Of broken promises.

Typically, when I start a blog, I update like mad for the first day or two, and then something weird happens. Generally, I just get bored, and stop posting.

This blog is part of my university coursework. So, I promised myself I wouldn't let it go that way. So, why then, did I?

Regardless, I still have a chance to put things right. SO, that is what I shall do in this post. Starting with the details of my 2nd photoshop tutorial. In this, we were given several images to play around with. Some of them were old and therefore slightly oddly coloured, and some were damaged. Every photo needed alteration of some sort. Whilst some were handled by photoshop's 'auto contrast' feature, others needed a little more work. Perhaps the most spectacular examples are the ones I shall outline now.

We were given photographs that literally needed repairing. One of them, of a mother and her two daughters, had been chopped up. The original is presented below :



This was fairly straightforward. First of all, I used the polygonal tool to select each of the three regions that had been torn off the base. By cutting them and pasting them into a new layer, it meant that I could relay the pieces as closely together along the tears as possible. Sadly, this left a lot of the tear visible. In order to disguise this, my major technique was to use the clone stamp tool. Alt+click onto an area of the picture selects that area of the picture as your brush, so to speak, and then you can paint onto the picture with this new pattern. Obviously, one has to be careful not to paint with too big a brush, lest one paints the damaged areas back on accidentally. My edited version is below :



The next task seemed a lot trickier. Here, we were being asked to colourise a black and white image. Namely, this image :



Again, the polygonal select tool was my saviour. This tool allows you keep on selecting new points, and eventually you join the points together to make a selected region. Now, as long as you have 'add selection' checked on the toolbar, a new click will select a new region, but not lose the first region. So, I selected evry single one of the stripes. With them all selected, I opened a new layer, and bucket filled it in red. Naturally, this led to all the stripes being a unifrom red. So, by lowering the opacity and fill level for the new layer, I allowed the original background layer to show through. I then did the same for the blue in the corner, and to show the difference it makes, also selected every star. The corner layer was blue, and the stars were white, each layer filled to roughly 50%, and roughly 50% opaque. The decision to use these percentages was more based on art than science, because they just looked right. Finished image is once again presented below :



(There were other pictures to alter, but these 2 are the most striking, in my opinion.)

The following lecture told us about vector animation, and showed us some examples of flash from both the web and TV. We will be going into flash in some detail next year, apparently. Now, I am no expert, but I am already comfortable with flash. I have created several short movies over the years, as intros for websites. In fact, my most recent, and therefore best, can be seen by clicking this link here!

The course remains as interesting as ever. Especially since we have now had to sign up to BigStockPhoto in order to attempt to sell some of our images. Making profit? That is MY kind of assignement! Signing up requires you to read the tutorials, and then pass a test. Amusingly, it is impossible to fail the test, as I am told an incorrect answer gives you a pop-up box telling you your answer is incorrect. I guess they don't want to limit their potential for subscribers too much!

Another lecture, another blog post!

Today's lecture was all about landscape moments in imagery. So, we were told about the invention of the camera. A potted history that we could have picked up from Wikipedia and Google, if we really wanted to. However, we were also told about other parts of image history that might not be readily apparent. For example, before today I was unaware of the work of Joseph Brady, who apparently staged war scenes in order to make better photos.

Also, we were told about the Rodney King footage, which was ruled inadmissable in court, because it was apparently 'out of focus'. To be fair, the judge had a point.Regardless of his decision leading to the LA riots, he did the right thing. Not being able to see what happened before the police started assaulting Rodney means that the footage itself can not be viewed objectively. The majority of people who did see it were extremely angered by it, but how many of them cared to wonder about what happened prior to the record button being pressed?

Why discuss these things? I can understand how Leica's introduction of the first 35mm camera was a milestone moment, as could anyone. But, why do we need to know about Brady? I think the point that John was trying to get towards today was that the presentation of media is of equal import to the actual media itself. (Of course, the truncated nature of the current timetable works against any kind of discussion time inside the lectures, which really is a shame.) As illustration, I offer this version of the trailer for one of cimena's most iconic movies , Stanley Kubrick's 'The Shining'.



Robert Ryang did more than just win a contest when he made that. He showed how our perception of information alters when it is presented in a different way. By ignoring such things as the river of blood, and Jack's conversations with dead people, coupled with playing Peter Gabriel's 'Salisbury Hill' as a backing track, our perception of the movie alters. Instead of one of the scariest horror films of all time, here we see a light-hearted and uplifting family movie. You have to have knowledge of the original movie to understand just why the new trailer is so clever. If you haven't seen it, you simply see a trailer for a movie that you perhaps would want to watch with your family.

Basically, our take on the information presented to us can be manipulated by the photographer/cinematographer. This is both disturbing and enlightening. As technology becomes more powerful and more accessible, enabling more people to present these framed realities, then the implications have to be studied. Personally, it is my hope to one day reach a similar level of ability. As to whether or not I should? Well, that is a debate I will leave for a future date.

Image manipulateration!

So, my 'recognisable picture'. Yeah, it's the same as my University ID card photo. I figured that was the best one to use. But ...

It's a bit dull.

I got a bit bored, and decided to play about with it a bit. And, came up with 3 examples of how I could have done it. Each one has a different inspiration.

First, I just played about, and came up with this one, inspired by the manga/anime '3 x 3 Eyes' :



This led me to thinking about doing something more comical, pasting bits of another image on top. I feel this one still needs work :



And then, finally, something that is REALLY obvious :



I'm sure I'll do more, and do better, in the future. For now, these are just something I did in order to do it.

Enter blog #17868634834!

Oh yes, ANOTHER little slice of the web with my name and photo plastered all over it, just what the world needs.!Well, the world can shut its' collective mouth, since this one is actually essential. Whereas I can happily never update on MySpace, LiveJournal, 1up, or HG, here I am required to update. It's homework! (I know the correct terminology would be 'an assignment', but let's face it. 'Homework' has more comedy potential.)

To be honest, it is a great idea. Keeping a log of your work is always a good idea. And, when that work is for a module entitled 'Creative Technologies', then it just makes sense to do it in the form of a blog. So, I shall just have to remember to update this thing after every lecture, after every workshop, and then also at seemingly random times in between.

First things first, I shall share my impressions of what turned out to be my first ever lecture at University. I have to say, things did not start out all that well. When 188 students try to cram into a lecture theatre that has seating for 150, then things are bound to go wrong. What was an expected 2-hour lecture turned into a 1-hour lecture, which was then repeated for the benefit of the 35 souls unlucky enough to not find room to sit. Happily, I got into the room early enough to be in the first group.

So, sitting through my first lecture was reason to be nervous. I pictured the lecturer to be some dry, old, and boring Professor. How wrong I was. What I got instead was a guy who seems ... interesting. And, when I got an assignment as broad in scope as "Set up a blog", I realised that I am exactly where I am supposed to be! If ever there was a medium that I was born to broadcast in, it is this one.

So, here we are. As things stand, I am on the verge of potentially the most exciting 3 years of my life. Now that the teething problems that my high-speed application and enrolment process caused are sorted out, and I am able to not only find my assignments but also retrieve my email and timetable, then I feel it is safe to say ...

BRING ON THE WORK!