Photograph

change in concept.

I have discussed my concept of manhood for my body of work with my teacher again (Mr. Lane).

After the discussion I have decided to change my concept from working with people portraits to abstract photographs that represent societies views on the role of men.

This idea works from using different sorts of patterns and geometric shapes to create conceptual signifiers.

For example, in the 1960s men were seen to be the dominant gender, where all men had to show aspects of masculinity or risk ridicule. This can be shown in an abstract piece through using the colour red and very bold patterns and line structures.

Maybe for a more recent conceptual abstract photograph that represents today's society, maybe the use of more flowing line structuring along with a calming colour such as blue.


Jonathan Lim.

Brainstorm of Key Ideas.

My media area of choice - photography and digital media.


Theme for this body's unit is manhood.

I am focussing on masculinity.

IDEAS

Looking at society's views on masculinity

Juxtaposition of male roles in society - housewife

Juxtaposition of media representation specifically in the fashion industry.


EXECUTION

A series of relating photographs -different angles etcera-.


Jonathan Lim

This Week - 12VSA

Tuesday 15th February.

• Artist investigation. e.g. - Quilty
• Print/paste examples of work
• Attempt experiments based on their work ?
• Reflections should be short but focused
• Working on minor pieces

Jonathan Lim.

Reflection

Overall, I felt that the whole set works very stongly.

The final print outs weren't as I expected, with the colours prints being very dark and contrasty. It just didn't loo good.

That is why I would prefer presenting the artworks, maybe on a  High Def lcd monitor. So that all colours can be  shown without alteration.

I thought that the strongest work in the set was my last piece Stop Start End.


All in all, I believe that I created a good artistic portrayal of the Chinese workforce daily routine in relation to transportation.

Jonathan Lim

Final Product - Set

Cycles

Jonathan Lim.

Stop Start Ending III

Stop Start Ending

By Jonathan Lim.

A long exposure photograph which shows both stillness and movement.


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I personally love the composition of this photo. Through the stationary cars on the left and the light streams to the right it creates great rhythym. Directing ones up and down the piece, one could even call this a cycle. 

I believe that this photograph is the strongest in the set Cycles.

 I would love to continue this style of photography that involves the constant use of long exposures.

Stop Start Ending II

When I was over at Shanghai, there was bridge outside my hotel which towered over a busy intersection. So I decided to take a number of long exposure photographs using my tripod. I wanted to create a photograph which was different from other traffic long exposure shots.

Here's a screenshot of some of the shots taken.

From here I chose the following RAW shot below. I liked this shot because it was different to the other shots that I took on that night. It displays both stillness and movement, thus creating an interesting composition.

As much as already did love this photo, I felt that it could be improved. The blue lights imo were very distracting and disrupted the whole ambience of the photograph.

EXIF DATA:


Nikon D3000
15 Seconds
f/20
18mm (Using 18-55 VR 3.5-5.6/f, VR off)
100 ISO
0EV

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Adobe Lightroom 2.5

1. Cropped the image + straightned
2. Decreased the saturation of the blues in photoshop
3. Increased highlight recovery
4. Increased the vibrancy
5. Increased the fill light whilst decreasing the exposure
6. Change the colour balance, making the image much warmer.


After the edits in Lightroom the image now looked like this:

When I put it in photoshop, I still felt that the blue-ish area was still to prominent.

Adobe Photoshop CS3

1. Cloned out blown out highlights from some of the store signs on edge of frame.

2. Used a selective colour adjustment layer to change the colour of the blues - masked

3. Desaturated the blue area using a Hue/saturation adjustment layer. - masked

4. Used a colour balance layer which was layer masked to match the desaturated area with the temperature of the photograph.

5. Added a black and white gradient map on luminosity to create more impact
6. Added a border and watermark

7. Resized image and change colour space for proper printing format.

After the edits in Photoshop, the resulting image is as shown below:

Jonathan Lim

Stop Start Ending I

I am inspired by many long exposure shots everyday on flickr.

Especially shots from the 'long exposure' group on flickr.

Long exposure shots are images that are shot with a slow shutter speed exceeding at least 1 second.

Here are some inspiring works from the group:

Jonathan Lim.

Movement II

Movement

By Jonathan Lim.

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