography AND I’m trying to play with harsh light, the turn out was pretty wonky… But at least I can learn now.

Shot with Canon 77D, 50mm
1/25, f 3.2, ISO 100

Digital Process

Left: Before / Right: After

 

Cleaning (Hair)

I first cleaned out the hair that was flying around using Spot Heal, Clone Stamp and Dodge & Burn. I didn’t remove all the frays entirely since they’re really small when zoomed out, just did what was noticeable.

But I’ve still learned the importance of making sure your model’s hair is well combed.

Zoomed for comparison purposes:

Zoomed out:

I did remove the bottom most frayed hair in her shadow at first, but decided to leave it in eventually.

 

Cleaning (Face)

I Spot Healed and applied Separation Frequency on her skin and dark eye circles. I also didn’t go too crazy with her skin.

 

I left the walls and floor uncleaned as I wanted to keep their rustic textures.

 

White Balance

The colour balance turned the image slightly warmer than balanced, but I decided to keep it.

 

Curves

Adjusted the curves to give the light and shadows heavy contrast. Brought down the highlights as well.

 

Hue/ Saturation

Adjusted the saturation mostly to decrease the cyans and blues in the floor.

 

Selective Colour

Adjusted the yellows to be more warm than cool, lowering the cyan and increasing the magentas. Also added a bit of black to the red in her overalls.

 

Colour Balance

Added a tiny hint of green to the shadows for personal preference of a rusty look.

 

Masking

There still wasn’t enough contrast in the lights and shadows, so I created masks to separate the model and background.

 

 

Background Mask Curves

Dropped the shadows of the background. (Left: where we left off before masking)

 

 

Model Mask Curves

Then the model felt a bit too bright and looked way too washed out, so I adjusted her too.

 

Background Hue/ Saturation

Again to remove the cyans and blues in the floor… Heh

 

Background Selective Colour

Adjusted the tone of the background yellows to be even warmer.

 

Brightness & Contrast

And I know, we were told to try our best not to touch the brightness & contrast adjustment, but something just still didn’t feel right – so I brought down the brightness of the entire picture a whole lot and increased its contrast a little bit to achieve the dark, contrasty light and shadow feel I was going for.

 

Re-Adjusting Curves

Okay, I thought I was done but I just went back to crush the blacks a bit on both the background and model mask curves for a bit of fade.

 

Here’s the final comparison again.

 

 

I reaaaaally enjoyed editing for this assignment. I’ve tried editing this in Lightroom and was having troubles with it, and being forced to look at every specific part in Photoshop really helped me understand how light and colours work better. Thank you!