Welcome to my personal void

No one knows what goes on here, least of all me

Category: Intro Visual

  • Intro Visual Part IV: Summary

    Part I

    Part II

    Part III:
    – Assignment 1: City Graphic Poster
    – Assignment 2: Favorite Photo
    – Assignment 3: Magic of Nature
    – Assignment 4: Draw-It

    What Did I Learn?

    First of all, I learned that I severely underestimated the amount of time this would end up taking, and will be improving upon that. But as for what I learned about actual storytelling, I found that I greatly enjoy making quick doodles for this kind of thing, much more than I already knew. I expected me to not like having to repeatedly make a bunch of photos for these assignments, and I don’t think I have enough skill to really make it into a career or anything, but I had a lot of fun working on these assignments and the Daily Creates.

    What was easier or harder?

    The Magic of Nature (called the “Earth” assignment on the the Visual Assignment website) was a lot simpler than I was anticipating from a 5-star challenge, as it was really just making the words, adding a bit of flair in the background, then imposing a lot of nature-like brushes on top of the words. The Draw-It, however, was a lot more complicated, as I had no idea which photo I wanted to do and knew I needed to find one that had a good story to it. I eventually found one and like how it turned out, but I was expecting a 2-star to be a lot simpler.

    How can I improve?

    Well, other than give myself more time to do these, I don’t want to make this assignment late again in the future. I could definitely improve my storytelling skills, as while the Draw-It story wasn’t terrible, it was very basic and didn’t give much in-depth descriptions of anything. It’s a skill I really need to hone for the things I want to do in the future.

    As for improving my blog itself, I need to learn how to actually customize and optimize my site, as right now it’s a bit of a mess. It’s functional enough for the class, but I would like to make it better. Once I do that, future assignments will be much easier to navigate and create.

  • Intro Visual Part III-4: World Pup (Draw-It)

    “Take a photograph of something (If you take a picture from the internet, make sure to be nice and cite the original) and transform it through GIMP, Photoshop, etc, into a drawing.”

    One day, there was a corgi, and with her was her trusted ball. Now this dog was not the brightest or the most graceful, but she had a dream. This dream was to one day win the World Pup, the ultimate test of talent for any soccer-loving canine around the world. So every day and every night, this pup trained her hardest to become the best soccer dog ever. Her bounds went from clumsy to calculated, and she scored goal after goal after goal. Every single move she made, she made with her favorite soccer ball.

    Finally, she felt ready. She convinced her owners to take her to the World Pup, and got prepared to team up with her fellow corgis to take home the trophy. They won the first round, and then the second, and found themselves squaring up against the Australian Shepherds. They played their hearts out, and were evened up with the much larger dogs until tragedy struck. Our corgi’s favorite ball, in the heat of the game, tore upon and got destroyed!

    She was absolutely devastated, and while she still tried to play, it just simply wasn’t the same, and in the end, they just barely lost. Her ball was gone and she didn’t make it to the top. She went home in a slump, and thought she would never play again. However, when she woke up the next day, she saw a miracle: her owners has taken home her ball and put it back together, good as new! Our corgi friend realized then that she didn’t care about being the best, or for winning the World Pup. All she cared about was that she had her favorite ball back.

    My Dog and Her Ball

    This has been my story, based on my own beloved corgi Maggie. Her favorite toy is her fake soccer ball, and we often make jokes about her joining the World Pup, so I decided to roll with this and spin it into a story of attachment, heartache, and most importantly, a very, very good dog.

  • Intro Visual Part III-3: Magic of Nature

    I saw one about creating some nature-themed text, and I decided that I wanted to take my hand at that with a little sorcerous flair to it. One, I just like magic and think it improves the contrast of the photo to have a magic missile soaring through, but two, there are so many things in nature explained as science that I refuse to believe isn’t just magic we somehow understand. Like, what do you mean worms can just duplicate when cut apart? That’s straight magic and I refuse to hear anything else.

  • Intro Visual Part III-2: Favorite Photo

    I’ll admit, there’s not really much deep reason as to why I chose this as my favorite photo I’ve personally taken. For one, it’s probably one of the higher quality photos I’ve taken, but more importantly to me, it’s of my dog Maggie that I’ve had for years at this point. I rescued her from a shelter before I moved here and she’s been one of the most important faces in my life since, and I can’t imagine myself without her.

    The apple on the head just adds to her overall silly nature, she is a complete brat and goofball and I wouldn’t change a thing about her.

  • Intro Visual Part III-1: City Graphic Poster

    I decided to make a horizontal banner-style poster as opposed to a portrait-style one for this assignment. I ended up deciding on San Antonio, as while I’m not from there specifically, I grew up in Texas and loves our visits to the city. The food there was awesome, the Alamo was a nice place, and the canoe rides were fantastic, so I have fond memories of there.

    I mainly used GIMP for this assignment, as that’s the primary photo editing software that I use. I use the Oilify artistic filter to make it look like, well, an oil painting, then replaced the background with almost a sunset gradient. Finally, I put in the location’s text in the back with it being partially behind the city’s horizon. There’s not much more to say, it’s not a very complex image.

  • Intro Visual Part I: Read and Reflect

    I’ll start this reflection by clarifying that I have no idea what I’m doing with photography, nor is it a primary skill that I feel inclined to hone over months or years. I am focused more on artistical styles based around drawing or painting than this, although I will do my best to improve for the sake of this class.

    But anyway, that’s unimportant. My main point is what I understood about the readings and techniques discussed for this assignment.

    To start with, the main points that I immediately got were ones more focused on one’s equipment, as you can’t really argue about improved gear leading to improved outputs. Topics such as using the best lens for your intended target, exposing your images through things like shutter speed, and more make sense as to why they help. I don’t quite have a camera to actually experiment these tactics with other than my phone, so I unfortunately will not be capable of applying these practices to my photography, but it will still be something I try to keep in mind.

    Other points that I know will be a little bit more difficult for me to wrap my head around are probably gonna be ones focused on patience, pickiness, and well, focus. I’ll fully admit, I’m not exactly patient when it comes to assignments, and I am not a very aesthetically picky person, but that doesn’t make very good photo material. However, those are things that I am able to practice, regardless of the level of tech that I have at my disposal. I know I can get these things down, it’ll simply require time for me to master them.

    The fun part of these is that a lot of these practices and techniques are things that are also imperative in art, and thus I’ll be able to translate my skill in one to the other. Ideas such as depth, contrast, foreground and background, and perspective are all things I’ve learned in art courses. It’ll be an interesting experience to use those skills for something very different.

  • Intro Visual Part II: Photo Safari Gallery

    Safari Start time
    Safari End time
    Repeating Pattern
    Dominant Color: Brown
    Opening into Another Space
    Photo In Motion
    Unusual Angle

    I decided to keep all of my photos within the upstairs space of my house where I keep all my stuff. Firstly, I was already up here working on assignments, so I saw no reason to not do so. Secondly, I felt there was a decent amount of material to work with, even with my poor photography skills.

    I don’t really know how to talk about what the experience was like, since it’s not something I typically do, but it was fun seeing the stuff around me and figuring out what I could work with.

    There was an old box I used for the opening to another space, and I used my bed cover for a repeating pattern with the evergreen trees. Of all my photos, those probably worked the best. I did hide my face in the motion one knowing it’d reduce the photo’s overall quality, as I don’t feel comfortable showing my face here. Hope you understand.

    The most inventive (although the word “most” is doing a lot of heavy lifting there) would probably be the opening one with the box. I saw the box laying around from some mail my brother ordered, and decided it could make a decent tunnel for the photo. I don’t really have any more kind of in detail analysis to give, my apologies.