Fake It - Hunter Iler

 

COVID-19 reports dating back to 1900s

    My concept for this project was to create a false timeline where COVID-19 occurred long before 2020. My goal was to capture the same chaos and panic but place it into a time when there were fewer doctors and less access to medicine. I did this by finding a picture of an old doctor's office and putting a swarm of people in front of it waiting for a simply advertised vaccine. I also depicted only a few people wearing masks versus many not wearing one to reflect how people reacted to the virus in 2020. I used my own photo to add texture to the image and make my composition blend better.

Fake It - Ashton Lucas

 

For my piece I wanted to shed light on the conspiracy of government cheese. During the midpoint critique my first idea was based around the conspiracy theory of Walt Disney being frozen within his statue at Disney World, I decided to change this due to want to pick something little more based on deep conspiracies based within the government. A conspiracy turned reality, for years there has been talk about secret caves that the government have built to preserve dairy. During the 1970s, the US experienced a dairy shortage and President Jimmy Carter implemented a policy to help the dairy industry. This led to overproduction and the government purchased large amounts of cheese to keep prices low and prevent the dairy industry from collapsing. Starting off as just a conspiracy, this information was let out to the public in the 1980's. For my concept I wanted to emphasize the way many people would view "cheese caves", to do this I put sharp dripping cheese from the ceilings and workers gathering multiple pieces of cheese wheels.

Cites

https://www.cntraveler.com/galleries/2011-12-09/five-cheese-caves-open-for-visitors

AI

https://aitestkitchen.withgoogle.com/tools/image-fx

Adobe Generative AI

Personal

Two workers at the bottom

Meg Neal - Fake it

 My piece is centered around the religious panic that occurred during the most recent eclipse. At the time I saw a lot of discussion online about how people were saying it was the end of the world, the rapture, etc. I thought it was interesting as humans have related events like eclipses or eruptions to religion since the first forms of religion were practiced. The idea that even though we know now what causes eclipses, but they can still cause panic in this way was intriguing to me. So I created a false event where the world did end during the eclipse. To show this concept I created a fiery landscape under an eclipse. I added a prominent church to show the concept of religion, particularly Christianity as that was one of the groups I observed panicking about the eclipse. I included a figure shielding their eyes as they observe the scene, since the eclipse can hurt your eyes.

Unsplash Licence - Free to use commercially and non-commercially without attribution 

https://unsplash.com/photos/a-solar-eclipse-is-seen-in-the-dark-sky-sucjzsc8V0U

​​https://unsplash.com/photos/a-plane-flying-in-the-sky-at-sunset-E0T-xSJNOmI

https://unsplash.com/photos/white-and-black-church-under-blue-sky-wJliCFNnS60

https://unsplash.com/photos/bonfire--98jVaVuGv0

https://unsplash.com/photos/fire-in-the-sky-during-night-time-b2Qhc-DQ6zM

https://unsplash.com/photos/fire-in-the-dark-during-night-time-wnF27F85ZKw

Pexels License - Free to use commercially (with some restrictions) and non-commercially without attribution

https://www.pexels.com/photo/green-trees-covered-with-white-clouds-8387399/

My photo

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JtS0A0AtwsBI_PC5oOk0dXGgd2iUMo4N/view?usp=share_link

AI

The cross on the front of the church is photoshop generative AI.

Fake It - Ximena Alvarado

 

The idea behind this concept is to create an image of someone getting evidence that aliens exist. The idea that aliens are real have been around for many years, however, there isn't much evidence that proves that they are real. Within the image, there is a couple that is taking a picture of an alien on their roof, which is something that people would do within modern day. 

The background is my original photograph. I then added the white house, which I took from unsplash (the image is free to use under the unsplash license). The bushes are created from photoshop generated AI, helping me blend the house to the background. The Alien is from pixabay, which is free to use under the Pixabay License. The Alien ship and shooting star come from Pexels, which are free to use with Pexels License. 

Old is New Again - Kim Ballinger

 

Empowered Women

My project is based on the perspective of women throughout history. The primary image is a photo of my daughter who serves our country as a Staff Sergeant in the US Air Force. She is an amazing role model and prime example of a woman who is taking charge of her life and empowering herself. Her servitude and dedication to the armed forces is a testament to her moral standards, love of country, and the commitment to the people who reside here. 

The second image is from circa 1890 and is a group of women from the Women's Relief Corps. These women dedicated themselves to providing service to the wounded and the sick, as well as the wives and children of the men who served in the Civil War. They were also present for widows and orphans that were sadly left behind when a soldier didn't make it home to their families. 

For my project, I wanted to have my daughter in the foreground representing the present with the women (and girls) in the back honoring the past. Having two generations of women being depicted in a single image juxtaposes just how much things have changed, but also shows how strong and dedicated to fellow mankind women have always been. 

I utilized several LOCC images to create the effect of colloidal wet plate, distressed and aged marks, and did my best to align the images to give the appearance that they were one photo. I wanted to elude to her sitting on the steps that lead up to the lawn of a house where the group is sitting. The obvious differences in attire, hair, and even the cell phone (which could pass as a book in the image), gives the irony of the ages being blended together.

-Kim

To read more about the WRC:

https://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/lilj/item/2019631457/

https://womansreliefcorps.org/a-brief-sketch-of-the-wrc-by-kate-sherwood-july-26-1883/

https://guides.loc.gov/grand-army-of-the-republic/auxiliary-allied-organizations/womans-relief-corps

Old is New Again - Liz Garcia

 

For this project, I wanted to focus on my roots. I've always been told that I hold a very uncanny resemblance to my great-great-grandmother (on my maternal side). Unfortunately, due to scarce resources and my mother's family coming from a tiny city, Amatepec, Mexico, my family doesn't have a single picture of her. It gets even more ironic when I think about the fact that I was named after her, my middle name is Liz which is short for Lizette. The resemblance is so uncanny that when my great-grandmother was extremely sick about 4 years ago, we were able to video call her and she thought I was actually my great-great-grandmother, her mother. So, once I read up on the parameters of this project I instantly knew I wanted to recreate a typical hairstyle that she would've worn her hair in and photograph myself to see if the claims were true. They absolutely were, my grandmother was shocked when she saw my final project. I first took a 30-second video of myself in the desired pose to kind of get an idea of where I should add blur, if needed, for my picture due to the long exposure lenses of the Collodion Image times. I noticed that it was really only my eyes blinking that caused any minor movements during the video so I added slight blurring over my eyes. I also added various layers of blotches and stains to get the Collodion plate look. I also knew from the beginning that I wanted it to be placed inside of a frame of sorts, so I could feel like I finally had a picture of my doppelganger, from a different era, of course. 

Old is New Again - Ashton Lucas

For my project, I wanted to base my theme around the relationship between pets and humans. Pets have always been considered loyal best friends and helpers to humans throughout history, in the 1800s dogs mainly helped their owners by hunting, herding, or guarding. For this I wanted to highlight the importance of me and my dog Ginger. In the piece I used an old baby photo of me with Ginger laying on the floor next to me, with this I wanted to represent an old style family based photo of how some portraits were taken in the 1800s and how often my old family photos were constructed. After I decided to add plants to the back to give the photo a more displayed look, I wanted the photo to feel normal and authentic so I decided to keep it very minimal.