top of page
Image
In this class we will explore the concept of imagery and create projects that reflect our definitions of it.
Throughout the semester, I completed five "Design Challenges" that are documented below.
Design Challenge #1
For this assignment we were challenged to create ten illustrations on a subject. After an extensive ideation process, I decided to create a series of images showing plants combined with light fixtures. My ideation process is outlined here.
The final images:
Design Challenge #2
For this assignment we were challenged to create a series of photographs to represent ourselves as well as another person. These are my final images with galleries showing my ideation process below.
Sarah
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
Contact Sheet
Ideation
Maegan is a Colorado native. She is from Evergreen, Colorado and loves mountain sports. Her family is very important to her. Her parents, sister, and dog are all very important in her life. She is a little shy, but she wants people to know that she is more than that. She is a caring person, a good roommate, and a serious student. She misses going on road trips with her family and feeling totally care free when she was a kid. When she grows up, she wants to look back on her life and feel like she accomplished all her goals. She knows she does not do well with too much stress and struggles with change, but she is working hard to overcome that in order to do all that she wants to do. I will photograph her in mountain scenes and try to use poses and lighting to suggest confidence as well as shyness.
I am a student of both art and engineering. I am a very hard worker, as I work two jobs while going to school. I do my best to do well in everything that I do, but I often find myself spread too thin. I want to represent myself in photos with dirty, working hands, or in the glow of a neon sign to represent me as a hard worker. I am also a lover of nature and the mountains. I have not lost my childlike sense of wonder, and I often get strange looks from others as I stare in awe at things as simple as the way the light filters through the trees. I want to capture my love of nature and all the mundane things I find magical.
Design Challenge #3
For this assignment we were challenged to take a series of photos on a specific subject and create a book using 30 of those photos. The book includes text to go along with the photos as well. I chose to document a journey through the mountains of Colorado and northern New Mexico in my book.
30 Selected Photos
Photo Book
Contact Sheet
Design Challenge #4
For this assignment we were challenged to create eight possible variations of covers for the photo book created in the last challenge using a wide variety of photo editing techniques learned in class. I started by experimenting with a few different editing techniques, I then generated eight cover options from those.
Experimentation
Cover Variants
Final Thoughts
Choosing imagery for the cover of this photo book was very challenging. The subject of my photo book, mountains, is very broad. As I worked on the book, it became more personal because I began to see a narrative in the photos that aligned with the stages of my life. The cover needed to show my mountain photos, but it also needed to have a more personal element - something that tied these images to me. That is why I included an image of myself edited in to some of the cover options. This shows how the mountains I grew up on have become a part of me.
Another obstacle was choosing which images were my strongest. Each photo has such strong personal associations for me, that it was difficult to look at the images objectively. Asking for feedback from other students really helped me to focus on the images with stronger technical quality. Most of the images I took for this challenge were fairly similar. The ones that stood out engaged the foreground and framed the distant mountains and sky in an interesting way. Without having feedback from classmates, I would not have made this connection.
Design Challenge #5
For this assignment we were challenged to create a video including both appropriated and original content. We have chosen to create a video based on an episode of the popular television show, "Cash Cab".
Shot List
Story Board
Write-up
We are planning on recreating an episode of "Cash Cab". We will use the title sequence as well as several clips of the driver asking trivia questions. We will take video of ourselves driving around in a car decked out like the cash cab taxi. Each of us will be in the shot answering the trivia questions appropriated from the actual episode. We also plan on adding in a few fun extra challenges, like asking a random person on the street for help and adding in an extra intense game sequence while stopped at a red light. A lot of time will go into decorating the car, coming up with answers for the trivia questions and setting up our camera to get the shots we need. We also will spend time editing the video with Adobe Premier after we have all our footage.
Individual Video
Group Video
Summary
At the beginning of this project I was very nervous about having to film video, edit it, and work with a group. It seemed very overwhelming, but we ended up finishing the project without any major issues. During the ideation stage we had a lot of differing ideas, but once we got together to start filming all our ideas fit together pretty well. We shot all our footage together, but we each took a few turns doing the actual filming. This allowed all of us to get a feel for it and I think we all learned a lot from actually doing the filming ourselves. I was also very worried about the editing process, but once I got into it the process actually went a lot faster than I expected. I still think the concept of recreating a television show is a little silly. I would have rather spent all this time and effort creating something else, but I definitely learned a lot while doing this project.
bottom of page