First Post of the Semester

Hmm... all work ideas / inspirations for the semester...
Well I know I'm going to be going in the same direction I did last year. That means I'll be doing the whole "globe" thing.  If you're new to the class, you can take a look at my previous posts from last semester to get an pretty good idea of what I man. But now that I have the technical process down, I'll be able to do more of the urban grunge manipulation to them (This was my original goal for last year.)


Also, over the summer I really got into stencils. You know, the Banksy-style spray painted stencils... Over the summer I did a few and really enjoyed it. Too bad this is a computer art class, otherwise I'd be doing something like that instead :) 


Anyone have any ideas on how I could incorporate the two maybe? Street-art stencils and computer art? Just a thought...

Some of my favorites

In addition to the ones previously posted, here are a few more examples of (a few of my more successful) "globes" I have done. Remember these are just the panorama's warped into the globes, no touching up the 'vortexes' in the middle, no cropping, etc...

-Out apartments in South Carolina

 -Beach Patio in South Carolina

 -Holiday Lakes

 -Holiday Lakes Rocks & Docks

-Field House construction from North end of track (forgot to crop the sky in the panorama, easy fix.)

The scrap-yard didn't work out, apparently, thy had some 'incident' earlier in the week and refused to let anyone who didn't work there in...

In my junior review, we all agreed that the focus of this body of work is the technique, which is hindering me at the moment from tackling the whole "urban grunge" transformation... What do you guys think? Go with that or just have mass amounts of these (not 'grunged up') "globes," and work on they way I would present them... Input is appreciated :)

On a side not, I just thought I'd add how much computer resources theses massive guys take up... at full resolution the panoramas are over 30ft long, meaning these are 30ft globes... It takes me a good 15 minutes each for these things to re-size to just half that... (remember these are 20 full-resolution photographs put together) Even flattened into 1 layer, cut down to about 6ftx6ft, editing these things are just a pain and honestly take way longer than it should...

Display idea

Ever heard of the artist Julian Beever? He is most famous for his perspective sidewalk-chalk artwork. He skews his artwork in such a way, that only from viewing the work at a certain angle will the artwork look right. Not only does it look right, but from the right angle it actually looks like the artwork is 3-dimensional! Have a look:

 -or-

 These 4 images are property of Julian Beever

This gave me and idea... I can skew my images in such a way, that they will look like they are popping out of the wall if you stand in the right spot. Sure, my globes have perspective and look 3D... but they are still just a flat circle on a page. But I think I found a way to re-create this perspective. Hopefully, if done correctly, I can make it look like my (flat circle) globes are actual GLOBES stuck onto the wall... does that make sense?


The process:

How to do 3D Anamorphic Artwork and Sidewalk, Street, and Driveway  Art - More DIY How To Projects
I'm going to try a small scale test (8"x8" possibly) and see how it works,  I'll post a picture when its all said and done.

Questions, comments, concerns, ideas?

Dang you auto-exposure!

Went out and took 2 new panoramas today; one of the construction of the new field house and one taken from mid-field on the new soccer/track complex. Come to find out when I get back that I had auto-exposure turned on (not what you want to do) so the brightness/contrast of every picture came out differently... so I have 4 options:
Try to fix them all myself, start over and take the pictures again, throw these panoramas out completely, or just leave them how they are.

Here is the one I took for mid-field at the new track: (you can see what I mean about the auto-exposure messing things up)

Only 20 pictures in this one, (10 low-level, 10 eye-level) I left 10 of the sky that I usually take out, that's why the horizon line seems slim. I didn't bother to fix the "vortex" in the middle yet either... Oh well, I learn something every time. At least I have another long weekend ahead of me where I can get some things done.

Four More Days

Four more days, and then I'll be on spring break. In four more days, I can finally crack down on this photography I so desperately need to finish. I will finally have a week where I don't have classes or practice to go to, or school work to worry about. Heck, I won't have to worry about being stuck in a parking lot covered in 5 feet of snow either.

I've got a few places in Mansfield that I plan on taking pictures for my panoramas first. Those are the closest places to where I live, so that's where I'll start. I've also been informed about an old shipyard in Sandusky that is high on my list.

I've had enough practice on the process, so once I bang out and get these pictures done, I'll be hitting the ground running. So be prepared for A LOT more progress once the weekend comes!

Some progress...

I'll update this post in a few, stay tuned.


After small adjustments:

After the crop and some slight changes...

Trial Run

If you read my last post, you would know the difficulties I've been having with the weather... I finally had a group of 4 or 5 people help me dig out my car one evening, and the next day I drove outside of town looking for anything to photograph. I wasn't able to make it out to any big cities due to the weather, however I did end up stopping right down the road from Crestview high school. I set up shop in the middle of a field and went to work. 25 minutes later, I had a memory card full of pictures. I had what I came for, and I couldn't feel my feet, so I headed back. Later I stitched the pieces together, touched up some places, and I was left with this panorama:Now onto the next step, making the globe. Using a few tricks I ended up with this:After doing this, I realized there were some faults (obviously) after the transformation. Even though this is a trial (by trial, I mean it is not the "urban/grunge" look I plan to base my work around) to make sure my process is correct.

Two main faults:
-Trees. This is a result of me being dumb during the photography process. Note to self: DO NOT cut off trees/buildings etc. (You can see why in my image above) I suppose this means I try to recreate the tops of the trees that were cut off, or re-photograph it again... I wont do that because this is a trial, but maybe next time I'll make two passes: one pass at eye level, and another with the camera pointed at an upward angle to catch the tops of the trees. Unfortunately that means I'll have twice as many pictures to take, and twice as many pictures to stitch together...
-The "vortex" at the center of the planet. Another photography fault of mine. I didn't realize this would happen, but if you think about it; it should. I didn't take a picture of the center, I took a picture AROUND the center. Another note to self: Next time, take a picture of where the tripod sat before/after I take all of the pictures, so I can blend it in over the "vortex."

Sorry for the long-winded post, but that's where I'm at. Still learning but, still at it.