Thursday, September 6, 2007

Assignment 1 : Photogram or Photogenic Drawing

Assignment: You’ll make your first photogram using flat bed scanner instead of photosensitive paper. The theory is similar. By placing objects directly on the scanner bed in an interesting composition you can create an image without a camera.

The first assignment already made me think so hard, to create an image using a scanner! Other than scanning papers, I have never been adventurous to scan other objects haha... I scanned crumpled aluminium foil just to experiment with textures and it looked like mountains/many birds from a top-down view. I scanned chillies, mask, yin and yang sign with mnms, all of them (other than the foil) with the scanner head open and lights off because I couldn't close it fully and it looked really ugly with a little light exposed.... and I didn't know that there is a function with the scanner to achieve a pure white background. Otherwise I would have experimented with that :(

-----------------------'Teabag'-----------------------

The many pictures that I scanned looked quite flat so I decided to turn the scanner upright after all the frustration that I couldn't achieve something I liked... Then I scanned the teabag. (On a side note, I enjoy drinking tea especially the fruity flavoured ones!) I chose the lipton teabag becauseI think the yellow really stood out from the background. I scanned a few times with just the tea bag alone, with my hand and with a cup. I spent a really long time scanning the one with my hands because positioning my hands was a big problem. Plus i was trying not to shake.... This was my most satisfied one.

-----------------------'Roots'-----------------------

I finally scanned the good luck bamboos in my house and was quite surprised how the roots appeared alive in the picture that it was scary.... The white distorted lines were actually caused by a flash light, it looks like some waves that the bamboo emit....

-----------------------Other Scans`-----------------------

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----------------------- Peer Evaluation`-----------------------

I was actually very impressed by the works of many people in class. I liked Paul's harmony of music the best because I feel that it was really natural and wasn't trying too hard to express his likes. Something I really hope to achieve in future.... I give it 10/10. I thought Jialin's works were very creative, (using wax and paint on transparency) and the colours are so strong and beautiful. Other likes were the colours of Jasmine's onion rings scan, the composition of meimei's scan - nets capturing the stars and Mike's Stasis .

Thank you for the comments on the scans especially the interpretation of "roots" as going back to our traditional roots and for interesting ideas such as putting dry ice in the cup for it to look like steam from the teabag.

----------------------- Self Assessment`-----------------------

I would give myself 9 for creativity and 7 for scanning techniques. A total of 8/10.

1 comment:

Mei Mei said...

very very creative to turn the scanner upright for the teabag photogram and nice composition :) :)