For my project, I was staying in Florida and decided to take my pictures here. I wanted this beautiful pool to be the main focus and thought I could make a neon pool party after hours. I took multiple photos of the pool in different exposures to find the perfect lighting for my setting and touched up my favorite photo in Photoshop. The rest of the photos came from experimenting with a flashlight and long-exposure photo techniques. I drew many definitive objects such as the moon, stars, fish, and jellyfish. Along with random shapes and streaks to enhance the existing lights around the pool. Finally, I put two 'light dancers' on either side of the pool to complete the composition I was going for. In terms of editing, I wanted to eliminate any artificial lighting coming in from the street, for this, I used a combination of the remove tool and the clone tool. Then, I used generative ai within Photoshop to generate a sky of stars to better fit the ones I created. Lastly, I touched up some lighting and opacity settings to set everything within the scene.
This work is a combination of several light patterns and streaks that surround the theme of a pool party in the night. There are many different subjects in this environment that lead my eye around the composition. The tone of the background image is moody and quite serene, while the objects in the foreground are active and vibrant. The use of concentrated light and long exposure photography creates this streaky texture that almost looks like someone drew it with a marker. While taking photos for the project, I initially experimented with using light to outline the objects around the pool. However, the light pollution from streetlamps blew out my photographs and did not give me the desired outcome I was looking for. To combat this, I scratched the outline idea and took a photo with shorter exposure to not capture artificial light. Then, I decided I would add these details of light around the environment in Photoshop using the techniques we learned in class. Another experiment that I actually chose to include were the light dancers on either side of the pool. I wanted to create my own light orb in one and another interesting form in the other. They didn’t look like much before, but after putting them into the environment they had an interesting effect and contrast against the background.
ReplyDeleteAfter taking a step back and reading what elements were present, the work seems to portray something out of a dream or even what a pool would look like in a kid's imagination. The lights being hand drawn and the figures blurred out depict this surreal scene. Not to mention, the sea creatures in the pool add to this imaginary theme. The idea of a pool party is not a stretch, a few more added elements like balloons or maybe a figure in the pool could help portray this. Elements like the sky and the lights around the pool just seem to be enhancing the setting and adding details to an otherwise dark environment.
In terms of compositing, most of the technique is done well and the objects are set in their environment. The light elements transformed the environment into this exciting dreamlike setting. The darkness of the background helps these objects stand out as well. One compositing error I noticed was the figure on the right is placed on top of the railing instead of behind it. The masking of this object could also have been done better. The creatures within the pool are placed and transformed in a way to give the illusion as if they are actually underwater too.
Night exposures for this assignment made me realize how sensitive they are to light. You need to have little to no surrounding or ambient light if you want to capture an evenly lit photo. In this case, these light drawings needed to be done in almost complete darkness to prevent any other lights from interfering. The pool also had both warm and cool lighting, however, lowering exposure helped block out most of the warm lighting. This image is an example of how anyone can use light in dark photography. The excitement within the composition really showcases the same excitement you get when creating the images with lights.
I would like to point out Meg Neal and their Night Prowler composition. They created this abstract dreamscape with lights and even underwater shots! It has this unique surreal effect that inspires me to use techniques like this to improve my work, especially my Night Prowler project. I chose this work to compare to my work because it has certain overlaying elements that would be really interesting to put over my composition. Instead of seeing all of my objects as is, I would have put a haze and/or light streaks over the entire composition to mask my subjects just enough to still be able to decipher the image but make it even more surreal. Much like how Meg still has hands we can make out, but everything else is all blurred out and abstracted with light. Overlaying effects and a more dynamic composition are definitely something to note for my upcoming projects.