Final Exam Artist Statement

Final Exam Artist Statement

Well, throughout the half of the year I've enjoyed my time in this class because of the technology use. One particular assignment I liked that you assigned us is the typography because of how one can express their ideas with a photo and words on the photos. I liked it because I am a person of many words and I like to express it by using both pictures and words. Especially my picture of the tower in downtown Saint Paul where I had written a quote to summarize how the twin cities came out strong and is still alive and united after so many tragedies compared to other states or cities. Another I do like is my picture of Jesus where I had written a quote about how he died for us and how none or not a lot of us had sacrifice ourselves for others or for him. I really liked it because typography expressed my ideas and creativity. Initially I was going to do typography another way, which was Randal’s (sorry if I spelled his name wrong) idea. Many words of the picture or idea and compile them into an single image that represents the whole idea or image. I tried but I couldn’t go anywhere with it because it seemed complicating for me, maybe because of my small mind but I at least tried. Overall, I enjoyed working with my camera and editing them with Adobe Photoshop and using the many techniques that it had. I especially liked the dodge and burn tool, cropping tool, and the layers because you can do a lot with those tools. But yeah I liked this class and if I get a chance to take this class again I would because I felt that I just wasn’t here most of the time. Media Arts, it’s all around us whether we like it or not and that’s where my future lies with. The Media Arts, videogaming, making videogames, and etc.

Typography

Well, there it goes all my work into typography. Mostly quotes made by myself there not that good but I consider them okay. How about you?

Typography Progress Report

This is one of my favorite typography images I've begun on first and I don't see how much I can improve it. Other people can but not me, if you can then go ahead and do it.

Summary Of Helvetica The Movie

Well, to start off I don't like or know much about Helvetica and/or fonts but seeing half of this movie has increased my knowledge about Helvetica and/or fonts. With the movie though, it showed me that much of the media was involved around fonts or more specifically Helvetica. Like the movie shows us is that most or all the media was/is created by the font Helvetica. Most movie titles, CD covers, videogame covers, and all sorts of other advertisements all use Helvetica. The movie shows us that and more.

I didn't really know how the movie ended because I wasn't in class the last day to watch it but I've learned from the movie Helvetica that most people if not all people identify a lot of things by ho the type of font such things are(advertisements etc.). They learn where and how these media arts come from just by the font. With Helvetica, it's all around us and all sorts of people are starting to see where and how it comes from and how much it influences our lives. The only thing people don't know is how deep the movie's meaning is and where it came from, which I can't even realize too because of how complex Helveticas birth came from.

Retro

Retro Pics

Here is how far I am.....

Artist Statement

Shopping Downtown

Let’s see, how should I start out my artist statement. I guess I can begin telling or explaining how I took my photos and why. I’ll admit that this was pretty hard for me because street photographer, to me, is pretty hard to discern. The ideas’ behind it was to take photos out in the public whether it was candid or not. To show ideas expressed by the photos be it irony or something that just caught your eye. To me, I had no clue as to how I was going to take my photos. I just figured that if it was good enough for me then I would edit them. I only have one photo on my blog and that was basically how I did the rest of my photos, added colors to the background or subjects. Some photos were all colored besides the people/subject while some were all colored to make it (to me) stand out. Most were all taken at the store, Target, while some were taken in down town Saint Paul. Why I took them, I had no idea. It just seemed to me that they were interesting and I just took a shot. I don’t know if they expressed any ideas behind them or not but to me I think they do.

Onto the tools of adobe photoshop, I basically just used the three main tools, gradient, paintbucket, and artistic filters. I chose those three because I had, familiarize myself with them and decided that my photos would contain those tools. Most were just color edited by using paintbucket to make the subjects stand out from the background. I painted the background and not the subjects to make them, I think stand out? I don’t know if it’s the other way around but that’s what my ideas were based upon.

My other ideas were to use the gradient tool (mostly the diamond shape and striped gradient) to focus on a subject, in most cases, subjects that are right in your face i.e., the cat(s) and the huge number. I really don’t know why I did that but it seemed like a noobish move in my view because I am still a beginner in photography.

While the last tool, the artistic filters, I had the most fun with because they made the job easier in some ways. I used this the most behind the paintbucket tool. Artistic filters are fun to use but make your photos, in my opinion, not stand out because it was too simple to do. In a professionals’ hand, they know how to use it and make their photos unique. But mines were just plain filters with added depth to make it seem as if they’re special. I tweaked the pencil darkness, contrast, and thickness in only small amounts because it would seem as if I overdid it in some of my photos. The one filter that I really like was the water color filter. This was what made some of my photos look cool but not unique.

I’m kind of ashamed to say this but I really don’t know or researched on any well-known photographer to give thanks to. I guess you can say I slacked off. But the one the class talks about the most was probably Man Ray. His ideas expressed many things and I hope mine does too and I thank him for that. It’s hard trying to take good photographs and I guess it was like that too for him and I hope maybe one day I’ll be as good as him. But the only difference is that I don’t take black and white photography.

My overall idea(s) behind my photos were to just basically make something stand out like the rest of any photographer. I don’t know if I did but in one specific photo I took downtown was of the flags. One was the American flag, the Canadian flag, and the last flag I think was England (?). This was the one I liked the most behind the tower because it showed unity in our state/country. Therefore I named it, United Nations, just like the organization because of the unity we all share and with unity comes power and with power comes peace. The flags represented the unity and power and peace all the nations had, if only I could’ve gotten pictures with the other flags but (off topic) my battery ran out. My other idea(s) was the power of helping i.e., in Target I shot most photos of staff members helping out shoppers. I really like the idea of lending a helping hand when people need it and the ironic thing is, well I’m the one who needs help right now or should I say my family does. I Didn’t need to bring that out but it’s true right now, we need help (I won’t explain more) and all of us are trying really hard to help our family and that relates to my photos. With unity comes peace and power and that’s what my family needs right now, unity and peace.