Blog Post #26

Brainstorms! (In an effort to expand, improve, add complexity, and push your final projects further, please pick 10 of the following to discuss.)

1. What is the “opposite” of your final project? How can you rework your project to include the “opposite”?

The "opposite" of my final project would be to show large scenes from far away so that they look very small. I thought about including this in my project by taking normal photos of objects and then comparing them with the macro photos, but I decided to just focus on the macro aspect.

2. What is a consistent theme/visual element in your project? What would be the opposite of this? How can you implement that into your project?

A consistent theme/visual element in my project is up-close, almost abstracted views of parts of insects in vibrant colors to make them look beautiful. The opposite of this would be if I showed clear photos of insects as a whole and made them look gross or scary.

3. Type twenty words or phrases that relate to your project.

close-up, texture, pattern, vibrant colors, repetition, insects, design, new perspective, detail, form, size, scale, shapes, nature, altered reality, photoshop, image stacking, scientific, artistic, new ways of seeing familiar things.

4. Expand your project. If time, money, materials, etc would not affect you, how would you expand your project?

If time, money, and materials would not affect me, I would find the most interesting and unusual insects, photograph them in macro and stack the images to increase the clarity, and alter the background and colors in Photoshop, just like I am doing for my project already. With the extra time and resources, though, I would photograph more insects, and more exotic ones. I might also arrange different ones in a collage, or do different views of the same one. I could also arrange them in scenes, rather than just photograph them on plain backgrounds. Another thing I might consider doing would be photographing live insects and their motions up-close, rather than pinned specimens from a lab.

5. Contract your project. What would it boil down to if squeezed and contracted to its simplest form?

To contract my project, I would probably just photograph different parts of the same type of insect, rather than photographing various types of them. I also might not do as much editing in Photoshop, and leave the images as they were taken.

6. List your assumptions about your project. Reverse these.

My assumptions about my project are that I will have to borrow specimens to use from the department of entomology, that I will have to do a lot of digital editing to my photos, that the photos will end up looking beautiful, and that they might make the audience challenge the way they see things. If I were to reverse these assumptions, I would say that I would not have to borrow insects to photograph, that the photos will be great as they are and won't require any additional editing, that they will end up looking gross, and that they will reinforce peoples' fears and dislike of insects.

7. What would your project look like 100 years ago? What would your project look like 100 years in the future?

100 years ago, cameras had much slower shutter speeds, and there weren't any macro lenses. In order to take a picture of something close-up, someone would have had to take a picture through a microscope. Also, photos were usually black and white, so the photo would have had to be hand-painted in order to have vibrant colors. There was no digital editing, so "stacking" the photos to improve the focus of the overall image would have been much more difficult.
100 years in the future, lenses will probably be available that are just as powerful as microscopes, so it will be possible to take cellular and molecular-level photographs of objects. Digital editing programs will likely be much more advanced and easier to use as well.

8. Remove something from your project. How does it change?

If I remove the image stacking from my project, only a small part of the image would be in focus, rather than the entire photo. It would still give the same effect, but it would have a softer, more abstract look to it.

9. How would you convert your project into a narrative? How would you remove any narrative from your project?

I could convert my project into a narrative by placing different insects in a scene together and changing their positions and "actions" throughout the series. I would remove any narrative from my project by having zoomed-in, up-close views that abstract the subject and remove context.

10. How would you connect your images physically and conceptually? How would you make them disconnected physically and conceptually?

I could connect my images physically by matting them next to one another on the same board. I could connect them conceptually by using common themes, colors, and angles in all of the photos. I could disconnect my images physically by making them all different sizes and shapes and mounting them on different types of materials. I could disconnect them conceptually by using different themes, colors, and angles in each photo. I could use unrelated and dissimilar subjects in each of them as well.