#i used the water paper filter to make an artistic blur!

[britishchick09]

i submitted rewrite christine's game for review and the meiker owner suggested tweaking the backgrounds and description. now it's ready to go! ;D

@half-as-big-as-life

[fallingappleshurt]

63 with Wilbur and Techno. Bonus if it's a flashback to their childhood after wilbur's death.

Hi yes I write things I swear

So the second part of the request is more directly implied than outright stated so oops but yeah! Also this takes place in some modern AU because the SMP is tiring me

all that’s dead and gone and passed tonight

TW: swearing, major character death (already dead not- they are just grieving)

Techno felt like he was watching himself in a painting, a shitty, hazy painting. One where the artist got frustrated and gave up halfway through, smearing the paint up and down and across the canvas in rage.

He couldn’t focus- the smudges on his glasses were distracting and unwanted tears building up in his eyes were blurring the words on his assignments together.

The sky was screaming, the wind whipped at the trees and slapped at the house, thunder shook the clouds and lightning slipped through the cracks. It was raining so hard Techno couldn’t see out his window.

Sharp and painful feelings that he tried so hard to crush were bubbling up along with tears in his eyes- he couldn’t do this. He had at least 3 assignments due at midnight and 2 missing ones that he couldn’t find the motivation to do, he should probably shower, he felt gross- and the rain made him think of Wilbur-

Oh god Wilbur.

If Wilbur were here he’d make Techno take a break after teasing him for awhile, hanging upside down on Techno’s bed and commenting on his fantastic posture.

He jammed his hands in his hair, nails getting caught on the tangles and coating his hands with grease, pulling and digging his fingers into his scalp. This was the last thing he wanted to think about was Wilbur- fuck- his stupid fucking hair was getting in the way.

Phil had tried to get him to take care of it again but even brushing his hair felt like a hassle and Wilbur wasn’t there to braid it. Techno knew how to braid and care for his own hair- but Wilbur would always do it- he used to.

His chest was tight- ribs mending together and crushing his lungs- no he had to focus- just get these assignments done- the thunder cracked outside again.

Tears burned his face, he was tired, so tired, he knew he didn’t have the right to be but he was- he went to grab his pencil only to accidentally jerk at his hair again.

He snapped, shoving his papers and books off the desk, jumping up so fast his chair fell over.

Techno pushed his door open and stomped into the bathroom, rummaging through the drawers in the dark like a mad man, washcloths and toothbrushes and bandaids being shoved aside until he found the scissors.

He grabbed a chunk of his hair- yanking it so he could see it better- and lined the scissors up. He paused, tears clouding his vision to the point where he could barely see himself- did he really want to get rid of it? Of something that took so long to grow- something Wilbur liked so much?

His eyes flickered to the small nightlight on the wall.

He bit his tongue and sliced through his hair.

Iron filled his mouth as he threw his hair on the floor, snipping wildly at the other parts, ripping them away, feeling the jagged ends brush against his face and neck.

Techno dropped the scissors, he stumbled out of the bathroom and back towards his room- it felt unfamiliar but homey at the same time- it smelled like dust and ink.

He collapsed on the already made bed, it was soft and enveloped in him in a cool but familiar sheet of grief.

He wrapped his arms around the pillow, that smelled like the shampoo that Wilbur had insisted on using, holding it to his chest, and somehow fell asleep.

“You’ve been sitting there for the last 3 hours, I thought you’d be finished by now.” Wilbur commented, flopping down on Techno’s bed.

“Shut up.”

Wilbur snorted, “You’re in a mood.”

Techno gripped his pencil tighter, “Go away- I’m busy.”

“You’ve said that a lot recently-”

“Cause I’ve been busy so fuck off!”

Wilbur rolled off the bed, setting his hand on Techno’s shoulder, “You need a break-”

“I need to finish this project-”

“It’s due on Monday, you’ll still have the rest of the weekend to finish it, now come on, we’re going on a walk.”

“But it’s raining,”

“So? That’s what makes it fun, besides it's basically summer so it’s warm.”

Techno let Wilbur drag him out of his room, past Tommy who was passed out on the couch with the TV blaring, and through the kitchen towards the garage.

“Leave your shoes.”

“What?”

“Walking barefoot in the rain feels much better than with shoes, now come on! You’re so slow!”

They walked out of the garage and were immediately pelted with fat drops of water as the sky dumped buckets on them. Wilbur grinned and they continued down the driveway and down the sidewalk.

Techno felt like an idiot, walking in the rain in shorts and a t-shirt with his twin, but strangely, he didn’t mind it. Wilbur closed his eyes and put his head back, smiling widely, letting the rain hit his face and drench his hair.

Barely anybody was out, Techno could see faint light filtering from other peoples windows but the streets were clear, he watched leaves and twigs get swept down the little rivers that ran down the curb every time it rained.

Wilbur grabbed his hands suddenly, spinning them around, Techno was barely able to stop himself from falling.

“What-”

“Come on Tech! Move your feet, get your blood flowing!” Wilbur twisted them around again, laughing. His laugh was like little drops of sunlight in the sea.

Techno snorted, trying to keep up with Wilbur’s rapid pace.

They spun themselves at a shitty old field by the middle school, where the buses would park over the summer and the people would let their dogs run. The asphalt was gray and cracked, huge potholes filled with water and pebbles.

Wilbur pulled him along, urging him to go faster, until they were running. They ran through the puddles, splashing muddy water on their legs. Techno ran and ran, feeling the wind in his hair that was simultaneously sticking to his forehead, his feet hit the ground so hard he thought they might bleed but he finally felt like he wasn’t wrapped in a foggy haze.

Wilbur nearly tripped twice and Techno couldn’t see out of his glasses but for the first time in months he felt like he could breathe.

Eventually they went back home, creeping through the house Techno went to get changed and dry himself off, once he did he sat back down to work on his project again. Only for Wilbur to poke his head through the door, droplets of water still clinging to his hair.

“Oh no you don’t, I just got you to loosen up, you gotta stay loose. Come here,”

“I really should be working-”

“Shut up and let me braid your hair.”

Techno found himself in Wilbur’s room sipping a cup of hot chocolate, curled up on the bed with Wilbur running his fingers through his hair, sectioning it off for braids.

It was still pouring outside, rain pattering against the window, the ceiling fan creaked and rattled mixing in with the TV’s soft melody of a cheesy old show Techno hadn’t seen in years. The multicolored Christmas lights Wilbur had taped to the wall were glowing softly but still brighten the room.

When Wilbur finished the last braid he leaned against his twin, his hot chocolate forgotten on the desk, “Stay the night with me?” He asked quietly, “It’ll be just like old times.”

Techno nodded and Wilbur laid his head on his shoulder, just like old times.

Phil had been worried when he woke muffled thumps and bangs coming from the hall but after quickly investigating found that they were safe.

He felt the panic flare up again for a moment when he peered in and saw Techno wasn’t in his room and it was in complete disarray but relaxed when he found him in Wilbur’s room, curled up, fast asleep.

He wondered if he should wake him and ask if he was alright but ultimately stopped himself, he couldn’t do that to him, even in the dim light Techno looked more at peace then he had in months.

It had been months since Wilbur died and Phil’s chest burned everyday, there was a piece missing from his home, his heart, his family, he lost his songbird.

He knew it affected his other sons too, Tommy flipped between loud fits of rage and sadness, screaming or sobbing softly, while Techno was barely managing to scrape by as human.

Wilbur and Tommy were close but Wilbur and Techno had been by each other's sides since birth.

He remembered Wilbur refusing to leave Techno’s side when he was sick and how Techno never missed one of his concerts. The paper crowns and crudely made flags and swords as they decided they were the most fearsome duo that would conquer the land one day.

They never got that far.

Phil knew Techno tried to put on a brave front but it was cracking, piece by piece, baggy eyes, slipping grades, and forgetting to eat. He had tried to help but nothing seemed to be working, Techno was slipping into a husk of himself.

Wilbur may have been in a casket but any fool could see Techno was the dead one.

[threemothsinsweaters]

A list of unusual quirk ideas!

Alright, so I have been collecting unusual quirk ideas for around half a year now - maybe a few months more Now, I’m ready to share the list with the world in case anyone ever needs any inspiration for their fanfics, be it for background characters of fics or maybe used for actual ocs 

All of those ideas are free to use without any credit or anything, but I would appreciate reblogs! ^-^

(If any of them repeat or are written wrongly then I’m sorry, I will try to fix that and edit the post every time I come up with new ideas)

1.Density control

2.Liquid multiplier

3.Heat-level vision

4.Creating objects out of light

5.Radiation

6.Super hearing

7.Entering/moving through electronics

8.Cursing objects

9.Transporting through mirrors

10.Speaking any language

11.Super strength, speed and healing but lost of self-control

12.Wild magic - giving random effects

13.Being able to determine worth of any object by touching it

14.Being able to irritate and annoy someone just by existing

15.Memory manipulation

16.Giving people a disease 

17.Being immune to any sickness

18.Compass - always knows where they are

19.Silence - make someone deaf momentarily

20.Medical intuition - knows what's wrong with the person hurt immediately

21.Never leaves a trail behind, untraceable

22.Reflection - can reflect powers of others at them

23.Survival instincts

24.Changing flesh into plants

25.Perfect imitation of animal noises

26.Killer instincts 

27.Ultimate stamina - can keep going for many hours without the need to take a break

28.Entering people’s dreams

29.Best liar - all lies sound like truth and the person is immune to lie detectors and truth serums

30.Crazy but smart - can come up with a solution to any problem, but the solution is always extremely dangerous and straight-up crazy

31. Making people itchy

32.Doesn’t need oxygen/doesn’t need to breathe to survive

33.Instant artist - able to draw anything with perfect photo-like accuracy extremely fast

34.Emotionless - can turn off feeling emotions 

35.Making all weapons they use stronger

36.Selective hearing - can hear things they want to and completely tune out anything else, even if it's louder than what they want to hear

37.Use senses of animals that are near (see through their eyes, hear what they hear)

38.Turn liquids solid by touch

39.Slow motion vision

40.Voice changer - can change their voice completely

41.Producing huge amounts of energy constantly

42.Draining energy from surrounding them people

43.Improved ability to track down anyone if there’s any scent/hints to follow

44.Perfect aim

45.Hyper-aware of their surroundings

46.Able to operate any vehicle 

47.Able to use any weapon

48.Can confuse people using words

49.Insomnia - they don’t need to sleep and suffer no bad effects from it

50.Ability to feel emotions of others

51.Can see true intentions of anyone they look at

52.Learning a history of an object by touching it

53.Emotion manipulation

54.Ability to eat anything without any bad effects

55.Astral projection - ability to leave the body as a “spirit”

56.Echolocation

57.Ability to overload someone’s mind causing pain, headaches, memory loss

58.Ability to locate any thing they touched in past 24 hours

59.Temporary merging two beings together

60. Pheromone manipulation

61. Skin expansion - creating more skin

62. Bubbles - turning all liquid touched into foam

63. Double jaw like an eel

64. Becoming someone’s shadow and following them around

65. Blood can work like drugs

66. No photos - being blurry on all photographs and in people’s memories

67. Fusion - can fuse with certain objects for short amounts of time

68. Crocodile tears - ability to cry many different choosen liquids and cry whenever they want to (could work well to make people believe their story and stuff)

69. Writing just by touching the paper and thinking about what they want to be written

70. Multi-eyes - let’s the person open “eyes” on any part of their body and see through them

71. Silence - can make everyone around them unable to talk or make any sounds at all

72. Detachable limbs

73. Control of the temperature of air around them

74. Elastic bones

75. Turning into a swarm of insects

76. Ability to sound really convincing

77. Ability to create huge amounts of glitter and sparkling lights out of their hands

78. Fast learner - very fast learner, being able to do a lot of things on the first or second try

79. Ability to shrink things

80. Ability to control all of their body functions fully consciously (hunger, heart-beat, blood flow etc)

81. Ability to change someone’s eyesight/eye structure 

82. Waking up with a completely different temporary ability every time after they go to sleep

83. Control of the growing of nails 84. Control over hair fibers

85. Boiling any liquid with touch

86. Copying any handwriting 

87. Superpower making them unable to die from falling off heights

88. Undestroyable bones

89. Changing the humidity of things/air

90. Skin has the properties of a nettle

91. Ability to lay eggs

92. Ability to make things expire instantly

93. Extended lungs

94. Changing the taste of things  

95. Changing the smell of things

96. Changing colors of things

97. Hibernation - the ability to sleep for really long amounts of time without the need to eat, drink, go to the bathroom or anything in between. 

98. Ability to know people’s worst fears/phobias

99. Ability to copy objects and multiply them

100. Spine extension - having more discs in the spine so the spine is more flexible

101. Ability to know when someone is thinking about them

102. Ability to know if a living being or a human is near them at the moment

103. Ability to know someone’s age instantly 

104. Ability to swap the probability of things happening if the probability is higher than 1% (if something has the 20% chance of happening, swapping it would make 80% - if something has 0.1% of happening the power cannot be used on it. The power, however, does not let the person using it know what the probability of certain things is

105. Ability to make your parents proud

106. Ability to make people sing instead of talking

107. Knowing the phone number of literally everyone they want

108. Real life filters - ability to make things look much nicer than they actually are

109. Ability to predict the exact probability of something happening

110. Immortal soul but mortal body - soul can enter the body even if it’s not actually functioning anymore, body can be “repaired” so it doesn’t fully fall apart

111. Ability to make images/holograms out of smoke (controlling its shape and turning it into images)

112. Ability to make people misspell words and stutter uncontrollably

113. Ability to make all insects around them drop dead instantly

114. Ability to change the direction in which things are moving

115. Eliminating or absorbing light

116.Turning off body functions without actually dying (or at least permanently - mind also still works)

117. Hearing every word someone said in past 24 hours

118. Shift person’s attention at will

119. Activate/deactivate adrenaline at will

120. Blur person’s logical thinking, making them less reasonable

121. Infinite patience

122. Loosen the tension in the air

123. Ability to bite through everything

124. Friction control 

125. Evolution mutation - body changes to adapt to certain situations

126. Ability to generate darkness/make shadows even if there’s strong light

127. Ability to make people see the mistakes they made

128. Ability to change into objects

129. Ability to create spiders that crawl out of the mouth of the person with the power

130. Ability to find the weak points of things

131. Extremely good sense of balance

132. Extra fast reading

133. Ability to make anything they touch glow

134. Becoming indestructible for a few minutes after receiving a fatal injury which could kill them

135. Ability to temporarily turn animals into monsters

136. Ability to sing any song no matter the language nor the difficulty as long as they heard it at least once

137. Fungus - 5 finger contact makes area around the hand grow with many different kinds of fungus, mostly mold but over extended contact bigger mushrooms grow as well

138. Marble statue - ability to turn into a statue without the need to eat/drink/sleep for long amounts of time, but the body structure is pretty weak

139. Ability to make someone allergic to certain things for short amount of time

140. Ability to make things poisonous with touch

141. Everything is cake - ability to make things they touch cake

142. Sharp air - ability to turn air into invisible knives that dissolve the moment they let go of them

143. Cockroach - ability to turn smaller by compressing the mass and turning it into strength, making the user indestructible while in small form

144. Ability to make people trip

145. Ability to make their hands have magnetic effect 

146. Ability to make things spin (even air or water)

147. Ability to know what material something is made out of

148. Ability to make most surfaces reflective

149. Ability to make things half-transparent 

150. Ability to stick things together

151. Ability to make things grow fur

[nevergiveupneverrun]

Bodyguard - Chapter Twenty-seven “Undercover” Part One

Hello, I hope you’re all doing great. Here is chapter twenty-seven of my story Bodyguard. I’m sorry by advance for the mistakes… English isn’t my first language and I do my best. Here is the link of the previous chapter: Click Here.

I hope you will enjoy this chapter :) 💛

My feet in the white sand. A wave sound that whispers to my ears. A radiant sun floods the landscape… and illuminates a silhouette a few meters from me. A silhouette that I could now draw with my eyes closed. The line of her curves, the smallest details of her face. She swirls for a few moments, then advances towards the sea, sweeping the water with her toes. But a second silhouette is approaching her soon. Then hugged her from behind, and I can clearly see a smile on the soft face that I have observed so much. I look away despite myself when I see the face of this man slip against her cheek and drop a kiss. - Ok, cut! The director’s voice announces the end of the take and I let out a sigh as a deliverance. - Darling, you were… beautiful… the music video will be beautiful… Thank you very much! The overflowing enthusiasm of the director makes me smile while looking up, I meet the eyes of Amelia who smiles also to me. - George, I told you that you would love her… she’s the best! - Thanks, April, Amelia answers, affectionately touching her friend’s shoulder. This exchange marks the end of a shoot… an express shoot in two days, completely redesigned in disaster. Richard had worked miracles to reorganize everything and thus blurring the tracks with the crazy who threatened Amelia. However, he was not on the trip, some obligations with the record company kept him on Seattle. April had been a great help for this alternative decided at the last minute, especially because she had found the masterpiece for this project: the director. Amelia had indeed decided to change, taking advantage of the complete reworking of the shoot to take more liberties. The director had also promptly suggested the location for the filming after having integrated that Amelia wished a landscape of beach for frame… a small beach in Campeche, Mexico, chosen by George O’Malley, a young director in the making who Amelia was giving her a chance, on the advice of April.

The filming ended after a smooth run and under a bright sun: the team was small but efficient, five technicians in addition to the director, an actor, and April who also played in the music video, taking the role of « friend » alongside Amelia,  thus combining fiction and reality. Amelia had indeed offered to her to play this role… as a thank you for the one that allowed her to find a director… and a place for the music video. The two days of filming were punctuated by the scenes between April and Amelia as well as the scenes with the actor: a certain Antonio, a dark-haired young man with a pretty face… probably a model in parallel with his acting career. No alert had come to tarnish the unwinding of the music video, the only uncontrollable element was proving… the director himself. A true artist in his way of being: a striking exuberance, pathways of thought hard to follow.

The singing voice of the director precisely reframes me with the moment while I approached the small group, leaving my position as an observer. - With all these beautiful images, if we don’t do wonders… I really have no talent! - Amaze me, George, I’m counting on you! I trust you, don’t disappoint me! - I promise you, my dear! The director responds smiling. I think I’ll get straight to the treatment of the rushes while the ideas are fresh… - I can surely help you George, suggest April. I take a look at April, surprised by this offer and I notice at the corner of the eyes, the same head movement from Amelia. - I could turn things around to make it fit for Amelia, I know her by heart… and I have a more flexible schedule than you, sweetie… says April, finding the look of her friend. - Are you sure April? You have already done so much for this music video, I don’t want to force you to stay… - I’ll be delighted, George retorts with a huge smile to April. The young woman smiles back and I feel that her offer has another purpose than just help George on the music video… but it is probably an impression. - Do you want to stay a little longer then? Because we were supposed to leave tomorrow… - Yes, one or two more days, will it be George? - Perfect, says George. - Okay, as you wish. - It will not be a problem for arrangements on the trip… as soon as Mr. & Mrs. Harcourt leave together, the cover is safe! Says April laughing. I smile a little nervously at the mention of this detail… a detail that April never tired of supporting for two days now.

48 hours ago.

- Thank you, Nathan, for receiving me so quickly and having paid all the details. - No problem Owen, you know you can count on me. I beg you, sit down! I sit on the seat closest to me in the meeting room that Nathan takes care to close behind him. A room immaculate white, without the slightest touch of decoration, a very special atmosphere… neutrality peculiar to this world of special forces that had punctuated much of my life. - All the items you need are in this envelope. I managed to redo your papers and I also provided accommodation on site. I called Nathan after having the agreement by Amelia that we organize the music video in a place other than the one originally planned… to blur the tracks. To put the odds on our side that the crazy cannot find us once he understands that the filming doesn’t take place in Santa Barbara, I availed to seek the help of special units…  for us to travel under other identities, which makes us almost invisible to everyone.

I open the envelope that Nathan hands me and I remove five elements: three passports, a multi-page leaflet, and a smaller, sealed white envelope. I grab the first passport and open it gently: a picture of me appears to me, and a name that makes me smile immediately « Owen Harcourt ». - You could not help it! - I had to find a name, so I know how easy it was on this one! Replies Nathan watching me. Owen Harcourt… a name that reconnects me with a flood of memories… a nickname that had marked many missions, almost another part of me… I close the passport and open the next one, that of April… become « April Nemours ». Then I finally discover the last, knowing that it is that of Amelia: it’s her face that’s showing before my eyes, but it’s another detail that captures my attention… - Amelia… Harcourt…? Maiden name Nemours… Nathan, you could not find anything else? - Owen, you know that the best cover for traveling peacefully is husband and wife. In your position, since you have to accompany her constantly, it’s easier. I remain downcast on the context that installs this cover while listening to Nathan. - You know I’m right Owen… I nod with the closing of the passport. He had actually made the right choice, but a choice that was not going to make the next few days easy. I always wondered about Amelia’s feeling… not to mention that my own reactions were not always obvious: I was already predicting that this cover would only make things a bit more complex than they were already… - That’s what I believe inside? I asked, pointing to the little white envelope. - You know me, I don’t do things in half, all the accessories are provided to assume a cover… I put the little envelope in my jacket without opening it. - And here, you will find all the details about the hotel that I booked for you. I choose a luxury hotel: it’s the best option to avoid questions. The staff in this kind of hotels are discreet but also very vigilant about the tranquility of their customers and they systematically filter the comings and goings. I scan the leaf of the eyes after identifying the place, a hotel in Campeche and a reservation for two rooms in the name of Harcourt and Nemours. - Two suites reserved… they are on the same floor and connected… so that April and Amelia could take a suite both and you take the second, without arousing suspicion… as long as you remain on your guard at the slightest suspicious sound… I replace the passports in the envelope and the details of the hotel. I get up while shaking Nathan’s hand. - Thanks for all, Nathan. I know it was not easy for you to organize everything. - Your welcome. I smile at him one last time. - Do you have everything you need? - Yes, no doubts. - Owen, I feel you upset, but don’t be. You did it hundreds of times in the past. Don’t get lost in the lies. I nod my head while listening to my former mentor reassure me. - Well, let’s go to your Amelia, I know you’re not calm when you don’t see her anymore, he announces a little louder while smiling at me.

He opens the door, I follow him, and we find Amelia in the next room waiting for us patiently. I’d rather pick up the items without her presence near to Nathan, in case we had to change some things or improvise details. I didn’t want to put her in touch with the backstage of this world… of this other part of my life. I had not been able to come alone this time, however, since the last threats, I was not willing to leave her at home with the only presence of Richard to watch over her. - Everything is fine? She asks, seeing us enter the room. - Yes, Nathan thought of everything as usual. - All the better, she says smiling while looking at Nathan. - I will have to leave you, I have obligations that call me here. Amelia, it was a real pleasure to meet you. My daughters love you and I understand better why now seeing you. - Thank you a lot. And thank you for helping us, I appreciate everything you do… - No problem. I wish you, in any case, very good filming, Mexico is a beautiful place, enjoy serenely. You have the best at your side to protect you. - I know… I look down, a little uncomfortable listening to them evokes me as well. I look up as Nathan finishes with a hand-kissing to Amelia that makes me smile. I shake hands with Nathan without a word, but content myself with a strong look that is enough to convey to him all my gratitude.

The door slams after Nathan’s departure. I find the look of Amelia who observes me and I read a series of questions in her eyes. - So, what exactly have you recovered? I put the envelope on the table and reveal the contents. - Our new identities… I give her her passport, which she hastens to open. - Where did you get this picture? It’s not the one on my passport… I don’t answer her and she redirects her attention to the details of the document. - Amelia Harcourt… it sounds good! You will make me think to point out to Nathan that he has chosen very well my new name, she says with a smile. And what is your new identity? I take a breath before opening my passport. - Owen…Harcourt? But you mean that… I plunged my hand into the inside pocket of my jacket to retrieve the little white envelope that I had taken care to place there. I unhook it and let its content fall on the table and resonate in contact with this surface: two brilliant rings escape first and contrast sharply with the white atmosphere of the room. And a third more sophisticated ring escapes from the envelope: the ring wears a row of diamonds and two sapphires drawing the symbol of infinity. A ring that I recognize instantly… a ring that I didn’t expect to see again… but Nathan had obviously hidden things from me. - It’s the safest cover given the situation. I notice that she seizes the ring that would act as an engagement ring, to observe a little closer. - They are just props for illusion… you can separate from it when we are not outside… She finds my eyes after resting the ring on the table. - The ring is very pretty… - I hope it will go to your finger, we will not have time to take it back. The wedding ring is adapted to your size. She takes the ring with her fingertips and slips it to her left ring finger, putting it on without any difficulty. - It seems to be going, right? She announces, showing me her hand, dressed in this jewel. A jewel I had only seen on the finger of two women… two women who had counted for different reasons in my life. - Yes, it suits you perfectly… I murmured while looking away, disturbed by waves of memories.

A net of light escaping from my left hand materializes the cover that we had thereby set up, while the ring captures the intense light of the Mexican sun. A context that April took pleasure in putting forward as soon as she could since we left for Mexico. - Actually April, as long as we leave together with Amelia, you can live your life… Miss Nemours… I answer with a smile back. - Besides talking about living my life, Amelia, can I talk to you for a second alone, please? Amelia nods and the two young women are shifting a little further. I watch them out of the corner of my eyes when George’s voice calls me. - Tell me, Owen… I have a question a bit peculiar… is she single? - Amelia? - No, Amelia… I have no chance… no, I was talking about April. - Uh… I think she has no one in her life right now… anyway, that was the case a few weeks ago… but I would not want to mislead you… - Thanks… if nothing is official, I can probably try my luck! Movements are perceived to my right as the girls are already coming back to us. I meet Amelia’s eyes, but she reassures me with a nod that everything is fine. - April, if you’re ready, could we go back to the workroom to watch the first rushes? George offers, showing real enthusiasm after our swift exchange. - Yes, no problem, I follow you, see you later! April launches us, moving away with George. They both leave in the direction of George’s car, parked a few meters from the beach. - Did April have something to ask you? - Yes… well… she would like to have the room for herself tonight… she wanted to make sure it did not cause me any problems… I’m listening to Amelia as Antonio’s silhouette gradually gets closer to us. - So only small detail compared to last night, it will be necessary to cohabit in the same room… I find the look of Amelia within a few seconds, challenged by this new information, but the voice of Antonio rise close to us and quickly diverts my attention. - Amelia… can you come with me for a moment? Although Mexican, his English was perfect without the slightest accent. - Yes, of course, she answers with a smile after giving me a last look. I observe Antonio pass a hand in the back of Amelia and lead her a few steps further to the edge of the sea. I can see that a discussion is taking place between them, first dominated by Antonio’s words, then some of Amelia’s short answers, sometimes even embarrassed, while I notice some downcast and fleeting glances from her. A gesture of Antonio captivates me when his hand advances slightly to lay on the bare arm of the singer… and come and go as in a caress. A cold, smooth surface suddenly resonates under my fingers. And I end up recognizing that an unconscious gesture has taken hold of me as I slide my wedding ring under my forefinger and my thumb… this ring mark of a link factitious and purely virtual, but that I had not bothered to withdraw upon arriving at the location of the shooting. Amelia stands out slightly from Antonio’s touch and I can perceive that he pauses in his words, before stretching a piece of paper that she finally accepts after a few seconds of hesitation. She smiles furtively at him then goes away, leaving him alone… and comes back to me again. Antonio looks pensive and joined some technicians still present, a few steps from him.

Amelia is quickly repositioning herself by my side and I hasten to take my fingers off the ring of my left hand. I stealthily touch my jacket, to feel under the tips of my fingers this sheet of paper that I had placed in the pocket of my inner jacket… this letter of resignation that I took care to bring with me,  to reconnect me to reality. - We can go back to the hotel, I think we’re done here. Can you give me back my accessories for my role of Mrs. Harcourt? She asks me in a smile. I perform and slide my right hand into my pants pocket. I thus recover the wedding ring and the engagement ring which she had separated for the shooting… but that she had to hand over to return to the hotel. - Thank you, she whispers me taking the jewels of my hand. She slips the wedding ring to her left hand and the engagement ring on her right ring finger. - Antonio looked upset after your discussion… - His offer took me a little short… - Offer? - Yes… he invited me to dinner. I remain silent, but this information instantly makes me tense. I was already anticipating a difficult evening to manage. - I think he was surprised by my reaction. He must be used to the fact that women are instantly enthusiastic, which was not really been my case. I had a flood of questions that invaded my mind… all centered around you. I observe her, surprised by her last precision. - Yes, well, if I dine with him… you must be present one way or another and I have a little trouble to imagine what such a dinner would look like, in which you would stay in the shade, on a table adjoining ours or outside the restaurant to observe us, she says with a laugh. And then it’s obviously not a proposition that a married woman can accept, right? She finished in a smile. « Don’t get lost in your lies ». Nathan’s words echo in my head after Amelia’s remark and I speak again immediately. - Amelia, it’s only a cover… if you go outside Campeche, you don’t have to maintain the illusion. And as far as I’m concerned, if you give me a little time and if you know the place of the date, I can try to organize things accordingly. She looks at me for a moment and then speaks again. - You will not have to give yourself that bad. Because before all, to accept this invitation, it is necessary that it tempts me, which is not the case at all. I clearly want to enjoy my last night in this beautiful city. And by thinking about it quickly, there is only one solution, I believe, to reconcile caution and trip outside… She lowers her eyes on her hands and takes a short break. Her head is gradually rising and her eyes instantly find mine. - So… can I hope to have dinner with my husband tonight? She suggests in a whisper. Diner. Husband. Two words that are enough to make me lose the thread. I was not prepared at all for this idea. I perceive my eyes grow a little more while fixing her. - Well… I mean… I know that I don’t fear anything with you… I can also spare myself to stay cloistered at the hotel… it is a simple and reasonable solution… no? Her tone of voice is more hesitant as she justifies herself as if trying to convince me. I don’t know what to say to her. I was not expecting this request. Or maybe, I was waiting for it while dreading for it. - But… you can refuse… She looks down, pronouncing these last words. I don’t know how long I stayed silent, stuck on her words offering me a way out in a whisper. An alternative, a choice that she left me and that I had to seize to avoid complicating things. But when she looks up, her eyes are different, bright and so expressive. Words escape from her mouth but I had trouble hearing them, troubled by her look that contradicts her words perfectly. - You can refuse…

Thank you for reading 💛

[mattalesarts102-01-blog]

Project 1: Snippets

Hooray, my first Studio Arts project! I had a great time working on this- I can't remember the last time I was so excited to work on homework.

For this project, our task was to think about weird things we've heard people say, favorite quotes, song lyrics, et cetera and create images based on those "snippets." Like the Emo trash that I am, all three of my "snippets" were song lyrics. My first one, "Is anyone there? Oh... hi," is a line from Sad Machine, my favorite song from Porter Robinson. The second, "His hair, his smoke, his dreams," is a line from Colors, my sister's favorite song from Halsey. The third, "I'm drowning in a lifeboat," is a phrase used often by death's dynamic shroud.wmv, my mom's favorite Vaporwave artist (you read that right!) I chose those lines for the second and third because I intend to give the final prints as gifts to my sister and my mom, respectively.

Here, I'll briefly break down my process for each of them:

"I'm drowning in a lifeboat"

I started by creating a physical image. I sketched out the letters in pencil after very carefully drawing margin lines with a ruler. Then, I painted the letters vertically using heavy body acrylic thinned with water to make it appear like watercolor. While the paint was still wet, I photographed the page (using my hair clip to keep it from flopping over.) In Photoshop the following day, I resized and cropped the image, straightened it, added a Gaussian blur to smooth over the pixelation, then applied automatic color fixing operations.

The idea behind this image plays into my interpretation of the quote. I spent a long time painstakingly drawing out the letters and their spacing, but intentionally put very little effort into applying the paint neatly and even used the wrong kind of brush on purpose. Upon seeing this image out of context, one might think that the creator had a fair amount of skill with drawing, but next to no skill in painting. The point of all of this is to illustrate frustration. I interpret "I'm drowning in a lifeboat" to mean "I have the good foundation I need to be successful, so why am I still failing?" This image shows a good foundation in the drawn lines, but ultimately, it fails to be as neat and tidy as it set out to be.

"Colors"

I happened upon a stack of very old magazines someone left outside of McMaster and decided to use them to create a collage. I cropped the images and pieces of paper by folding and tearing, I arranged them in several different ways to see which configuration looked the best, then I pasted them in place. Despite the final image being in black and white, I used blue ink to write the text as an even deeper reference to the song. Then, I photographed the page in better lighting. In Photoshop, I resized and cropped the image, added a Gaussian blur, then applied a black-and-white filter. It didn't occur to me until days afterward that I needed to cite my images, and I'd put the magazines back in the pile where I found them! Would they still be there after several days of classes and rain? I'll cut to the chase: yes, they mostly were, but I had to do a bit of reverse image searching to find all the information needed. (This was about four days ago, and I'd written much more here, including the citations, but for some reason my post edits never saved so I've had to do all of this AGAIN.)

(Image sources: [top] Unknown historic photograph. [center] Moya, Rodrigo. "Che Melancólico." 1964. [bottom] Hopper, Dennis. "Double Standard." 1961.)

"Sad Machine"

For this one, I typed the quote into a Windows command terminal with the intent of the final image having a Vaporwave aesthetic. I tried photographing my computer screen for a more "lo-fi" look, but it looked unironically terrible and I decided to just use a screenshot. I used my computer's Snipping Tool to capture just the part that I needed, and I imported the capture into an 8"x8" blank artboard. To make the text clear and bright, I applied a very heavy-handed sharpening operation and turned down the saturation to get rid of color noise. Opening a new blank layer underneath the screencap, I created a two-color gradient and added color noise. I specifically chose to use blue with RGB values of 0, 255, 255 and magenta with RGB values of 255, 0, 255 (those colors probably have technical names that I don't know) because they're very popular in Vaporwave aesthetics and because I used those colors ad nauseam in my early days of making digital art in MS Paint and GIMP. I know that those colors don't quite print properly, though, but that's still in line with my intentions. Vaporwave aesthetics are characterized by mocking the technological ignorance of decades past and by imagery that can only truly exist on a computer. Imagine, if you will, someone amazed by the capabilities of their first home computer creating artwork to their heart's content using crazy full-saturation colors that simply cannot exist in the real world. They get their artwork printed and are disappointed in how their beautiful cyan and magenta turned out to be some sad pale blue and some dull reddish pink. And so the stark difference between the printed version and the uploaded web version of this snippet plays directly into its meaning.

[caitlindawart]

Road Signs

Our first photography workshop was to photograph a range of road signs, but we weren’t told what we would be doing with them. From here, we explored the town, taking images of road signs and buildings which may be of use.

When we returned to the classroom, we were told we would first be producing a topology of signs, and after that we were to produce a ‘landmark’ collage using the images we had collected, influenced by artist Nelson Figuerado, his work can be seen below.

Upon continuing to research Figuerado’s work, I came across a similar artist, Brian Hubble, who’s work can be seen below.

I much preferred his work, due to the lack of colour schemes and more recognisable imagery as oppose to so many layers. From here, I made a contact sheet and chose which images worked best to use in my collage, before opening them up in photoshop, ready to begin making layers.

Firstly, I opened an image of the Abbey, which I had taken on my journey around the town. I removed the background and ground beneath, but left the trees behind to add depth. Next, I added a new layer, which was a scan of my homemade paper, to add a worn, decrepit texture to reflect the history behind the building itself.

From here, I created a new layer, and imported all of the images I collected of roadsigns. I tried to keep the lighter coloured road signs in the centre, as I knew this would be the centre of the image when the layers were merged later on. Next, I added a white rectangle layer, and altered the opacity to be much lower, producing a fog over the signpost background. Then, I added this layer into the background of the textured Abbey building, to reflect the clouds in a more abstract way.

I was unsure where to go from here, and as I didn’t find it as effective as I had hoped, I therefore decided to start afresh. I began with the same plan, importing the image of the Abbey as a starting point.

Then, I opened a new document in Photoshop and imported the dark coloured signpost images, as I wanted them to be similarly coloured to the building itself. I then layered and resized them in the correct place on top of the building image, and once I was happy with the placement moved that layer beneath the building layer. I then lowered the opacity of the building to 73%, which allowed me to see the signposts beneath the building, but softly. I then removed any areas of the signpost layer which didn’t fit inside the building itself, using the quick selection tool, which meant the cloud was left clean.

I altered the levels of the signpost layer, and altered the contrast of the building, allowing it to be soft, but still quite bold. I was pleased with this outcome, and felt that although originally I had planned to do the same with the clouds, I felt that leaving them as the original image as oppose to filling them with layers made it look a lot cleaner and professional overall, so left this as finished.

I felt that this was a learning curve for me, as this abstract Photoshop layering isn’t something I have used before. Although I felt my first attempt was a disaster, in the end I was pleased with my more minimalistic, softer result, and therefore if I were to do this again I would try to stay in this region, as I felt it worked best.

Aperture

Aperture is the opening of the lens and the amount of light being let in. The larger the f stop number, the less light is being let in due to a smaller opening of the lens. The smaller the f stop number, the more light is being let in due to the larger lens opening. Using the ‘Av’ option on my Canon 700D, I am able to alter the aperture, whilst the shutterspeed is automatically altered accordingly.Depth of field is the amount of the shot that is in focus, with a large depth of field meaning all or the majority of the shot is in focus, whilst a small depth of field means only part of the image will be in focus, with the rest of the background blurred. Large aperture increases the depth of field, and a smaller aperture gives a larger depth of field. To break it down simply for reference:

Larger f stop number - smaller opening, smaller aperture, larger depth of field (majority in focus).

Smaller f stop number - larger opening, larger aperture, smaller depth of field (background blurred).

Above, the first image has a large aperture (lower number - 5.6), with a shallow depth of field, blurring the background, with the same again on the three images below.

Below, the first image has a large aperture as described above, blurring the background and surrounding bottles, while the second image has a small aperture (larger number - 16), giving a wider depth of field and allowing everything to be in focus.

Shutterspeed

Shutterspeed is the amount of time the shutter is open. On my Canon 700D, using the ‘Tv’ option allows me to alter the shutterspeed, with the aperture being automatically set accordingly. The smaller the fraction, the faster the shutterspeed, which will photograph the motion paused/still, with no blur and no movement, meaning splashes of water can be captured sharply. The larger the fraction, or whole number, the more movement and blur is captured; which means drawing with light can be captured perfectly using a slow shutterspeed.

I have included my annotated contact sheet of both my shutterspeed and aperture images below.

The below image was captured using a very slow shutterspeed at 5″.

Again, the below images were captured using a very slow shutterspeed at 6″, allowing the light drawing to be photographed both in well lit surroundings and in the dark room.

Pinhole Camera - Justin Quinnell - Artist Research

Justin Quinnell is a pin hole photographer, who produces strange and wacky images using the pin hole camera technique. This technique allows him to produce images like the one of SS Great Britain in Bristol, seen directly below; which was done as part of his collection of ‘Solargraphs’, which all use 3-6 month duration exposures, giving the background effect of the swirls of light.

These aren’t my favourite pieces of his work, however, instead I much prefer his collection ‘Mouthpiece’, in which the pinhole images are used by placing the camera in his mouth. Whilst these images, seen below, are weird and something I’ve never seen done before, I think the subjects of these particular images give a warm, nostalgic aura for the viewer, and whilst they are contemporary and strange, I love that they juxtapose with the very traditional and old fashioned method of using the pinhole camera, which I think makes the images all the more effective.

I am very pleased to have been introduced to Quinnell’s work, and his images have inspired to produce pin hole camera images of different varieties, which will be seen in my development.

Pinhole Camera

After researching Justin Quinnell, we were then to create and use our own pinhole cameras. These can allow up to 6 month exposure times, catching the lines of the sun moving across the sky.To produce our cameras, we used the instructions linked on Quinnell’s site; which were as follows:

Get an aluminium drink can.

Cut the top off with a can opener and sand the top edge using sanding paper.

Cut an 80mm x 210mm strip of black card, adding cut notches along the long edge and creasing them over.

Cut a circle of card to cover the top of the can.

Turn the can over and tape the card strip tightly around the can.

Fold over the notches and place the circle of card on top, then use duct tape to cover the lid.

The lid is then finished, and can be taken off and placed on the open end of the can.

Then, add a hole using a pin half way up the can. Fold a piece of electrical tape over the hole as a make shift shutter.

Finally, go to the dark room and be in red light. Take the lid off the camera, insert photographic paper, and allow the gap between the two edges of the paper to be where the pinhole is.From here, with the pinhole still covered with tape and the lid back on, we were able to go wherever and use our cameras.

My first pinhole image can be seen both as the developed image and as the inverted image below. This was done indoors and was over exposed.

My second attempt at pinhole photography can be seen below, this time I was much more pleased with the outcome...

When my pinhole image was inverted in Photoshop, the outcome can be seen below. I had my exposure time just right, (12 seconds outside), however the camera was positioned too high up and therefore only caught the top of my subject’s head, but still got the surrounding trees.

I would most definitely love to try the pinhole photography process again in my further development, as I loved the developing process and unpredictability of results.

Black and White Film

For our next photography workshop, we were introduced to the world of film photography. In this workshop, we were taught how to use the film camera, explained how to think about our images beforehand due to the limit of film rolls, and then taught how to load the film and develop it in the darkroom.Firstly, I made a Pinterest Board of inspiration, where I realised portraits of wrinkly faces and close ups of architecture were my favourites of people’s outcomes. I also explored the Instagram hashtag ‘film is not dead��� and screenshotted my favourite black and white photographs from other photographers and artists; which I have inserted below.

nickexposed - “The Last Best Place”

cmchappuis

latolome - Dollhouse

In doing so, I also thought about previous images I had taken and whether they would be appropriate locations to take black and white film images. I added monochrome filters to my favourites, with the one pictured below being the best and most effective, therefore I added this to my list of locations; scanned in below.

From here, I visited my locations, shooting at each one. Once I had used all 36, I returned to college to develop my images in the dark bag. First, we had to load the film onto the reel. Once we had loaded the film onto the roll, we then had to place the reel inside the developing tank, ensuring it was properly shut and wouldn’t allow any light in. Then, we were ready to develop the images, using the following process, but in the developing tank as oppose to in the trays.

Step 1 - Developer: The developer causes the exposed areas of film to turn black. Areas that weren’t exposed will stay clear, and the areas which were only slightly exposed will turn grey. This takes 12 minutes and the container needs to be constantly turned and moved so that the developer hits all areas of the film equally. Step 2 - Stop Bath: This stops the developing process and only takes about 2 minutes. Again, the tank needs to be constantly moved. Step 3 - Fixer: The fixer makes the image on the film permanent, and takes about 5 minutes. Again, the container needs to be constantly turned and moved. Finally, the paper/film needs to be placed in water for a minute to remove all the chemicals from the paper. The film is then hung up for an hour to dry.Once dry, the film is then split and cut into strips of 6; doing so makes it easier to store and use. Then, the strips of 6 are placed into the holder to make a contact sheet with.To make the contact sheet of images, once in the holder, we then hold the glass case under the enlarger and make sure the light will hit all areas of the case. Next, all the lights are turned off and the photography paper is put beneath the film in the case. The enlarger is run for 0.5 seconds to expose light through the film, and then the contact sheet is put through the developing process explained above. Once done, the contact sheet is complete and can be left to dry before scanning into the computer and used to determine which images will be used to produce prints from. 

After making a contact sheet and choosing which images worked best, it was time to make a print using the enlarger and photographic paper. To do so, we inserted the film into the enlarger, and used a test strip beneath the enlarger, covering ¾ of the strip with our hand. We then allowed the enlarger to run for 0.5 seconds, and moved our hand further down the strip, now covering ½ of the strip, and allowing it to run for another 0.5 seconds. This means the first exposed section has now been exposed for a second, whilst the second section has only been exposed for half a second. We continue this process another two times with this strip, and from here we are able to see whether one of those exposure times works perfectly, or whether it needs to be exposed for even less than 0.5 seconds, in which we then try another test strip. 

The enlarging tester strip above uses 0.5 secs for each square, left to right.

The second enlarging tester strip above uses 0.2 secs for each square, right to left, then below is the final enlarged print; exposed for 0.6 secs but in hindsight probably needed 0.8/1 seconds exposure.

Below is a tester strip for a second print, using 0.2 secs exposure for each square, left to right.

Below is the final enlarged image, exposed for 1 second, yet in hindsight could’ve been exposed for 1.2 secs.

Portraiture 

Portraits can be used to convey a multitude of emotions, and capture compositions, lighting, props and costume. Light can be used in portrait photography in different ways; with artificial light being added, and light being subtracted to produce shadows. Reflectors are used to reflect the main source of light into shadow areas; softening the main lighting source. A reflector can be a flat white board, stretched sheets of white fabric, or even just a white sheet of paper.

For our portrait photography workshop, we were set the task of producing a range of portraits using the following starting points:

Dramatic light - black and white

Two people interacting

Formal portrait

Informal portrait (considering props, costume, lighting and setting)

Fun image

Fun Portrait

I began each photoshoot by annotating a contact sheet of inspiration images on Pinterest, seen under each heading below. Then, once I’d chosen which I felt were more effective, I went on to take my images.

Below is an annotated contact sheet of my fun/creative images, in which I went with painting eyes on a pair of glasses and getting my subject to wear them for the images, both in and out of character.

As noticed in my inspiration images, the glasses appeared most effective on my male subject, particularly whilst my subjects were being themselves, as oppose to being in character.

Whilst taking these images, I also experimented with a sheet of wire mesh. I first began using it as a screen, but soon realised that it not only was giving me texture, it was also producing light flares of colour. Whilst these two images weren’t my original intentions, I also felt that these fit under the creative portrait category, and am pleased with their outcome.

Self Portrait

Informal Portrait

Likewise, I began with an annotated inspiration sheet from Pinterest for the informal portraits. Here, I felt that playing with light worked most effectively, and whilst the water and bath images were beautiful, they would require a striking subject.

Below are my annotated contact sheets of my informal portraits. I decided to try the bokeh technique, as I felt this was the most effective from my inspiration sheet, however I had never done this before and wasn’t sure how. Andy talked me through it, and whilst I knew the aperture had to be on a low number to allow the background to be blurred, I didn’t realise the subject had to be as close as possible to the camera. Once I had this explained to me, I was then able to take my fairy lights to the photography studio and take my images.

I was very surprised at how effective the images were, and was extremely pleased with my outcome. I chose my best three images to be displayed as a triptych, which all captured people mid laugh, and I felt this raw emotion gave a considerably better portrait image than any of the posed ones.

Black and White Dramatic Portrait

I realised from my annotated inspiration sheet, seen below, that the most effective black and white portraits were those with shockingly stark contrast. 

I played with this idea, seen in my contact sheet below, using softboxes to add light to certain areas of the face, and eventually using a filament bulb, which worked considerably better.

My favourite outcomes from this shoot are seen below, edited to remove the colour and up the contrast. I think these images are extremely effective, and I would like to experiment more with black and white imagery and heavy dramatic lighting in the future.

Formal Portrait

I didn’t produce an annotated inspiration sheet for the formal portraits, as I knew that these just had to be plain and simple, with a posed subject, however I knew that I still wanted to play with light and background colours. Below is my annotated contact sheet, where I decided headshots worked best, especially those without any coloured lighting hitting the face. Shadows (produced with the use of a softbox) worked extremely well, and whilst I felt the serious images were effective, I preferred the ones with a smile as I liked the character they portrayed.

Abstract Photography

Our next photography workshop was to explore shape, form, colour and texture in an abstract style. Using a camera, we were to photograph textures and abstract shapes, zooming in to get closeups and macro shots. We were then to edit and alter the images in photoshop, using layer opacity, layer blending, filters, select/cut/erase/duplicate, hue/saturation/threshold, warp/distort/skew.

Some artists that use abstract photography techniques are Kim Keever, Bill Brandt, Russell Tomlin and James R Page.

Kim Keever - Keever ‘paints with water’, producing landscape and abstract images by ‘dispersing paint through the water adding a certain character to the constructed landscape in the tank and a high degree of randomness to the abstract images’. I love Keever’s work as it is beautifully delicate and fluid, and I feel that the colour palette he uses throughout really adds to this delicate and peaceful aura, making it more effective.

Russell Tomlin - He says his ‘work in photography is driven by the details that emerge from the visual aesthetic I encounter when looking at and into water in its various forms—still water, flowing water, rain or snow, fog and cloud’. While I love the fluidity of his work, I don’t find the colour schemes as effective and calming as Keever’s, but I believe this is due to Tomlin’s editing process as oppose to dispersing actual colours of paint through the water like Keever does.

I will be using the influence of these artists to take my own abstract images and produce my own edited, layered pieces.

I took 10-20 images, using my knowledge of aperture particularly, then annotated the contact sheet, seen below. The most effective images were those of much closer textures, taken in macro mode.

From here, I began to edit and layer the most effective images in Photoshop, the images I produced with their corresponding layers can be seen below.

The four edits below are done by changing between using two, three and four layers, as well as altering the blending modes but keeping opacities to 100%.

The 4 images below are edited by changing between using two and three layers as well as altering the blending modes but keeping opacities to 100% and keeping layers in the same order.

The five images below are done using all four layers and adding two colour balance layers.

Then, I annotated a contact sheet of the final edits, choosing the edits I felt to be most effective; which in this case were the more delicate, fluid abstract images, reflective of Keever’s work which I previously explored.

I whittled these edits down to the best six, then annotated these below, explaining what layering techniques were most effective and which initial images were included in each process.

From here, I chose my favourite and most effective abstract image, which again is very similar to Keever’s style, but has a more “electric” addition, from my own experimenting.

[itsbazblog]

Subject Analysis and experimentation

For the self-portrait with mixed media assignment, I took a look at different photographers with styles that I took a liking to. For example, Ben Heine, a photographer who would take photos of people, animals, places and objects. Then he would merge them with a pencil drawn image done on paper to create some visually interesting images. A style he calls “Pencil vs Camera” and as someone who has art as one of my favourite hobbies, this seemed like the right inspiration to use to express a story about myself.

The concept behind my self-portrait is to express my interest in design and art. The idea was to create an inspired piece of work from Ben Heine’s self-portrait in his “Pencil vs Camera” style. To be more specific, it’s inspired by this piece:

Ben Heine, is a visual artist, who lives in Brussels and mostly know for his work “Pencil Vs Camera”, “Digital Circlism” and “Flesh and Acrylic”. I’ll be most looking at his “Pencil Vs Camera” series which was a visual project crafted by Ben Heine himself. It’s popular for being one of the most creative and powerful art concepts in the 21st century since it is basically a trademark for artists. The idea behind this series is to combine the surreal with ordinary scenes, or they can be mixed with a type of vision or narrative.

Active link: https://www.flickr.com/photos/benheine/albums/72157623723956821

Active link: https://benheine.com/biography/

The purpose behind this series is not to recreate photographs but to instead reimagine them to tell a certain story whether it by using imagination, illusion, poetry or surrealism. These originally started off as simple drawings but as years passed he tried to be more innovative with the drawings, adding things like colours, black paper or increasing the drawings’ size.

So as an experiment, I tried to recreate that style through my own photographs. I took a self-portrait and then I traced over it to combine the two images. I chose my room to be the location since that is where I do most of my work, and sketching so it seemed appropriate to take the photographs here. I even included some old art and stuck it behind me to help express my personality.

Into this:

This is my first attempt and looking at it, it’s definitely the direction that suits me best. Although, it looks too bland so my next idea was to add more media using the Adobe Illustrator software. The reason I decided to add Illustrator into the process was because I’m an aspiring graphic designer and I thought being able to use more than one software would be the ideal path to go down.

This was the end result.

This didn’t turn out as good as I hoped so I tried a different approach the second time with a different photo. When editing this together, I realised I’m not that well versed at using Adobe Illustrator and while it is ideal for what I’m aspiring to be, my current experience with the software isn’t much at all. As you can see from the initial experiment, my little experience with Illustrator limited my creative flow so I just stuck to using Photoshop. For my next attempt, I thought about sketching over myself and adding in a collage of my art. I felt that expresses my personality better.

So after taking a new self-portrait, I already added in the first sketch and thought that may have been too much paper and pencil for the face, so I removed a part of the sketched Snapback.

I added the collage, then blurred it out to match the out of focus background for a better merge effect and then added some typography to fill in the blank spaces on the sketched face. Almost like colouring it in with text but the words used represent aspects of myself. 

For my second assignment, “A to B”, I decided that the main theme would be making tea in the morning. So I chose to take different photo’s of myself during the different steps. My first idea for a theme was just waking up in the morning but that wasn’t easy to pull off. I even had a script board to help me but I ultimately decided against it.

I used https://www.bhphotovideo.com/explora/video/tips-and-solutions/filmmaking-101-camera-shot-types to look at different camera shots to use.

First I start with an establishing shot for the kitchen then:

Then an over the shoulder shot as I wait for the kettle to boil the water:

Then a low angle shot as I pour in the water:

Then a close up shot of me stirring the tea:

And finally, a dutch tilt angle shot as I drink the tea:

I then though to add a filter to darken the photo so I could convey how mornings feel when drinking tea. While that is subjective for everyone, for me it’s always a bit hard to wake up so. darkened the images. At first, I was going to use image filters but then I just tweaked the colour balance.

[baptonbooks]

People will judge your book by its cover: Part Three (A), on Mr Pyle’s insistence

To recap: parts Uno, Zwei, & Τρία in this series.

Back for a moment, then, to the matter of Cover Art. In Part Three, it is written,

As is evident from the Village Tales series covers, what we do is use royalty-free, commercial-use, no-attribution-required, freely modifiable images, and subject them to artistic modification. Nor does it want a programme costing hundred of quid to make those artistic modifications: GNU’s GIMP does perfectly well. Fiddle about with the filters until you’re happy....

Mr Pyle believes this to merit some exposition. Over to you, MSP.

MSP: All right. You’ve found your royalty-free, commercial-use, no-attribution-required, freely modifiable image. Now what in the Sam Hill do you do with the damn thing?

Well, as seen in Part Three, you can transform it into something painterly, if you’ve a mind to. You can increase edge weights, mask, sharpen, colorize, lighten, highlight, smear, blur, filter, and make a watercolor or an oil painting or a chalk pastel of it.

This fabric was originally wine-colored; I greened it into this

(which is on the back cover of Ordinary Time as a background); and you equally well can re-color, rotate, crop, distort, erode, and make hay with whatever source image you have to hand. You can impose the look of painting-on-canvas on it, or needlepoint, or whatever you like. You can paste things together, you can change the light and the light source – look at the Evensong cover’s central panel. You can make a mosaic of it if you care to. You can flip it through any degrees on the compass. You can float a translucent flag over the damn thing if you think it helps.

You can 3-D it if that makes you feel tingly, I don’t give a rat’s. It’s your book, and all that matters is that it look right for what you want to do in terms of attracting a buyer. It’s like fly-fishing: you tie your own and you match your particular hatch in your particular water.

And you can and sure as shooting ought to do something even to the great blank background (clothify, canvas, what have you), whether it’s to be matte or gloss on dead tree: it may as well have its own subtle interest. (In fact, trade paper publications cry out for having their backgrounds made to look, almost subliminally, like cloth. Gives a suggestion of tone and justifies the price.)

But here are a few strictures.

Don’t overdo the smears and blurs and oilification to the point it looks like a Civ 5 loading screen.

Work at high DPI resolutions, and 100% or higher as you work: when you have to scale the sumbitch down, you’ll see why, and the more so when you consider what it’ll look like as a thumbnail on the Interwebs. Keep track of lightness and contrast: you’d be surprised what a filter can unexpectedly do to those, and unless you’re working at high res and full size and checking it regularly in 18% or 12.5% view to see what may come of it when scaled, you’re right likely to be unpleasantly surprised.

Don’t be afraid to use digital snapshots of Great Works of Art from centuries past for which copyright has long since gone to dust, and to manip the hell out of them. But bear in mind that some museums – with, in my considered opinion as a (thankfully retired) lawyer, nothing but sheer, breathtaking gall to back them – assert an alleged copyright in the public domain artwork they happen to have their claws on. Tax-fattened hyenas.

And don’t be limited by whatever your particular grafix program can do. You can manipulate your source material in other ways, online, before you even start playing with it in your particular program: long shots into peaceful villages from a surrounding hillside, and (especially) steam trains (which, when dealing with Gerv, will come up sooner or later), are, for instance, right nigh crying out for a pseudo-tilt-shift before you begin farting around with colors and hues and light, say.....

And be aware, too, of the conventions in Western art, similar to those of the Western stage (who enters stage right, who, stage left). When (for example) cropping to avoid a mere centering, bear in mind that one direction (no, not that one, God damn it. I leave singing – for a certain value of singing – epheboi to Gerv) connotes, subliminally, motion towards the past, and the other, motion To The Future, Duck Dodgers and Space Cadet Porky! Observe:

Finally, important as it is to choose your font, your typeface, for the cover, it’s equally important to remember that it can be in color, you know, and the color ought to complement or contrast happily with the rest of the damn cover and its art.

That’ll get you started. Gervie?

GMWW: Quite. Ah … thank you. Yes. Where were we? Oh, yes, of course. We move on to the pages within, and I repeat my promise, that,

Next time, we’ll go inside the book and talk design, layout, and typography....