Summing up the wedding

As the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton drew nearer I decided that I was going to venture all around bournemouth, Poole and Southampton in search of the perfect photograph to sum up the Royal wedding, I wanted the England flag to be present within the photograph and I wanted that sense of cheer and enjoyment of the day within it.
Finally after looking throughout the whole day I decided on the photograph below to represent that day, from my point of view:

This was a street party in Poole, Stanley Road.

This road is a one way road that is lined with terraced houses both sides. This was a perfect road to have a wedding party on as it has no bends and traffic has other routes that lead to the CBD. To capture this picture I asked the people nearest to me to look my way and smile. When I found this site I asked the people present if I could take the photograph before imposing.
The only aspect that I would change within this photograph is the fact that I lowered the resolution slightly as it was a bright day but it has however pixelated the photograph a bit which is unfortunate.
Below was another photograph that I considered using as my memorial potograph of the event but I thought that it lacked joyfulness and people:

An England flag in Southampton.

I quite liked this photograph as it gave a fun feel to the wedding day and ngland flag with the use of the contrasting graffitti below it. It has a simple composition and it's pleasing to the eye as it draws you to the left of the photograph and yet the bold colours of the flag also catch your eye. However I thought that this photograph was too busy with all the different colours within it and so I chose the first photograph at the top of the post to represent my memory of the day.

Above are some of the other photographs I had taken that day, I didn't submit these photographs as a blown up image as the ones at the start of this post because I didn't feel that they were strong enough to represent my memoreies of that day, however I thought that the 'Where's Wally?' photograph was a creative way of represnting the Royal Wedding as 'Where's Wally?' is known all around the globe and the images within side the books are always really manac and busy which reminded me alot of the wedding with the 60,000 people who went up to London to celebrate Kate and Prince William's big day.

Eventhough I have been able to capture the three colours of the England flag within the bin colours of one of my photographs I didn't feel that this related that well to my memories of the wedding.

Many of the photographs above have been cropped, had the brightness and conrast altered slightly and in one I have added a motion blur to add movement within it as I thought that this was a good way to show visually, the mayhem that was taking place at that time.

Time for a portrait

I have decided to take a photograph of my close family, my mum, dad, nan and sister, in which I will style in the way Grant Wood had done with his portrait of his mother on the previous post. I will ask my 'close' family to do their favourite thing, the activity in which I imagine them doing when I think of each family member. The activity that to me defines them and their being.

After completing this little series of photograph I am going to take a self portrait in which will give the link between myself and my 'close' family. The link in which will be visable through our similar features and appearence.

Here is my series of photographs:

My Nan

My Nan loves to read. She reads about a book a week and her favourite author is Catherin Cookson in which is the author of the book she is reading within the photograph.

In the background you can see a china doll cabinet in which situates her collection of china dolls which she has been collecting for many years.

My Mother

My Mother tends to sew and fix items of clothing nearly every night as a sort of hobby. However she is good at it and is very skillful within the textile area. She also backcombed her hair and sprayed it with hairspray before having this photograph in which she does everytime she leaves the house.

My Father

My Father tends to come home and watch the television after work as a sort of cool down and so I decided to have the television coming into view within the photograph. The television is also the object in which he plays his PS3 on the weekends and so links to him very well. He also tends to have a few biscuits in the evening in which you can see him eating within the photograph above.

My Sister

My sister is a make-up artist for the brand Lancome and so tends to create many different make-up designs on herself for practice, however this is a photograph of her getting her make-up done for work in which she has to wear bright and bold make-up. She also loves the television programme 'Spongebob' and tends to watch it when she's ill and I have taken the photo while she is still in bed as that is her favourite time of day. Stacey loves her sleep.

Looking through the generations

To look at myself through my family I decided to complete a small family tree of the people that I am close to and who I remember through out my life time.

From this I can see part of who makes me who I am along with many other family members and my ancestors before them. I have highlighted in red the family members who have passed away to show you how descendants are created as one family member passes away, another one will soon take their place but we will, however never forget them. This is to show you how descendants are created as many generations will be alive when I have passed away and so on.

From this I had the idea as to take portraits of my mother, father, nan and sister, my close family to show where my characteristics and features, where I was built from. I am also going to take photographs of both my old house and new house to show how I have moved on in my life and where I came from. I also want to take photos of the surroundings where I lived and where I live now, for example, I used to live outside a woods and now I live on castle lane, so I want to document my changing of house going from rural to urban surroundings, showing my progression through my life so far.

I think this will be a personal approach in relation to my postcard. I will finish the series with a self portrait of myself to show how I relate to the previous photos and have similar features to that of my other members to show my origin.

origins of the cow

By looking at Grant Wood's story and how he went back to his hometown after finding that his inspiration was clearly held their, he was almost going back to his origins, his roots whihc sparked off the thought of the cows origins;

Apparently all domesticated cattle, cows, are likely decendants from the wild ox-like animals called aurochs that were bred in large areas such as Asia, Europe and North Africa within the early 1500's. However archealogical records have found that farm instruments dating back to periods of the Stone Age have got DNA of the aurochs which they suppose must have been ancestors in some way to the aurochs found with the 1500's. No-one really knows how long the breeds of cattle have been around but scientists are now looking back to periods way before Christ.
This is an Auroch's skeleton; they were very large animals, in which have been said to be twice the height of a cow today:

Looking at the cows origin, it didn't really give me any inspiration or thought of which could be persued, so I deceide to look further into the text and I found the words 'Ancestor' and 'Decendants'. So I thought more about my ancestors and how I am a decendant from them. I then thought more about how I am a little bit of all of my family members and generations, their DNA built me. I want to look more about my origins and my family and how I was made.

Grant Wood's story

Grant Wood 1891- 1942,
An American painter born and bred on a farm in Iowa.

By painting simple scenes of the land and people he knew best, he helped create an important, all-American style of art. Grant wood's painting's show the love he had for the people and customs of the Midwestern United States. He soon realised that scenes of these people and places he knew were as beautiful and important as anything he had seen in Europe and they soon became his subject matters for his art works.

In the painting 'Woman with plants', he painted his mother as a strong and loving, border line woman. He placed her in a farm landscape and paid special attention to the decorative stitching on her dress, the cameo around her neck, the potted plant and othe details that were important to her.

It was one of the first paintings about the Midwest that seemed like it was done by someone who actually really knew and understood the people there.
Grant Wood kept working in his new style and soon painted his most famous piece, 'American Gothic', featuring the family dentsist and his sister, Nan, as the farmer and his daughter.

Soon Grant wood's paintings started to become very popular. Many people felt that his art was easier to understand than a lot of the new modern art being done and they came along during a rough time, The Great Depression.
The depression caused many people to lose their jobs and savings. It made people feel better to look at Grant wood's paintings of farmlands and proud, hardworking families who helped to make America great. Grant wood also painted pictures of famous American legends. In 'Midnight ride of Paul Revere' he showed the story as he imagined it as a child. He painted broccoli-shaped trees and toy-like houses. The roads go off into the background and seem to glow in the dark. He gave his painting an almost fairytale look. Paul Revere's horse even looks more like a wooden rocking horse than a real horse.

Regionalism to Grant Wood was a simple concept: artists should paint what is around them, what they know and what they see. He took great inspiration from the Flemish masters, noting their skill inpainting local scenes while capturing the universal significance of the subject matter. An 'American way of looking at things' might as well be seeing an idealized and usable past in a difficult and uncertain present, as Grant Wood did in many of his landscapes.

Perhaps it is true Grant Wood's ideas about regionalist art, which sprang from the belief that an artists should 'paint out of the land and the people they know best' materialized that quickly.as dring the 1930's, the lack of sohisticated form or style were the main criticisms of Grant Wood's regionalist work; after the second world war, his art was criticized equally for its subject matter.

Grant Wood's most famous statement,

'I found the answer about what I knew when I joined a school of painters in Paris after the war who called themselves 'neo-meditationists'. They believed an artist had to wait for inspiration, very quietly. It was then that I realized that all the really good ideas I'd ever had came to me while I was milking a cow. So I went back to Iowa'.

This is the same quote as what had been written on my postcard and it was initially said to reassure the people of Iowa during the great depression. It's almost as though he's telling his people that you can get something big and something to be proud of out of the smallest objects or moments in time.
Although this may rightfully have been the process of Grant Wood's thinking, the statement itself speaks publicly for he repeated this often to reportes from around the country which said to people that inspiration is within the smallest object, anyone can 'milk' it, it gave hope. Grant Wood described himself and his movement, essentially, as the American dream led by the American dreamer at a time when popular sentiment was looking hard for a positive national note.

This quote was so inspirational to the people of America that they had cards with it on as well as bracelets and jewellery with it printed into it so that no-one can forget the hope it gave to people.

Mind boggling???

This is what I recieved in the post.

This passage to me was really weird and I didn't have a clue what to do for it.
At first I thought of it as a set of instructions; in that I had to go and milk a cow in order to get a good idea of what to do. However I wanted more out of the passage and so I decided to look further into it, I wanted to dig much deeper into its meaning.
I started this by defining each word that I thought would be important for me within my investigation and background research.

From this I then decided to look at the background of the person who actually wrote the phrase, Grant Wood. I thought that by doing this its may give me some clue as to why he said the quote in the first place and what other inspirational values he could give me in order to continue.

Postcard for me?

This was a task in which everyone in the class was each given a postcard in which we had to write our address on. Sir then collected them in and then gave them back out again but to a different person than the addressee. We had to write either a quote, lyric or phrase onto the postcard of which sir then collected them back in. These were then sent to each of our addresses ready for us to create a visual/photographic response.

This was a really thrilling task for me as I have never done it before and the three days that I had to wait for it in the post was agony, just for that moment when I could see what that person had wrote on my postcard and for me to explore.

'Mary, Mary'... through my eyes

This is my version of the nursery rhyme;

First I loaded my photograph into Photoshop. I then changed the 'Brightness and Contrast' so that the image appeared quite dark and have that deathly and night atmosphere.

From this I then decided that I wanted the sky a different colour, a more moddy colour, so I changed the 'curves', edit>adjustments>curves>RGB. I added more red and blue within the higlights but decreased the amount of Blue and Red within the low lights. I then extracted some of the green tones from the highlights and added more green within the lowlights.

This then made the sky a moody purple colour and the grass became greener and more extravagant in depth of colour.

As there were too many graves within the image I extracted some using the clone tool which left me with a row of graves within the foreground of the image which is exactly what I was hoping for.

I uploaded another photograph of which I took of myself in the pose that I wanted 'Queen Mary' to be in and what clothes I wanted her to wear. I then selected myself and cut>paste in new layer onto the image of the church.

This then was transported onto my background. However, as you can see, the image of 'Mary' has really rough edges and so I used the 'rubber' tool in order to crop all of the excess image that I didn't need.

From this I then blurred the edges of 'Mary' as I wanted her to appear almost ghost-like.

For the 'silver bells' I took a photograph of a snow drop inwhich I then cut>paste into new layer onto my final outcome and then placed it into the hand of 'Queen Mary'. I had to adjust the brightness of the snowdrop as it was too bright for the background.

My final image:

'Mary, Mary, quite contrary,

how does your garden grow?

with silver bells and cockle shells

and pretty maids all in a row'.

I wanted the influences of Tim Burton to shine through my photographs and I think that I have managed to do this quite well with the dark, death-like atmosphere of the sky and dark tones and shades of the church behind.
I decided to change the composition of the photograph from that of my sketch as I thought that on the background of the picture a church would be more suitable for the photograph rather than a forest-like appearence within my sketch, I chose the church as I think it links better with the silver bells and the catholic religion of Queen Mary, Bloody Mary.

Queen Mary, Bloody Mary

Below is my interpretation of the character Queen Mary out of my chosen nursery rhyme, the character that will appear within my final scene.

I wanted 'Mary' to appear as though a ghost as no one really cared about her and her feelings. Queen mary was really disliked by much of the population and so I wanted her to blend into the background, almost as though I'm letting her disappear as she was very depressed and sad because of the many miscarriages and hatred she had. I have chosen to photograph 'Mary' looking quite sad and sorrowful as I am trying to portray her in a way that many people didn't, I almost want people viewing this photograph to feel sorry for her and have sympathy.

As you can see, I have also added glasses to mary's character as although not many people know, she actually had bad eye sight in which she didn't ever tell anyone as she thought that people would take pity on her and not respect or see her as a worthy leader.

Sketching away...

Discovering the facts

I have decided to look at the nursery rhyme, 'Mary, Mary, quite contrary...'. I chose this rhyme as it is and has always been one of my most favourite nursery rhymes as I used to imagine myself as Mary, watering my 'silver bells and cockle shell' in a garden of my own. Before I started creating my character I wanted to look more into the background and history of the rhyme and what the true meaning of the rhyme is. To start this I decided to define each word that I thought had some significance to the perception of the rhyme:

Upon closer inspection through the history of this rhyme I found quite a substantial amount of historical/factual information about it.

Within the rhyme, 'Mary, Mary...' actually referred to Queen Mary, bloody Mary and 'Quite contrary...' is thought to be reference to her unsuccessful attempt to reverse England from the enforced protestant religion of her father, Henry VIII and her late brother, Edward VI back to that of the catholic religion of which she believed in.

Following this you then get the question, 'How does your garden grow?' in which is a mocking reference to her womb and how it wouldn't 'grow' a baby and so she gave birth to no heirs.

The 'silver bells...' referred to the cathedral bells - the telling and preaching of the catholic faith '...and cockle shells...' referring to the term 'cockling', a term used within them days when a husband cheated on his wife, insinuating that her husband wasn't faithful to her.

Finally we come to the last phrase of the rhyme which to me is quite a sorrowful line and was my favourite line of the rhyme as a child; '...pretty maids all in a row' which is a spiteful ending referring to her many miscarriages, all of which were baby girls, linking to the term 'pretty maids' of which Queen Mary 'secretly had them buried...in a row.

Now I know that Queen Mary was supposedly a horrible women and tortured many for not believing in her religion or for going against her decisions but to me she seemed a very sad and lonely women, her husband was cheating on her and she couldn't have a baby. When I first found this out I think I could have cried. I felt Terrible to think that I was singing this as a child and now for me to know what it means I don't think that I would be able to pass it down to my child.

I think that this is a good rhyme for me to focus my thought and character on as it links to me and I think that it would link well to both the Tim Burton style and Annie Leibovitz photography style.

Inspiring me...

For this task I wanted collect a bit of research on other artist/photographers of which would relate or inspire my fairytale in any way.

Annie Leibovitz is an american photographer whose main projects either include celebrities or a story of which are always fashion based. Recently she done a project on 'fairytales' in which she dressed celebrities up to look like the charaters within the stories being shown, here are a few example:

I like the way Annie Leibovitz has created these in her own style and yet the original themes and renowned poses of each charater are there. I am very inspired by Annie Leibovitz as she can make something which looks animated into something else which makes the photograph look very plausable and realistic. With the boldness of every colour and the lighting of which she has used, the photos are really eye-catching. I would like to apply these techniques to my photoshop skills in order to make the photographs I create appear life-like and as striking as these.

Tim Burton inspires me a lot, with his surreal landscapes and characters in which he gives an era. Tim Burton works are very prominant, with the wakiness and brilliance of a film, and in everyone theres that underlying theme of darness and horror of which is absolute beauty.

Within these photos below you can see Tim Burton's personality shining through each and every object present making each character and scene as wacky and insane as himself of which becomes lovable and serene.

Preparation for photoshop task

Before I created my characters for my chosen story, I decided to experiment with photoshop and get a custom to the different tools better so that I would be able to have three finished photographs in which would look realistic and that I am happy with.

For my first experiment I decided to turn a young woman into an old lady using photoshop, here are my results:

This image was taken from the internet as I did not neccessarily need a primary photograph as I was only experimenting. Fromthis I then found some photos of old women in which I then began collaging the didfferent faces onto the face of the woman in the original photo. However, this made the photograph look unrealistic and so I changed the opacity of the top layer to about 56 to make the old women's faces appear on the young women, creating the effect of wrinkly skin.

For my second experiment, I decided to have a go at changing the hair colour of someone. Here I have taken a picture of keira knightly from the internet and as you can see she originally has brown hair. Here I will take you through how I changed her hair from brown to blonde hair.

First I opened up my picture within Photoshop

I then clicked>Image>Adjustments>Match colour. By matching the colour of Sarah Jessica Parker's blonde hair to that of Keira Knightly's brown hair, I can begin to see where the highlights and low lights of blonde hair would be and also get the pigment of the blonde hair into the brown hair.

From matching the colour, I ended up with the image above. As you can see Keira Knightley's hair doesn't look realistic at the moment and so wouldn't be very convinsing to use within my character.

I then clicked>Image>Adjustments>Brightness/contrast. This would help me to get so highlights and shadows onto the brown hair where necessary.

Here you can see that the 'blonde hair' is now becoming more realistic to fit in with Keira knightley's skin tones, but I still need to do some work. I then used the 'rubber' tool on opacity 27% in which would make the blonde hair fit in with the face more and look much more realistic.

This is my end result. The 'blonde hair' which was formerly brown looks realistic and fits Keira Knightley's skin tone and face perfectly. There is no dark root and the different tones of the hair make it look very realistic and natural. No one would ever have known that she had brown hair.

Time for a fairytale