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Artist’s Statement: People from all walks of life want to change the reality they are in. This desire stems from the realization that they are not fulfilling the life they envisoned for themselves. This series of photos captures people visualizing a self-curated reality. These individuals will essentially escape the “now” through virtual reality.

Every shot hand held, in manual focus, using the Nikon D7500 with a 35mm lens. To get the desired shots that I wanted I would say something to my subject to capture the right emotions. For instance, in the first photo I said “think back to when you were a kid, what did you want to become?” and for the last I said “quick! imagine there’s quick sand under you”.  In terms of editing, I have never worked with special effects and lights before so I wanted to try something new. I took away a lot of things in the background that seemed out of place in the second picture (ex. blue dust pan) and also clone stamped green leaves to hide the brown ones. I really like the lesson we had on how to enhance shine of jewelry so I took my own approach on it and tried to colour dodge and paint the ‘shine’ directly on her necklace.

Major fixes:
– Removed my face from the VR screen glass by clone stamping and applying a gaussian blur.
– Necklace Shine
– Lights on eyes
– Hair Colour (paint brush and a few advanced blending options)
– Smoothed skin
– Made lips more visible
– Removed scratches and words on walls
Style and Inspo:
https://www.instagram.com/anojon/
https://www.instagram.com/bin.cloud/
https://www.instagram.com/monaris_/
FIRST PHOTO

F number: f/2.8

Shutter Speed: 1/320

– Masked area that she is sitting on to make it grey and blend in better, it was brown and patchy before.
SECOND PHOTO

F number: f/1.8

Shutter Speed: 1/640

 
THIRD PHOTO

F number: f/2.8

Shutter Speed: 1/320

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Our class trip to the Art Science Museum was definitely a worthwhile experience. I’ve actually been planning on going for quite a while now, so I’m glad I got to cross it off my bucket list at only a fraction of the cost. We got to explore Future World, a series of interactive installations curated by Team Lab, and also learned about how UX can be applied to every discipline/study. In terms of aesthetics, I loved Crystal Universe, but the most thought-provoking exhibit was the wall of butterflies. Essentially every time we touched the butterflies they would fall, and this was a symbolic representation of the negative impact humans have on nature when we interfere with its natural rhythm. I thought it was cool how Team Lab integrated art and science while incorporating lessons about human impacts on the environment. 

Something I would suggest for the exhibit designers is to add more directional signs. Even though the exhibit was quite short, it was also very dark so I often saw people entering Crystal Universe through what was supposed to be the exit, simply because the path that led to the entrance wasn’t made evident. I also sat outside the exit for a while and saw that people would leave, look up at the posters outside and realize they missed something (especially Impermanent Life). 

During an interview with InVision, the renowned exhibit consultant, Beverly Serrell, once said: “Good exhibit writing actually flips the rules: Start with the specific and work to the general; start with the present and work to the past. Often that means literally and figuratively taking out the scissors, cutting out the last paragraph, and putting it at the top… What visitors learn at one “station” is going to resonate with something they learn at another one, so that as they move throughout the exhibit, it’s building that gestalt as opposed to presenting a totally independent idea one after another—because after 25 new ideas, you’re just ready to quit.” Thinking back at the descriptions for each artwork I think they really did consider the user’s experience because each one was informative but yet concise. 

I did some more research on Team Lab’s work and I found out about the architecture they do as well, here’s a link to my favourite structures built by them: https://architects.team-lab.com/projects/planets_bench

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By: YILMA REBECCA SEDEY [N1902209F]

Google Drive Link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BJGUbs8od3gP2r7QYKtXGlgZeS1dEQw1/view?usp=sharing

You may click here to see the before and after vid.

Artists statement: I am a Canadian expat currently residing in NTU Hall  of Residence 9. For the most part, I would say I’m not a morning person but one day I decided to wake up early to be more productive. To my surprise I found out that H9 had a rooftop deck, so I went up on it and had my breakfast overlooking the view captured in the images above. The thing that compelled me to take this image is because of my love for accent colours (especially orange and lime green). I liked how the building wasn’t too modern but had a modern aesthetic appeal through its paint accent. In terms of the mood/theme, my aim was to depict what Toronto  looks like during this time of year, because I sometimes miss the cold weather back home.

Technical decisions:

—> Camera Process: I signed out the Nikon D7500 with the original lens kit. Firstly, I took a series of shots from the rooftop, all handheld shots, varying from medium  shots to extreme long shots. I also racked the focus a bit to make sure the building was the main focus. After looking through the photos I selected this one because of the exposure and it was the least slanted one.

—> Digital Process

step 1 – Colour balance using the paint bucket and inverting colour

step 2 – New non-destructive layer, then extracted a colour in the sky and lightly painted on top, I added some pink tones to the clouds to give it more of a give it a feel that there is a sun somewhere behind all those clouds.

step 3 – Added a red and green gradient at 27% set at Luminosity to make the building stand out more

step 4 – Extracted colour from the tree leaves, increased saturation and painted over then with the paint brush tool then set it to Soft Light, opacity 37%

step 5 – I thought the picture was still too bright and didn’t resemble a cold Toronto morning so I used the Curves to make it darker.

step 6 – Using the Hues/Saturation I selected the orange parts of the image and made them look more “burnt” (commonly known as burnt orange)

step 7 – Lastly using command+alt +sift e I made a monochromatic noise layer over the whole image to add a grain/vintage effect.