Michael Najjar - High Altitude

Najjar chose the summit of Aconcagua as the location for his "High Altitude" work series and photographed the material in the course of three weeks to form the basis of the series.

Created between 2008 and 2010 the series visualizes the development of the leading global stock market indices over the past 20-30 years. The virtual 'data mountains' of the stock market charts are re-sublimated in the craggy materiality of the Argentinean mountainscape.

Just like the indices, mountains too have a timeline, their own biography. The rock formations soaring skywards with its many layered folds, show unmeasurable time on any human scale. The immediate reality of nature thus becomes a virtual experience.

Such experience of virtuality is strikingly exemplified by the global economic and financial system. If the focus used to be on the exchange of goods an commodities, it is now securely on the exchange of immaterial information.

The information society has brought about a tectonic shift in our understanding of space and time. Humankind is confronted with a process of such dynamic complexity that the borderlines we seemingly identify at one moment are already sublimated in the next. In the future the virtual value system could demand its proper reincarnation in the real world.

The jagged rock formations of "High Altitude" are emblematic of the thin edge separating reality and simulation.

Photoshop Workshop - Borders - Blur

To create a blurry border as shown above you first need to open up your image and select the 'Rectangular Marquee Tool'.

And then Invert so it selects the outside of the selection rather than the inside. To do this click on:

Select --> Inverse

After you have done this you need to now select the gaussian blur filter. To do this select:

Filter --> Blur --> Gaussian Blur

You will then be presented with a window in which you can adjust the amount of blur you want. once you are happy click ok and photoshop will adjust accourdingly.

All that is left to do is deselect and save your final image.

Photoshop Workshop - Borders - Ocean Ripple

To create a border like this one (above), you first need to open up your image and select the 'Rectangular Marquee Tool' from the left hand tool bar.

After doing this you need to select quick mask mode and then 'invert' the image so it selects the outside of the selection and not the inside. to do so you need to click on:

Select --> Inverse

After doing this you now need to select:

Filter --> Distort --> Ocean Ripple

You will then be taken to a new window in which you can adjust the settings on how big you want the ripple to be and how many ripples you have:

Once you are happy with the adjustments select Ok and photoshop will adjust accourdingly. Quick mask mode needs to be deselected and as we have had problems delecting the selected area, the earaser tool needs to be selected from the left hand tool bar and the selected area erased.

Once you have erased the area you need to deselect the area. To do so click on:

Select --> Deselect

and you'll be left with your final image.

Photoshop Workshop - Radial Blur

To make an image appear that you are falling into it, a good tool to use is 'Radial Blur'. To achieve this effect you need to start by opening your image and selecting the 'Elliptical Marquee Tool' from the left hand tool bar.

You now simply need to select the area of the image you want to appear you're falling to, which can be done by clicking and dragging. But just before you do this remember to change the feather number to 150 as this will prevent your image from looking "cut and paste".

After selecting your desired area, you now need to 'invert' so that photoshop selects the outside area of this and not the inside. To do so simply click on:

Select --> Inverse

Once you have done this you now need to apply the blur radial blur effect. To do this you need to select:

Filter --> Blur --> Radial Blur

You will then be presented with this box: 

for now we want the effect that makes us feel as though we are falling into the image so we need to select zoom and change the amount as much or as little as you would like. Its a good idea to have a play around with this until you find the amount you like best.

Once you're happy with everything, click ok and photoshop will work its magic to create an image that looks along the lines of this:

Another effect radial blur provides us is a 'spinning' motion. Just follow the same steps as you have previously BUT when you get to this box again:

You need to select 'spin' instead of 'zoom'.

again once you're happy with the settings simply click ok and photoshop will produce an image along the lines of this:

Sarah Pickering's 'Fire Scene' Series

Sarah Pickering’s photographs disturb our sense of security and illuminate the ways in which we cope with traumatic events that are beyond our control. Her pictures depict environments and events crafted specifically for simulated training to prepare police officers, firefighters, and soldiers for calamities ranging from fire and civil unrest to terrorism and war. By exposing the absurdity and controlled nature of these environments, Pickering’s images reveal our predilection to deflect fear by trying to anticipate and plan for it—and our tendency to create a story to help us process it.

Ultimately Pickering’s photographs raise questions about the efficacy of preparedness and hint at the psychological effort needed to combat and recover from trauma—the struggle to live with the anxiety that can accompany security. Pickering’s Fire Scene pictures (2007) document containers outfitted as home environments and are staged as elaborate, crammed domestic spaces, deliberately heavy with a narrative: each fire has been designed according to a specific cause, such as an electric heater malfunctioning, or a cigarette that has been dropped. By showing many different forms of fire causes, it portrays how vulnerable we really are.

I like how Pickering addresses the ongoing issue of fire safety. It is a common occurrence that many people are still not aware of or choose to ignore. I feel that Pickerings images give us an insight into the consequences of many different causes of fires and gives us a bit of a reality check.  I feel these images imply a hint of captivating beauty in the blaze and a thrilling quality of danger and I find that even though these photos are digitally manipulated, the subject matter is very realistic, making these images believable.

Paul Smith's ' This Is Not P********y ' Series

Born in Britain (1969), Paul Smith is a self-publishing fine art photographer. After years spent perfecting his talent on traditional film and in the darkroom, learning traditional skills, he turned his attention to the then new medium of Digital photography. The two disciplines are now combined in a striking and individual style and his reputation as a consummate perfectionist means his work is greatly respected. 

The possibility of manipulating images has been utilised long before the beginning of the camera. However, the effects of the digital techniques now applied to photography have enhanced the credibility of the manipulated image beyond what might have been perceived as a possibility in previous times. This could be witnessed at many of the previous exhibitions Paul had held for earlier forms of his work. The potential quality of this manipulation throws up questions as to what is accepted as real within any image.

Paul's earlier series ' This Is Not P********y ' always raised the question of the assumed integrity of a photograph, at first glance obscuring the boundaries between what is conceived as real documentary photography and the digital image. Within this series he chose to explore the new frontier of the digital aesthetic, depicting fantasy in complete contrast to notions of reality. Paul combines elements of the pornographic, theatrical and grotesque into a form that does not conceal it's dislocation from realism. Each image examines a slightly different stance towards the subject matter.

The title gives us a clear indication as to what Paul intends this work to communicate. ' This Is Not P********y ' is a statement not just a title. The widely accepted definition of a pornographic image is that it primarily operates to stimulate erotic, rather than aesthetic reactions. The bodily distortions and violent nature of some of these images is deliberately intended to have a rebarbative effect rather than appear erotic. This is probably most evident in the shaving shot; where the cut throat razor evokes the fear of castration and the blended bodies lose all their sexual function.

Within other images in this series Paul observes the passivity of a relationship with pornography, that of the supine voyeur. The male figure left masturbating in his chair is seen as the weaker participant in the image.
The pornographic image has always been credited with playing a crucial part in reinforcing a dominant stereotype and it is from this source Paul has drawn his references. Through an understanding of the pre-existent forms and conventions of presentation Paul produces simulations of simulations, a fabricated characteristic that confounds our expectations of the erotic.

                               

Image Manipulation - Part Two

Over the next six weeks we have been set an assignment to create a photograph that has been produced digitally. The theme and idea behind the photograph is entirely up to us so we have freedom to be as creative as we please.

In order to acheive a distinction in this task I am required to identify independently and evaluate examples of other pieces of work that use digital manipulation techniques; prepare and digitize independently exciting source materials that exploit the full potential of image manipulation techniques; and present independently own design outcomes demonstrating an informed opinion about the use of digitized material and image manipulation techniques, against a given theme or assignment brief.


We are also required to include our developed ideas, experiments, research and workshops in order to document the process of our own work.