Warm-up Assignment: Juxtaposition
John Cena – http://ztona.org/john-cena/
Rowan Atkinson – http://www.bubblews.com/news/1250682-rowan-atkinson-also-known-as-mr-bean-turns-to-islam-and-has-become-muslim
For the juxtaposition assignment, i chose to create an image combining two well known social figures, John Cena and Rowan Atkinson (also known as Mr. Bean). When i was growing up and was still in elementary/middle school, i used to watch both WWE and The Mr.Bean Show and was a fan of both shows. These shows were undoubtedly very different and had nothing in common. On one side, i saw WWE as being a show with a very aggressive tone to it and it might not have even suitable for me at that age, but i liked watching it anyways. While on the other hand, Mr. Bean was one of my favorite comedy shows that i knew would most certainly make me laugh and still does to this day. The reason behind making this juxtaposition is that, John Cena never really made me laugh and i always disliked him for his attitude on the show, so i decided to give him one last chance to change his image in my eyes. This image has a more comedic meaning for me than anything else. There is no strong reason for why i chose these images rather than the fact that they help me remember my childhood memories.
To start off, first i separated the images into different layers, which helped me to keep everything organized and made it easier for me to edit items whenever i wanted. I then used the magnetic lasso tool to achieve a smooth cutting of Rowan Atkinson’s face, which i later placed on John Cena’s body. Since the skin color was a little off, i used the hue/saturation tool under Layer style’s tab to adjust this, in order to make it seem as real as possible. Also, to keep the attention on the subjects face and body, i cropped the bottom part of the image which had some text present. I achieved this using the cropping tool found in the tool bar. Further, i used the patch tool to blend the face features into the body. I also changed some of the brightness/contrast settings to give it a more natural and convincing look.
Main Assignment: Combining Words and Images
http://www.todayonline.com/world/africa/nelson-mandela-leaves-us41-million-estate-family-staff-anc
http://hdw.eweb4.com/out/573417.html
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.”
For this assignment i have used a quote by Marianne Williamson which was featured in her book “A Return to Love”. This quote always seems to give me goosebumps whenever i read it. This is by far one of my favourite quotes and has a very deep meaning instilled in it. It makes me think about how much a human being is capable of and what we can accomplish with the right mindset. It makes me dwell on the fact that countless individuals have spent their entire lives trying to achieve something that would somehow benefit those around them and society as a whole. One such individual that i deeply admire is Mr. Nelson Mandela, who faught for his independence and for the independence of those around him his entire life. It makes me wonder whether men/women such as him still exist or have they been lost in oblivion. Todays dog eat dog world is not the most comfortable environment to be around in, but i believe every individual can make a change for the greater good if he/she is properly incentivised. What i have noticed in people these days is that they care too much about what people think about them and hesitate to do and say what they really want. People fear criticism so much to the point where they are not themselves anymore. This is why i admire individuals such as Nelson Mandela, individuals who are willing to step out of their comfort zone and face the world for what it really it. We need more Nelson Mandelas.
For making this image, I used two images, a portrait photo of Nelson Mandela and a black textured photo for the background/base. The color scheme that I used is fairly simple, it seems to connect with the quote that I used. The words light and darkness seem to hit the notes on the color scheme. I used the standard filters in Adobe Photoshop to give the photo of Nelson Mandela a grainy/cracked look. For this assignment, i had to use a lot layers to separate the image into individual rectangles, in fact i don’t think i have ever used these many layers before. From this I was able to learn more in depth about layers and how i can use each one to my advantage. The most challenging part about this assignment was deciding where the text would be placed. I had to get it right in order to bring out the essence of this image. After experimenting with different text placements, i finally got what i wanted. Also, I deliberately used a bold looking font which directly attracts attention and speaks to the viewer in a way which other fonts did not. I did a little experimenting with this too.