The purpose of our Conceptual Unit was to demonstrate the skills we learned in English, Design, and Webaudio into different projects. Throughout the projects we explored new technology while creating our own websites, animations, and photos. In the poems section you will find three photo poems an ekphrastic, a 10 line, and a spoken word poem. You can click on each poem to open the photo poem and play a recording of the poem. The Photo Haiku section includes an animation of my photo haiku and the process I used to produce it. The Art section displays the photo I took and my artist statement. Finally, the Music section displays the music I created and the tools I used to produce it. Throuhgout this unit I have learned to properly use Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Flash, Adobe Dreamweaver, and Pro Tools. I hope you enjoy my Conceptual Website!

In English, we studied the different writing styles of poetry and wrote our own pieces. Then we used Adobe Flash to create an animation of the haikus that we wrote using the skills we learned in Webaudio. We also wrote a 10 line, an ekphrastic, and a spoken word poem and put the text of the poems over a photo. We then recorded ourselves reading the poems and linked the recording with the poem photo.

In english, we were assigned to write a haiku based off of a conceptual statement we were given. My conceptual statement was "I am exploring the feeling of happiness through the experience of following my instincts.". As a result of the assignment, my haiku was inspired by my conceptual statement. After writing and presenting the haikus in english, we produced our photo haiku videos in web audio using Flash. I chose the visual in my photo haiku because I felt that it reflected the message of the poem.

 

To create our Photo Haiku videos we inserted our images and music into Adobe Flash.

Artist Statement

Concept Statement: I am exploring the feeling of happiness through the experience of following my instincts.

My photograph is taken at the Covington Elementary School playground. I decided to use an elementary school playground as my subject because a playground can be interpreted as a nostalgic place with many happy memories. Therefore, the subject of my photo represents the first part of my Concept Statement, “I am exploring the feeling of happiness”. The photo is taken through a swing to give the viewer the perspective of a child. The swing also acts as a natural frame for the photo which makes the focal point easy to identify. The focal point of the picture is the red double slide placed on the left third of the photograph. The eye naturally focuses on the red double slide first then after further examination the viewer should notice the red spiral slide. The red double slide and the red spiral slide symbolize two different decisions someone would have to make. These two decisions represent the second of part of my Concept Statement, “experience of following my instincts”.

Throughout the Photoshop process I learned that making a perfect selection versus an ok selection with the pen tool has the ability to completely change the quality of a photo. I first made a careless selection to the area I wanted to filter. As a result, the filtered area bled into the area around it producing a mediocre final image. I quickly realized the quality of my selection made a huge impact on the entire image. This led me to use the pen tool to reselect the desired filtered area with a more precise selection. I also learned that cropping takes lots of patience and many trials and errors. My original image was unbalanced and needed to be cropped. After about 15-20 tries I was able to crop the image perfectly according to the rule of thirds. Finally, I learned that using the appropriate darkness for the vignette is extremely important for setting the tone of the photo. Finding the proper darkness for the vignette also took many trials and errors. I believe what I learned in Photoshop helped to enhance my photo because I was able to account for some photography errors using cropping. I was also able to improve the tone portrayed in the photo using the perfect vignette.

My image exemplifies the concept statement “I am exploring the feeling of happiness through the experience of following my instincts.” through the many aspects of the photograph. The playground itself represents “the feeling of happiness” because many people have happy memories on the playground as a child. The two different slides in the photo symbolize a decision that has to be made. This decision expressed the “experience of following my instincts”. My photo uses these pieces to represent my concept statement.

 

 

 

Process:

After taking our photos we edited them in Adobe Photoshop. For this photo, I added a vignette and a filter to enhance the photo.

 

 

 

 

For our music, we used the software Pro Tools to create a song. Pro Tools allows you to insert, create, and edit music files. I created my music using the software Vaccum and Boom which are part of Pro Tools. Boom and Vaccum create music using an electric keyboard plugged into the computer. This song was inspired by some of the music I listen to while I am doing my homework. I chose the particular instruments in the song because I knew how to use them and they made sense in the song. I believe my conceptual music turned out ok but I believe it has a lot of room for improvement. Click on the button below to listen to my music. I hope you enjoy!

Process:

To produce our music we used Pro Tools software to create, insert, and edit our music. To create music we used a piano keyboard.