Digital Art - Photography editing

Process and product

This post will mainly be around the products of my very inexperienced photography skill using a free web site resource called Photopea. With the theme of Control in mind, I want to relinquish my own sense of complete control and let technology assist me greatly in the creative process. While doing so, I'd guide the artwork with my knowledge of art fundamentals accordingly.

I started off with taking pictures around my own school, trying to find things that might capture my attention, regardless of what they might be. So here were the two scenes that I had chosen.

photo of a crack on the floor

photo of the staircase

I tried to find commonalities between the two pictures and after some changing and rotation of angles and focus, I find the two share a very similar composition and arrangement of leading lines - roads or paths in an image that can help guide or frame subjects/objects in photography. With that in mind, I started the process of merging the two together, borrowing their common aspect and elements, resulting in a pretty nice juxtaposition of the man made and natural occurrence.

However, I find the images not pushed hard enough, still carry that very amateurish feeling to them. So I tried to push further, by selecting elements of the shadow that are very well defined but hard to distinguish, I merged the photos onto another level and tried playing around with their contrast and compositions. The results are as followed.

With how these turned out, I thought they would make a great complimentary texture piece to something else that could be more attention grabbing. Thus, I used one of my own drawing which I just happen to have on file at the time and tried to see what I can do by inserting it into the photos.

a charcoal drawing of mine

Final product

By adding the photo, which has a natural warm grey to its color, I tried messing with the different layer mode, from Multiply and Difference and everything else in between. I got pretty nice x-ray effect to the piece, due to how computer generated color overlapping magically created. After settling down on elements that I really like, I then went ahead and do a little bit of color balancing, levels and contrast curve adjustment, resulting in the images above.

Looking back upon the process, I find myself having very spontaneous moment of creativity, like an "OH! What else can I do?!" sort of experience. I think this is due to the fact that I did not have full autonomy of the creative process but letting a computer assist with the process. The fact that I could have got to the same outcome anyhow, but much faster with the assistance made me feel very appreciative towards technology as a whole, the kind that assist rather than steal of course. With that being said, I think that students would have a lot of fun and experience by using technology like these; they would have the opportunity to push and pull elements as far as they want to, which can demonstrate to them the possibility they have with their photography.

Technical and safety information about tools and materials

I don't think there is much to say about the safety of the tools and materials here, as it composes of mostly a camera of any kind and a computer that can sufficiently access a web based free photo editing software. Of course, like me, students can also create a separate artwork that could help elevate their photography further, but that's on the side and encompass such a wide variety of elements that I think it has to come down to personal choices, which cannot be delve into any further here.

Ideas of use for preK-12

The possibility for this form of art is almost limitless, as students can edit and create absurd combination of effects into an great art piece in an unfathomable speed. I think that in such a case of a medium, the process, which means the documentary of the work, is more important that the actual work itself. I have seen videos of photographers dissecting their own work, showing a timeline of their images from raw to fully edited, which demonstrates their understanding of light, framing, contrast, temperature, etc ... I wish to see students of all ages try the same process, to see how far they can push themselves, but with artistic fundamentals behind their thinking to support their outcome. In my opinion, this form of art making should be used as a summative tool to see what students have learned through out their art making, rather than a project with a rigid desired outcome.

photo by hodachrome