Walead Besthy Keynote

Contact Sheet & Prints

Artist Reflection:

     These are my developed test strips, contact sheet, and 5x7 prints of my photo. The strongest technical aspect of my work is my 5x7 print in the middle. This is the stingiest technical aspect because it shows all the values of light (white, grays, and black) and retains the white border without having any minor flaws. A technical aspect of my work that can be improved is the photo itself. The photo was taken in a spot with a lot of shade, so the photo came out some what dull/bland and didn't have much going for it besides the wheel in the middle.

     There were easy and hard parts of this activity. By far the easiest thing we did during this activity was taking the photos. All we had to do was take the already loaded camera and go shoot. The most difficult part of this project was the fact that I had to do the 5x7 print 3 times. I found this not necessarily hard, but more tedious then anything because the enlarger was ready and all I had to do was re adjust the easel and then re develop.

     I demonstrated the objective in this activity by getting all the values of light included in my 5x7 prints. If I could do this activity again I would do multiple thing differently. First, I would change the picture. While the picture was good for completing the objective I felt it was boring and didn't have much except for the wheel. The other thing I would do differently is to make less mistakes and have to make less 5x7 prints and test strips, keeping in mind, even though there are only 6 works shown, Cam has the other half of what we did and more test strips from before.

Photograms

Artist Reflection:

     These are my photograms. For this project we did 3 photograms, a magazine, symmetrical, and landscape. The strongest aspect of my photograms is the fact that they feature the different values of light. This is shown in the white, gray, and black. To get these colors I used an enlarger on f11 and, depending on the type of photogram, ran the enlarger (had the light on) for either 4 or 10sec (magazine 10sec, symmetry and landscape 4sec). An aspect of my work that can be improved is in my symmetry. As you can see in the top left, the tissue paper in the middle was too thick to come up gray and instead came up white, so that photogram had no gray on it. If I could redo it, I would design it the same, but take off some layers of tissue paper to make it gray.

     The easiest part of this activity was using the enlarger. When I first saw it, the enlarger looked like a complicated machine that would take ages to get to know and use. After my first photogram though, I knew the machine like the back of my hand. The most difficult/annoying part of this project was running the photograms through the chemicals. I didn't like this because I didn't like standing still shaking a tray for about 10mins, but it wasn't the worst thing in the world.

     

     I demonstrated the objective in this activity by having the 3 values of light shown in my photograms. In the 2 good photograms I had (magazine, middle and landscape, top right) they both featured white, black, and grays. If I could do this again, I would spend more time on the design of the photograms themselves. I would go back and make the landscape and symmetry look more appealing to the eye. That was my project on photograms.

Polaroid Project

After 

Before

Artist Reflection:

     This is my polaroid project. The stingiest technical aspect of this project are the polaroids. I feel this way because  without them this project couldn't even be done. The weakest aspect of my work that can be improved on is the actual original picture. I feel I should've picked one with the focal point in the middle rather than off to the right so the polaroids wouldn't be as spread out.

     There were both easy and difficult activities in this project. The easiest part of this project to me was the background. I found this easy because I just removed the original photo's background then added my own by using a brush with 0% hardness and 5000px size and put the reddish maroon of the man's shirt in the corners and his skin color for the main background, I then used the burn tool to give the effect of the dark line in the background. The hardest part of this project for me was the polaroids. I found this hard because it took me a very long time to finish placing them and it was tedious removing small parts of each and every one.

     I demonstrated the objective in this in this project. I did this by making the polaroids look like they were spread on on a table and making a background with elements of my person's sport, golf. If I could do this activity again I would choose a different photo and make a different background. I would choose a different photo because I didn't like how my person was off to the right and would have preferred him to be in the middle of the photo. I would also make a new background because I didn't like the colors I used 100% and would've preferred to use something more fitting.

Facial Retouch 2

AFTER

BEFORE

Facial Retouch

Artist Reflection:

                   BEFORE                                                                                          AFTER

     This is my edited work "Facial Retouch," here I have retouched Morgan Freeman. The strongest technical aspect of my work is the healing. This is the strongest aspect because without the healing the freckles that can be seen in the before picture would still be there without it. The aspect of my work that can be improved is the forehead. This can be improved because as you can see in the after picture, the forehead has "dots" all over it.

     The easiest part of this activity for me was the healing. I found this easy because there wasn't much on Morgan's face to retouch except the forehead wrinkles and a few freckles. The hardest part of this activity for me was the painting. I found this hard because of the time it took to find the correct color, even using the eye dropper, and then painting the small specific areas. Those were the easiest and hardest things of this assignment.

     I demonstrated the objective of this assignment in my work by completely reworking Morgan Freeman's face. I achieved this by healing away his freckles and wrinkles, putting on a blur and using the blur tool to smoothen things out, I sharpened the eyes, nose, and mouth, and repainted the face to make him look younger. If I could do this activity again I would choose a different person to retouch. Along with last project I felt this was very easy, It may just be my experience with photoshop from my own time, or I just chose an easy picture to retouch. That is my work "Facial Retouch."

Desaturated Flower

Artist Reflection

AFTER

     This is my edit of a work that I have titled "Desaturated Flower." The strongest technical aspect of this work is the flower itself and how I used the history brush tool to make it my focal point. This is the strongest aspect because it gives the viewer's somewhere to go the second they see my work. The technical aspect of my work that could be improved are the tiny places I went outside of the "lines." I could improve on this next time by using things like the magic wand tool or zooming in on the photo to get a smaller detailed view to make it cleaner.

     This activity was very easy. I thought this was easy because it was simply desaturating a photo and then using the history brush tool to repaint the main part of the picture. The most difficult part of this activity was trying to not paint outside of the flower. This was hard because one wrong movement of the wrist could mess you up and then you'd have to undo and repaint what was needed. Those were the easiest and hardest parts of the activity.

     I demonstrated the objective of the project by repainting the main middle flower. I achieved this objective when I desaturated the photo and then repainted over the flower using the art history brush. Using the art history brush helped me achieve this goal because it repaints everything in the photo exactly how it was, so I didn't need to manually shade my work. If I could do this activity again I would do it with a different photo. I would do it with a more difficult photo because I felt this project was extremely easy and prefer a bit of a challenge. 

BEFORE

"Mountain Scene" Artist Reflection

     Artist Reflection

     This is my edit of a photo that I have named "Mountain Scene." The strongest aspect of my work in my opinion is the left side rock group. I feel this is the stingiest aspect because the way it came out was clean and sharp. An aspect of my work that I feel could be improved is my sky. Now looking back I think it could be improved because it is very bland compared to everything else in the work.
     
     The easiest part of this activity was working with Photoshop itself. I found this easy because I personally own Photoshop on my computer at home and though I don't use it for things like this, I still have enough experience with it to make my time using it much easier. The hardest part of this project was finding the right picture to use. This was difficult because I wasn't in this class when pictures were taken for this activity so I had to look through pictures on google to find the right one. Those were the easiest and hardest things of the activity.
    
     I demonstrated the objective of this project with the paint brush tool on Photoshop. I achieved the goal with irk because it is the tool I used to make the blending effects and other things like snowflakes on the image. If I could do this activity again I would do a couple things differently. One thing I would do differently is the sky. I could've put more effort into the sky but at the time I couldn't think of anything creative to put in the sky to make it look good. Another thing I would do differently is the groupings. Instead of coin one big group at a time I would do each individual thing to make the image look even more detailed.