Sunday, October 10, 2010

Panopticon&The Still Image Reflection

The theme for my project is Paranormal Universe. I got inspred by all the eerie claimed haunted pictures online and the movie Paranormal Activity, thinking there could be something unsual and not mundane that could be captured by surveilance cameras. (My flickr page: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jingleixiao80/)

Photoshop is a big part in this project, I had to make an usual picture to look like a surveilance or hidden camera image. So desaturation, the adjustion of hue and color, and the adjustion of exposure are the major function of Photoshop I was using.

Here are some examples of how I made my pictures.


a
 First I took a picture of an empty hall way (picture a). Then I took a picture of the figure in the hallway (picture b). After adjusting the hue and saturation, with corping and feathuring the edge I put the figure in the hall way becoming (picture c). After taking a picture of the person in different position (picture d), I put picture d and c together. So picture e is the final product.

Of coruse I didn't use a fancy lens to create the surveillance still effect. It was just a normal Sony Digital Camera
 


b


c


d
 
e
 

6 comments:

  1. I like the direction you took your project in. The topic is surreal, but at the same time cover ideas that are very relevant to today. The photographs in the "room surveillance" and "mirror" sets are particularly eerie. They have a scopophilic feel to them and emphasize the extent of how often we can be (and are?) watched.

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  2. I thought your idea for this project was very interesting. I did notice that many of those eerie movies and films today use surveillance camera as a huge part of capturing paranormal activities---when the ghost thought nobody was watching, the camera was. Great use of photoshop. I bet it was a lot of fun playing with it to create the surreal effect on what is a normal picture.

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  3. Wow, I really like the effect you achieved - it's so eerie and surreal, and fascinating at the same time. You definitely chose a different sort of direction in terms of surveillance, but I like it. It shows that not all security cameras are there to simply frighten you, or make you feel suspect. They can catch interesting images, and sometimes even ones of a more spectral nature.

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  4. Your creativity for this project was fascinating!Ii can admit that I watched Paranormal Activity, and the images were frightening in the film. Your project defiantly reflects from the film as well as relates to the surveillance issues we have been talking about in class. I enjoyed every set, but "Mirrors" was really stood out.

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  5. First of all, I am genuinely impressed with the way you took advantage of Photoshop. I can easily tell through your editing that you have been using Photoshop for a long time. Secondly, I also like how you portrayed surveillance through a different perspective. For instance, your two sets, "mirror" and "room surveillance" work well together to portray how surveillance can be performed so discreetly; without letting one know that he/she is being watched by the camera eye. The use of time and date on each picture of the three sets also helps synchronize all the pictures together. Overall, I believe that your entire project is grouped together in a cohesive and thoughtful manner.

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  6. You are making light of our collective paranoia about being watched but adding a twist with knowing humor and perhaps some satire?

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