Arturs Reinholds: PHOTOGRAPHY

Showing posts with label PHOTOGRAPHY. Show all posts

As I mentioned in previous posts, our installation is presenting the result of evil behavior. It is about the communication nowadays... The source can be completely innocent so as the speaker, but the messenger is the one who makes the rules. Particularly in our installation, the way of changing the message is cleared in three ways.

Still playing with the spread of information we wanted to base the piece on the passing and delivery of words, how things said by others can’t be monitored nor controlled. In the piece, you are viewing five separate screens working as a vocal circuit. Four of the Screens act as distributors of information. Starting from the left (Screen 1) something is said, moving along it reaches the middle screen, upon receiving the news the middle screen reacts, the reaction is later heard/seen by another passing on the story. The middle screen acts as a Breeder and Target for gossip it plays a victim of rumor. Shocked by the words it has come to hear, it addresses the viewer with the words “just between you and me” in hope to seal the spreading; in natural fact, nothing stays private. The circuit loops again, middle screen reacts with anger “Beat the shit out of a pillow” yet making another headline.

CIRCUIT

I am working together with Ivan and at the very beginning, we both agreed what are our roles. Ivan is the author of pictures and digital drawings. He was in charge of characters. Meanwhile, my role was "HOW TO MAKE IT POSSIBLE?". To learn 3D animation in less than one month - I did not know how able I am to do it, so I did not risk it. So, Ivan found a solution, he showed me video of Micheal Jackson and I decide to look deeper into the production process

Having in mind this interesting video I look for another. Each video took my attention more and more.

After a good research, I found out what is Morph Motion - Still to Still. Soon I had a RE:Flex plugin on my Adobe After Effects.

I run few tests and realized that on trial version nothing is going to work. It put a huge cross over the image - watermarked.

Having this problem made me think of ways around it. So I came with a solution to generate huge pictures, edit them with the watermark and then just crop needed frame in Adobe Premiere.

I ended up with 11.5K footage on my computer. All videos and sequences were about this size leaving portrait area for FULL HD resolution. 1080x1920p PORTRAIT!

I watched tutorials how to use RE:Flex motion morph for different files - videos, still images and animations. I was very into this technique and I am glad I explored it. First tests went bad, but I got use to it. One portrait took me about 4 hours to turn sideways and open its mouth.

What motion morph does is basically takes the points defined by me and blends together with the image next. I have to go frame by frame and move shapes that are different for two frames between.

Here is a video that is taken for 4.5 hours.

In total, I made fully 6 portraits. Morphing and later on exporting through Adobe Premiere in .MOV H.264 1080x1920p 25fps.

After generating motion from still, it was time for motions. Each motion was trimmed separately like sequence. It was more like a sequence of the sequence of the sequence. Files on files.

As you can see. For each face, I had approximately 22-30 masks and each mask has to be keyframed. Well, that would be easy, but each mask, like layer for hair consisted of 200 points which need to be separately moved because masks are changing their own shape.

In my opinion, we set roles very clever. Ivan was in charge of characters. As soon as he finished one face I began to draw shapes and move pictures in After Effects. I think his process was not easier, all layers and texture took a long time. Meanwhile, I was working with different sizes, trying to figure out pixel ratio and frame times in certain seconds.

We had issues, particularly my Adobe crashed for like 5 times.

I would say that I was excited by the process learning a new technique... but closer to the end and I got very tired. Every single point needs to be checked in all frames, keyframed every single second and because of different drawings, all shapes changed their form every single frame.

It was challenging, even more, because of something I have never been aware of. I got new experience and a feeling of great teamwork.

My inspiration is photographer Toufic Beyhum, he’s taking photographs of people at the Brixton Masjid, a mosque with a high turn out of young people – and an obsession with new kicks. (L ink) They have to wear full-length dish dash – their only option to be stylish is through trainers. Looking just on the shoes they are wearing it is quite easy to say something about their personalities, behaviours. For longer time I though do I need same background or ask models to be in different locations. I decide good for black backdrop that only helps to thing about the shoes. Different environment could make wrong thoughts.

Shoes represents memories, where they have been, what have been done in those and how careful is the owner. I took test shots with my own shoes.

Another mistake, composition, everything on one side, only one shoe written memories are missing. I tries different angles, took pictures on same backdrop.
Two speed-lights from sides trough A4 paper, diffusing the light.

I did talk with each shoes owner and asked what their taste of shoes mean to you, different question was included to remember what memories are happened in these shoes. How the personality reflects by wearing their stylish shoes.

Finally I add text on each image and it worked perfectly.
It was challenging for me because of picture count. 5 picture composition is not the best I have done. Also find difficulties pulling out the right text which presents their daily life and taste of shoes.

Our memories are the only paradise from which we can never be expelled. / Jean Paul Richter/

During the week after our first meeting, I chose to take only the line from my previous post - What people leave behind themselves? I draw sketches in my notebook. I look for abandoned places around Farnham. Develop idea - creating abandoned place look like someone just have sit on the chair or slept on the mattress. It took me whole day to think different scenarios like sketches of desk and letter on it with recently cleaned surface.

Something was missing. My developing process was not real. It was all about creating memories without true story under it. I took few days off.

My last sketch represented shoes. Discussed the idea with Leah and we find the way how to improve my photographs. Shoes themselves represents a lot about the owner. Are they are clean, maybe torn or with special style. To develop the text on each photograph took me time. For inspiration went together with my course mates to Blackpool.

Ivan with Preston and Rufaro invited me to go with them to Blackpool, which was like 4 hour drive in one direction.

It was a real opportunity to get inspired by other place apart from Farnham. Took some pictures and during the process I find how I want show these photographs to my audience. Powerful text from each owner not only show the style, but memories which bring us to highlights of their personalities.

Photography is something really close to me for a long time, but there is something that I have noticed only this year. I can easily make ideas of free themes or really specific ones. 'Memories' makes me think straight (Good and not so good. Things that are related to family, friends, home, etc.).

At first I focused more on technically impressive photographs. I draw few ideas in my notebook as I always do.

1st. idea was created quickly thinking straight about the mirrors. I was mostly inspired from two photographers Erik Johansson and Martín De Pasquale.

Photo by Martín De Pasquale

For 2nd. idea I was inspired by Erik Johansson only. He has tried to show in his artworks two different realities. Quite hard to find two very similar places barely using photoshop. It is because of my country which looks completely different and it is not only related to landscapes. It has its own architecture, style of traffic and colour theme overall. I found this quite difficult because of pictures I had from Latvia. Tried to find similarities in lines and perspectives, it took a lot of time and patient.

3rd. idea was important too because of technique how to present my work. Taking photos of important things form Latvia, placing them into jars just as a memories from my past. I gave up on this understanding that there is no actual meaning, it would be just a technique and manipulated old style photos of my personal items.

Other ideas was almost the same as those explained before. I was focused too much on the technique how to present my artwork originally. Only after our first meeting with Leah Gordon I analysed my mistakes. All simple ideas are genial. Though more about the time, meaning and what people leave after themselves.

I paid more attention to the artist Taryn Simon. Her exhibition "Contraband" made in 2010 is a simple idea of taking clean photographs of items. Every composition centered right in the middle, soft light around the objects on white background. Remind me product photography you can see in almost any shop. The idea was simple but I felt that it is too easy in terms of actual photoshoot. Easy to set-up the lights, background and camera. I wanted something more challenging.

The idea for my last concept came by itself. I was drawing sketches on my notebook and accidentally drew wrong size men. I looked up on internet how many photographers do the same thing. As my inspiration I choose Joel Robison. He has awesome works. I would say that now he is one of my favourite photographers and Photoshop artists.

As my location and background I choose the forest. I love the colours and textures you can find there. Secondly, it is easy to manipulate with shadows and sizes. We know how large are leaves and a bark so we can think quickly about the actual scene's dimensions.

I used wide angle lens to show as much as possible around me. It also gives nice depth of field. Fast shutter speed and low ISO gave me really good quality of image. The actual image is combined from two pictures. For both picture - landscape and myself I used the same camera settings and lighting source.

In post -production I used Lightroom to quickly look at my RAW and to select the final ones. For blending images together I used Layer Mask and a little bit of digital noise so it looks more natural.

About the idea. Throughout history, human beings have struggled to achieve control over nature. And now when we have so advanced technologies and medicine we believe more about controlling nature. My images shows that we are not so big as we imagine. Nature doesn't need people. People need nature. Man cannot control natural disasters. The future of nature is the future of us.

My strengths was using Photoshop and skills with DSLR. But anyways, I found that there are things to make better. I could take more time for shadows, trying more facial expressions or poses. Maybe symbolic outfit or tools around me. This was another lesson for me how important is light source and if it is good, how easy it is to manipulate with two different images.

During my third self portrait concept I needed help. So my friend Ivan helped me taking photos in the right moment. It was a dark night so we went to the field where was enough space to do my creative work.

This time my inspiration was Von Wong - one of my favourite photographers who has done amazing fire pictures in real time.

HOW IT WAS MADE:

The final work contains about 16 photos.

I started with original:

To light my face I used one speedlight - about 5 meters away.

After the original one. I took more with flames around. Merging together in Photoshop.

Combining layers I got the result I really wanted.

My second self portrait concept I choose to take in studio. I used black backdrop and 4 light setup. As a main light I used large softbox. One beauty dish from side and two contrast lights behind me. I was trying to establish myself as a criminal person. Using Photoshop tried to achieve video-game look. A little bit cinematic.

The meaning was to show how different we can be in ourselves. We can look kind and friendly at the same time hostile inside...

This is my first self portrait concept. I actually thought up a title for my concept - Against The Horizon. Picture turned more interesting after retouching than the moment of capture.

I am one of those who do not think a lot before taking a picture. All the time I have many ideas on my mind. But I do not spend a lot of time to put my ideas on a paper. I am very familiar with my camera and Photoshop tools so I am usually sure that I will get my result in the way I want. The biggest difficulties I have is finding the right location for a shot.

Also in this case, I walked through the forest and just saw steep slope. It looked really interesting because trees was straight up. So I had an idea to take a picture as if the slope is the true horizon. After taking few pictures I played with layers in Photoshop. trying to find the best way.

In the final result I blended few pictures together to make a feeling of motion.

Adobe Lightroom workshop helped us learn basics. How to import and edit images. In my opinion Adobe Lightroom is really good software if you need to edit more than just 5 images. It is really easy to organize and find pictures in any time. Really helpful option is <before and after> which allows to compare edited pictures with originals. I like that Lightroom allows to edit and change the settings even after a long time period.

Using Lightroom it is easy to export the images to Adobe Photoshop where adjustments is already applied. Batch editor and Export options in this software are very easy to configure.

Here are some of my images taken during first photography workshop. We learned the basics of DSLR using Nikon. DSLR is a digital camera that uses mirrors to direct light from the lens to the viewfinder.
The look of a photograph is affected by a variety of factors, including shutter speed, aperture, and ISO sensitivity. So, we learned how to control all these factors using fully manual mode.

I used natural light and portable speedlight trying to make large contrast images.