For my surreal composition I wanted to create a scene of aliens invading earth with some humor involved. I wanted the deeper meaning to be up to interpretation and up to the viewer’s prior thoughts on the topic. I also wanted to blend the stereotypical ideas of aliens, with the UFO picking up the cow and the stereotypical design of alien coming out of the door, together with the more realistic depiction of the person in the top left. I wanted the reader’s focus to transfer from the bright white door up to the top left and to some of the smaller details to go from humor to a more serious side of the composition.
I used many different techniques in the composition, however, clipping masks were definitely the one I used most. I used them for pretty much every aspect of the image including the door, UFO, Cow, and path. I also used the gradient tool on a clipping mask to fade between green and black for the person in the top left. The blend tool was also very useful for me when I made the ray coming out of the UFO. I was inspired by the album cover for Flume by Flume to include the monochrome picture of the face because I really like the design of that cover. The album cover features a monochrome image of a woman in pink and black that repeats over the it. I wanted to create a similar effect so I used a black and white image of someone and applied a color balance filter over it and the space background.
After this project, I think I definitely prefer to make surreal compositions than realistic compositions just because of the freedom it gives you. Surreal compositions allow you to use more creativity in your work without being limited to things that would exist in real life. This lets you add more meaning to your work through metaphors and symbolism. This could all be done in a realistic composition, however, it is more difficult and can often be done in other art forms such as photography. That being said, realistic composition is a very useful tool if you can’t make the subject in real life, however, I think that the surreal aspect of photoshop compositions is what makes it unique and distinct from any other art form.
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