Introduction
In the Conceptual unit, my first of many as a junior at Freestyle, I worked in a variety of creative mediums to produce abstract art which further developed my communication skills. In order to do this, applied what I learned in freestyle through the use several applications such as Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Premiere Pro, and ProTools to bring my ideas for stories, music, and film to life in an unconventional way. This often meant taking risks and pushing my creativity to the limit, but the results were animated poems, song productions, and photographic magic. I hope you enjoy this glimpse into my learning process this semester as much as I did being a part of it.
Every day as a freestyle student in both English and Digital Media provides me with a creative outlet from which I am able to learn and improve in so many different ways. It provides me with the tools to effectively combine my love for creative writing and poetry with the production of videos, music, photography, and more to convey my emotions and ideas in incredible ways. As I learn more and more tools in class I get more and more excited about all of the new things I am creating and am now able to create both, in and outside of school. Not only is freestyle incredibly fun and something I look forward to everyday, but it is also where I learn the most and am constantly becoming more and more equipped to make something beautiful out of nothing in any situation.
Haiku
In my English class, I was challenged to write a Haiku (a short poem consisting of 17 syllables), based off of a brief prompt consisting of an emotion and a situation. In Digital Media, I utilized a Tascam recorder to record the final draft of my poem, captured and edited a photo relating to a concept behind my Haiku, edited it, and finally put together a video bringing it to life and effectively combining my newly created words, audio, and photography via Premiere Pro. This was the final product:
The Haiku Video Production was one of my favorite experiences because it was cool to be able to give my poem so many other layers by recording my own voice, and animating it. All of these things helped bring it to life in a way that made me proud of my final work.
Free Verse Poetry
After studying the different elements of poetry and what makes all different types unique, I was given no boundaries in writing a free verse poem and capturing the essence of my intentions through personally recording it and setting the scene through photography. I worked hard on perfecting the different components when writing my piece in English and later on in Digital Media had the opportunity to enhance my work further, which were both essential parts of this project.
“How To Break A Heart” is a free verse poem communicating how the satisfaction of doing something wrong is only temporary, and that although the desire for power is great, when an individual has surpassed everyone else there is no one left who will be there for them. I was inspired by how often people submit to the ways of the devil in an attempt to fill an empty void, but instead, that hole just gets deeper and all there is left to do is try and bring everyone else down too. The speaker is a middle-aged man who went down that dark path and is recalling the exhilaration of the fall, but ultimately warning others that getting away with the wrong thing is nothing compared to the fulfillment that comes when you treat others with respect. In the first couple of stanzas, I use metaphors to paint pictures of examples of building someone up only to break them down again. This represents the betrayal that the speaker once found thrilling. For example, painting stars, which represent dreams, only to let them go. Retrieving the shiniest of pearls from the deepest of waters only to give them to someone else, representing cheating in a relationship. When I start to use a series of shorter lines in the fourth stanza, the tone shifts from anecdotal to more philosophical as if the speaker is addressing his audience directly with words of advice. I use alliteration here to enthrall the audience with pleasurable, similar-sounding words that mimic the captivation of submitting to evil. I also juxtapose good and evil to support the idea that the more you build someone’s trust, the more pain you cause by tearing them apart. As an example, this appears in the line that reads: “The brighter the heaven the darker the hell, the more sins covered up, the more lies to tell.” The statements become more general in this portion but portray the art of breaking hearts as enthralling. The last stanza, however, is more reflective and overall communicates that the consequences aren’t worth it, comparing love to a game, and explaining that when you win control over everyone else’s emotions there is no one left who will care for you. The speaker admits that he eventually found this to be what he needed all along. I wanted to make my poem similar to a set of instructions or a “how-to” list, although the concept behind it is much more abstract. We all have the power of choice, and I hope my poem emulates not only the strong temptation to make the wrong choices but also how just a few wrong steps can lead us so far down the wrong path. The main impression I want the reader to take away is that even though winning feels great, sometimes competing is not worth the fun if it means breaking bonds with the ones who you are close with.
Through the process of writing, recording, and visually enhancing my poem I learned about many new components of poetry and had a lot of fun experimenting with the creative freedom that free verse poems allow, while also being able to continue to practice in areas such as using the Tascam recorders and combine my phot with texts through Adobe Photoshop.
Photoshop Blend Modes
As we started to experiment with the variety settings on our cameras, I soon found the range of capabilities possible through using the different blend mode features. In this project I used various blend modes including screen, multiply, and overlay to change the lighting and mood of previous photographs as well as used them to improve color hues and make certain objects stand out. Prior to learning blend modes I had no idea how drastically they could change and enhance my photos and look forward to using them on my photography in the future.
I value my new knowledge of creative blend modes because I can see it being extremely helpful for when I need to easily adjust exposure, darken/lighten an image or parts of an image, and even combining multiple photos in the future which I want to try more of. I am excited to start combining a lot of different personal photos of mine to make collages and other cool projects.
Design
In Design this semester, I was given the opportunity to improve several of my art and photographic skills through a series of projects. This included picking color schemes, editing photos and finding shapes in everyday life, using platforms such as Adobe Photoshop. For my Alpha Name Photography piece, I was challenged to find the letters of my name in nature and then fix and arrange the photos with a black and white color scheme. The Conceptual project also allowed me to create and edit a photo, which corresponded with the idea behind intention statement I used to write my Haiku poem in English. Lastly, we shot miniature figures and props in a variety of different angles which really taught me the importance of angle, lighting, and the drastic effect that camera settings can have on the outcome of a photo. I value being a design student because it has taught me so much about all of the different components that go into an art piece and, as a result, am learning to look at things with a whole new perspective and attention to detail.
Alpha Name Photography
The Alpha Name Photography really challenged me to be able identify the shapes that were all around me, and by the time I had finished it almost everything looked like a photo waiting to be taken. For this project I took several options of photos for the letters in my name that I could find in nature. I then edited my favorite ones and adjusted the size in Adobe Photoshop. Finally, I changed the entire thing to have a Black and White color scheme and put them together so that the letters spelled out my name visibly. This was the final result.
Conceptual
I based my Conceptual Photo off of the same intention statement that I used for my Haiku Poem in English Class: I am exploring the feeling of appreciation through attending a concert. With a little creativity, I was able to symbolically represent both the emotion and experience of this statement, arranging a photo to combine them. I also had to keep other aspects in mind, such as lighting and angle, because all of these things affected the mood and portrayal of the meaning behind my photograph. Ultimately, it represented a concept personal to me while simultaneously helping me improve my skills in Adobe Photoshop and in using the camera settings.
Intention Statement: I am exploring the feeling of appreciation through attending a concert
My photograph consists of a pair of headphones resting on a lightbulb. The lightbulb is a metaphor for appreciation or seeing the bright side of things, and the beauty in all that is around us. The headphones represent a concert as they are primarily used to feel an intimacy with emotive music, similar to a live show. I chose the background to be a plain, dark wall getting consumed by the illuminant light to show the contrast between life without music and the power of its presence that takes over. The lit background also ties to the warm feelings that music produces, and explains my minimal lighting choices. I shot it early in the morning to ensure a more natural contrast between the lightbulb and the dim environment, representing how music can create light in the darkest moments. I also rested the headphones on top of the bulb to display how the illuminance is ultimately supported by music.
Once I had selected my best photo, I used Photoshop to crop off some of the dark wall in the background so that it was primarily consumed by the radiance of the lightbulb. I then used the guidelines to zoom in on my objects and shift their placement to best fit the rule of thirds. I followed this by adjusting the distribution of light in the background using curves, as I wanted the corners to be darker than the rest. Lastly, the lightbulb was bright yellow which made my picture too warmly tinted, so I used a cooling filter to make it more neutral. These edits helped improve the quality of my photo in a way that wasn’t possible with just a camera and the natural environment.
Miniature Figure Photography
For this assignment, we were given two miniature figures and two other props to use in various locations and angles for photos. The purpose was to practice shooting with the different camera settings we learned in digital media, adjusting ISO, shutter speed and white balance accordingly. Once we had our photos we uploaded them to Adobe Photoshop to make a contact sheet, featuring the thumbnail images in neat rows and allowing me to compare and edit as necessary.
