Saturday, March 29, 2014

ACM138 Animation - Autodesk Maya - Water Temple

Deakin University was a good place to do my Graphic Design degree because it had flexibility with elective subjects. Which meant I could explore other things I was interested in studying. I took a few subjects from the Animation section and learnt a little bit about using Maya - a 3D animation program. I was very noob at it because Animation was not my major but I had fun making things.

The major assignment for the first subject was to build a room and then have a camera pan through it. So while people built bedrooms and lounge rooms, I decided to make a water temple and try to emulate bloom effects.

I will have to see if I can track down the actual video that panned through this room, I'm not sure if I managed to back it up on my USB drive because the file was quite large. But here are the screenshots of it.











And here is the video!

ACM102 Comparitive Imaging - Assignment 5

This was a photography assignment from university. In the first part we were asked to create a series of alike things - a typology. I have a lot of keyrings, so I made a photo set of them! The second part of the assignment required us to create a rule which would mean we had to take a photo. Mine was I had to take a photo of everything I ate and I did that for 5 days. As you can see I'm naughty and eat a lot of junk. XD



Thursday, March 27, 2014

Preying mantis


Yesterday I had a visitor, this praying mantis was sitting on my car bonnet! I noticed it when looking out the window and scurried off to grab my camera and a zoom lens. I probably looked strange still wearing my PJ's and pointing my camera at my car but you have to be quick to catch cool things like this!

Wednesday, March 26, 2014

Miniature Towns

Michael Paul Smith photographs a town that is very special to him; Elgin Park. These lovely photos look they were taken decades ago when these retro homes and cars were brand new.


But Mr Smith has a secret... this town is tiny!


Not only does this miniature town look amazing but he built it himself!

As I myself like to photograph miniatures in the way of figurines, I am definitely impressed by his time poured in and the attention to detail in his models. It would take a lot of patience that I certainly don't have! Although I'd love to put my figmas in that little town XD

There's some great behind the scenes shots on his Flickr.

Michael Paul Smith - Elgin Park 

Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Slideshow Video - Code Geass Meet #2


I want to make more videos and get better at it in the process. My Sony Vaio came with Movie Studio Platinum so I'm going to teach myself to use that for the time being. I made a simple slideshow using my set of photos from Code Geass Meet #2, which I hosted in 2012. My previous experience is with Adobe Premiere, but at first glance it seems fairly easy to adapt to Movie Studio Platinum with my existing basic knowledge of video editing.

While I really can't afford it now, I want my next DSLR to have video on it. Currently I can only take video with my iPhone or old point & shoot cameras around the house. I'd also like to play with some video capture software for video games, as I had a lot of fun making Sims 2 videos back a few years ago!

Sunday, March 23, 2014

Abandoned Places

http://www.1millionwomen.com.au/2013/10/17/10-incredible-images-of-abandoned-places-nature-has-reclaimed/


Abandoned places is a pretty popular subject for photography. You don't need to organise models or talk to anyone for the most part, a great plan for the introverted photographer! Although there are some very remote locations that take a bit of effort to find. Check out the link, some great pictures there!

Saturday, March 22, 2014

Hiroshi Sugimoto Essay

Essay by Jodie Becker


HIROSHI SUGIMOTO

Hiroshi Sugimoto was born in Tokyo, Japan in 1948. He finished university in 1970, his initial studies were Politics/Socialogy and not photography related at all. He later retrained himself with a BFA in Fine Arts at the Art Center College of Art and Design in Los Angeles, California, which he graduated from in 1974. He then moved to New York, however he spreads himself between American and Japan, which is reflected in his photographs.

Many of Sugimoto’s photography themes are often related to the flow of time, life and death, surrealism and fascination with science/math. He uses a large format camera and has an exceptional technical ability but is also admired for the philosophical connections that form the conceptual ideas in his work. Most often he does photographic series. He often likes to question ones sense of reality, especially when it is commonly perceived that a photograph only captures the truth. Sugimoto never photographs living people, his subjects are statues, models, landscape, sculpture and architecture. He prefers to shoot with natural lighting and will avoid using studio lighting where possible, he also prefers his exhibitions to be bathed in natural light and does not concern himself with the deterioration of the images as he believes this is a natural flow of life.



Permian Land, 2004

DIORAMAS
When visiting the American Musuem of Natural History in New York, Sugimoto observed that the stuffed animals against painted backgrounds looked tragically fake, but when he squinted one eye, the perspective would vanish and it looked more realistic. He thought that perhaps this is how the camera would see the image and set about making the Diorama series. At a first glance the images do look real but when you notice creatures such as dinosaurs, you realise they do not exist in the world today and therefore the image cannot be a real living creature that has been captured by the camera.



Sea of Japan, Hokkaido, 1986

SEASCAPES
At a first glance, the series of Seascapes look quite simple. Calm compositions divided equally between the water and sky. But the philosophy behind them is wonderfully thought out.

“Water and air. So very commonplace are these substances, they hardly attract attention - and yet they vouchsafe our very existance” (Hiroshi Sugimoto)

The way each seascape has been photographed makes it ambiguous to it’s location, with only the title tying it to the place of capture. Longer shutterspeeds have been used on some of the images, which as a result have a soft ethereal quality to them, where the waves and sky have drifted together during the exposure time. While each photograph has been framed the same way, each has it’s own quality in the variation of shutterspeeds and the type of weather present at the scene.



Metropolitan, 1993

THEATRES
Sugimoto had an interesting thought session that led to the question “Suppose you shoot a whole movie in a single frame?” where of course the answer is “You get a shining screen”. He took action to realise this vision and began experimenting by taking his camera to a theatre, where he set the shutter open, only to click it closed when the movie had finished. He developed the film the same night and was completely amazed by the result. He has since photographed many different theatres in this fashion, being lit by only the light of the movie itself which becomes an indistinguishable white screen but therefore condensing the whole movie to one frame, collapsing time into what seems like a single moment. The theatres which are usually filled with people during a movie screening, look quite eerie as they are empty in Sugimotos photographs.



Mathematical Form 0003, 2004.
Dini's surface: a surface of contant negative curvature obtained by twisting a pseudosphere.

MATHEMATICAL FORMS
Sugimoto has a fascination in mathematical sculptures and the beauty they create without being intentional pieces of art work. “Art resides even in things with no artistic intentions” (Hiroshi Sugimoto). The objects known as “stereometric exemplars” were used as teaching aids to demonstrate trigonometric functions to students. They have been photographed in a way that they appear as abstract statuesque monuments against a black background, giving the viewer no clue as to the real size of the object and therefore perceived as being very large as they dominate the frame.



Anne of Cleves, 1999

PORTRAITS
The famous wax museum Madame Tussuads has many historical figures that have been made with only renaissance paintings as reference, as photography did not exist in their era. Sugimoto has then photographed these figures with renaissance style lighting to immitate the paintings, yet the photographs turn out looking as though a real person could be standing in front of the camera. Many levels of different art mediums imitating each other makes us question the sense of reality in the photographs. Sugimoto himself has said “If this photograph no appears lifelike to you, you had better reconsider what it means to be alive here and now.”



Many of Sugimoto’s themes challenge your perception of reality in his photographs. The ideas of art and science are being intermingled into one. His beautiful execution of the images also indicates his understanding of the interrelation between science and art and not just his ability to pose questions about it. There’s a dreamy quality in his photographs that also demands us to acknowledge the here and now. The metaphysical philosophy that drives his choice of subject matter creates a story behind each image that makes the viewer question their perception of time, space and self. These questions and themes are very evident in his series Dioramas, Seascapes, Mathematical Forms, Portraits and Theatres.



REFERENCES

Sugimoto Hiroshi, Portfolio, retrieved 20 April 2011, <http://www.sugimotohiroshi.com/>

ARTINFO, Lightning Fields, retrieved 20 April 2011,

The Coveted, Trip to the museum: Contemporary Japanese Fashion, retrieved 20 April 2011, <http://the-coveted.com/blog/2007/11/28/trip-to-the-museum-contemporary-japanese-fashion/>

Art Knowledge News, Lucerne Museum of Art displays a Hiroshi Sugimoto Retrospective, retrieved 20 April 2011,


Heike Helfert, Sugimoto Hiroshi Theatres, retrieved 20 April 2011, <http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/works/theaters/>

Thomas Kellein, Hiroshi Sugimoto : Time Exposed, 1995, Thames & Hudson.

Johnny, Hiroshi Sugimoto’s Sea Scapes at the Gagosian, retrieved 20 April 2011, <http://www.spoon-tamago.com/2008/12/10/hiroshi-sugimotos-sea-scapes-at-the-gagosian/>

C4 Art Gallery, Hiroshi Sugimoto: Seascapes, retrieved 20 April 2011, <http://c4gallery.com/artist/database/hiroshi-sugimoto/seascapes/hiroshi-sugimoto-seascapes.html>


Levy Gallery, Hiroshi Sugimoto: Conceptual Forms, retrieved 20 April 2011, <http://www.levygallery.com/inventory/hiroshi_sugimoto/03.html>

Zuihitsu, Hiroshi Sugimoto at the de Young, Part I, retrieved 20 April 2011,


Wikipedia, Hiroshi Sugimoto, retrieved 5 May 2011, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiroshi_Sugimoto>

Noble Garden Party - Easter with Kaito & Len

1/60 @ f4.5

Behind the scenes!
I spent about 2 hours tinkering before I got this set up the way I wanted! I used a lot of inexpensive items to create the backdrop. The floor is pieces of felt, the fairy lights were from Daiso, the little fence box is from Tokuya, with some fake flowers placed inside. The scene is lit with a desk lamp and some torches. A low aperture is used to make the fairy lights on the wall blur out, as well as placing the figures a distance away from them. The glass crystal under the chocolate egg is a serviette holder.

Nendoroid parts used are Len Kagamine (original version), Kaito (cheerful version) and Ciel Phantomhive, which comes with the chair and the butler arms.



Friday, March 21, 2014

If you don't like pictures of cats, you have no soul.

http://500px.com/natusame_eos



Check out these amazing photos by Seiji Mamiya of cats doing amazing cat things! The sunset photos are particularly beautiful!


Thursday, March 20, 2014

Code Geass Meet #4 - Mad Hatters Tea Party

I held a little Code Geass meet up last weekend. Here's some photos by my friends Neil and Mark!
I took a few photos myself but haven't uploaded them yet, I'll make another post when that's done!

http://neilcreek.smugmug.com/Costuming/Code-Geass-Meet-4-140315/


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