Midterm Portfolio

Proposal

For this midterm portfolio, I combined a variety of photos as well as a digital painting to accomplish a palette of different types of work. I attempted to combine different aspects of my creativity as well as varied methods.

            Production Log

In most of the five photographs, I adjusted primarily the curves; usually, I would delve first into color correction followed by contrast and brightness, finally ending in saturation. This process may have resulted in several different edits upon its completion for each photograph, however with each I selected one edit (with the exception of one photograph). In several of these pieces, I made the decision to lessen the saturation to give it an older appearance, as though it was edited years ago or taken by an older camera. This is the case with the piece depicting a man standing on a television in the middle of the picture. I also added frequently the use of the dodge and burn tools to create highlights and shadows where I thought would create a dramatic effect.

My largest obstacle was the decision to make the photographs black and white or in color; I used this method in one of my pieces. While it is enticing to create a black and white image with just the click of a button, many of the works were more rewarding to keep with their color and edit it further.

For the digital painting, an abundance of layers were used. While contributing to the work, I was fearful of mistakes, therefore giving me the motive to create new layer after new layer in attempt to separate the various parts of the image. The image itself was mostly drawn from my imagination, as the tutorial I used to get started was blurry and did not aid in my overall technique, but rather the absolute basic.

Self-evaluation

For this set of images, I am motivated to say that I am proud of my work. Digital painting, before the image of the mountain, was something I dabbled in very lightly. However, upon combining these practices I found it to be less challenging than I had thought it would be. However, the entirety of the piece was time-consuming and taxing on my dominant hand. In the future, I would like to practice this more intensely while creating a more organized layer content and improving my skill.

Additionally, the pictures are edited with a variety of different correction techniques. While I am sure I am proficient at selecting these techniques, I would like to learn how to first take more dramatic photographs, and second learning the style of editing that would create a varied but intense type of effect. Following this, I am sure that the color correction techniques would be required to improve and be honed according to a specific style in which I will choose to delve.