Project 6: Evaluate

"Instead of thinking outside of the box, get rid of the box."

Thinking outside the box and doing something different is what every dancer is striving to do, Every dancer wants to push the envelop and create something that is like nothing to be seen before. I'm going to use photography and digital art to try and capture this struggle dancers have of creating outside the box. I will do a flour photoshoot with two dancers where I get still and moving images. I will use the images to create dancers in a box, but the box will be falling apart. The flour will be the part where the box is falling apart. The dancers will be fighting to escape the box.

Evaluate is my thinking skill for this project. Evaluate is making sound judgment about a situation based on a thorough understanding of concepts involved. I am evaluating the creative drive of a dancer. I have a very good understanding of this since I am a dancer. Dancers are always pushing to be original. I will show this through images of dancers in flour. I am making a sound judgement on a dancer's creative drive and creating an image expressing that.

My research for this started before I even had the idea for this project, but it was two separate ideas. The first one was the flour photoshoot. There are many photographers who have done this type of photoshoot, but one of my favorites was by Derrick Senior. He also had a how to about this type of photoshoot, which is really useful because I haven't done anything quite like this before. I watched and read many videos and articles on how to do a flour photoshoot. I don't have the proper equipment, but I will make do with what I have.









My other idea is dancers in boxes. The photographer, Jeff Robb, does photography of females in abstract shapes in these boxes that form one big box. Heisone of the only people I have seen do this. I can't put dancers in a box though, so I will edit boxes on the computer. 







I want to bring these two ideas together to get dancers exploding out of the box. Doing research on them individually will make it easier for me to understand and bring them together into one thing. 

My process started by getting the materials together to make it happen. I needed a camera and an additional flash. I was able to borrow a flash from the school and I used my own camera I had at home. I got black fabric to put for a solid background and duck tape to hang it up and put in place. I have a gymnastics mat so the dancers have a stable and safe surface to move. Lastly, I need a whole lot of flour.

I chose to go outside to take pictures because I didn't want flour on everything I own. I set up my photoshoot scene. I had two friends that I dance with as my dancers for this shoot. Learning as I went, I started taking pictures. It was super messy, but super fun. When it was all done, I uploaded the picture for editing. Here are a few of the original images.






I used Photoscape as my editing app. Basically all I did was use the painting tool and add in darkness by changing the brush in multiple ways. I kept the color for darkening the same for every picture, so that when I collage them together they flow well.  Once I darkened everything up, I went and cleaned up the skin with an eraser tool so it wouldn't get lost in the powder and background. Here is the second stage of my pictures.






The last stage of editing is putting them into a box and making the box broken. I did this by collaging  the photos together into a square. The border I chose is a pale white. I then added the same dark color of the background around the edges so I could "break" the box. I used a drawing tool to color over parts of the box I wanted to break with the background color again. Then I took a different drawing tool and stippled white onto and out of the box. This is suppose to look like the flour. I added a filter to brighten up the colors and make it look better and then I was done. 




Overall, I loved this project and I did a good job at following criteria. I did advanced on everything because I used my time wisely by working in and out of class. I put my own unique twist on an idea by combining multiple influences. I had a reason for why I did the things I did in my piece. Next time I could improve by doing a better job at setting up a background. 


Comments

  1. This is Unique! love the photography I love the flour, how you made the image come alive and added your own twist and actually gathered all the materials you needed to do this it shows effort. Also it looks a lot of fun even using the app to edit a little bit seems fun it makes me want to set up a photoshoot. This looks so professional, good job.

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  2. This is super cool and creative because art is not just drawing and painting, it's so much more (such as photography). The photoshop looks super professional. I also like how you grasped inspiration from other artists and photographers.

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