#2

Due to the fact that the website was recommended was down, I used Photoshop Star which I found by searching the internet. The technical tutorial that caught my eye was 'How to turn a new photo into an old photo' because I love history and old photographs. I downloaded an image of my family hot air ballooning because I thought that activity was fitting for am aged photograph. 

This tutorial was simple yet used many layers which was appealing to me, especially since at first the layers covered the entire image but when the layer mode was changed or the opacity, the layers created an effect on the original photo. Which made me nervous at first because I had never changed the opacity.

This was the first layer I added on top of my original image. I used filter > render > clouds to create this dark image overlaying. Then continued with the graphics and effects by creating more of a noise. By changing this layer into soft effect, the original image showed through. 

Next I added a layer of color and made it soft which gave the photo an antique look. Then scratches were added throughout the photo through image > adjustments > threshold which gave the photo a worn look. My favorite layer was using the gradient tool to adjust where the light is coming from. Giving a different angle and look of mistake or poor exposure which was common in antique photos. 

For this image, after lots of difficulty ad playing around, I thought it looked best to have the over exposure coming in from the left side. With my image looking like the picture directly above, I changed the opacity to 70% which gave me a final picture looking like it truly was an old photo. 

Through photoshop I was able to take my 2010 photo and date it at least 60 years ago. I could be working at the fair, in the old western photo booth in no time!

#1

I first thought of Barbara Kruger for this assignment even though her works were not digital, they were photographs. Not only did she push boundaries with great use of mixed media but she really set the tone for digital art, which was soon to come. Barbara Kruger stood out in my mind since we first learned about connotations and denotations because of her throughly thought out simplistic work. So simplistic that the line between connotations and denotations is very blurry. Always looking to make a statement about politics, age, gender, sexuality, feminism, society, and so on; she went into creating these great works of art with the purpose of denotations to create a shock and statement.

 Barbara Kruger

This piece I chose has an obvious connotations, such as many of her works due to her use of text in her art. The simple text, 'Thinking of You' overlaying a picture of someone poking their finger with a needle gives off the connotation of pain makes me think of you. Denotations bring up the idea of more broad social issues, such as suicide, gay rights, and feminism. This simple picture represents the oppression that as human beings, we put on each other.


I recently became a fan Ann Leibovitz's work when I came across her recent work for disney in a magazine. In this project she chooses celebrities to depict certain fairy tails. Who she chose to portray the characters in the stories gives a lot of denotation. Depending on the frame photoshop plays a more apparent roll than others, but overall she uses editing to create the most naturalistic portrayal of a fantasy possible.

 Annie Leibovitz  

The original connotation I had about this was hollywoods 'it' couple from High School Musical were chosen to be sleeping beauty and her prince, cute right? Not so much when the denotation is screaming FEMINISM. The real life couple also played the same role in the popular disney movies they are featured in. Stereotypical roles for each of them, Zach Effron playing the popular jock and Vanessa Hudgenson playing the geek only to be saved by Zach, giving off the idea that she couldn't survive without him. Even if you didn't know the background of the couple, the fact that she needs a man to kiss her represents the feminism idea that women NEED men. This could also be gay rights denotation, do you have to be heterosexual to be saved? Its amazing how simple  children's literature can have such deep denotation about society.