VOTE Poster Assignment

 I first began with the idea of yellow because it represents optimism and it is not a party colour. However, I did want to incorporate the four party colours, so I found this symbol for Ontario and individually coloured them with samples from the each party's website (Liberal, Conservative, NDP and Green). I put in the slogans "Be Heard. Vote", "Take pride in who represents you", and "Your Province Your Future Your Vote" to communicate to the youth audience the importance of casting your ballot. I also wanted to include the flag of Ontario, but I couldn't think of a creative way to place it in this poster, so I made a new one with the new concept.

This my final design for the election poster. The background began with the Ontario flag, which I extended from the bottom so I would have room for the text. The idea was to inform the voters that their vote will impact Ontario's future, so casting your ballot should be an important decision you make. The simplicity of this poster expresses the message loud and clear to the future voters.

Macro Photography

Original

The Perfect Two - Texture

This is my first macro photograph. It is entitled "The Perfect Two" because dandelions are a primary source of nectar and pollen for bees during the spring season so they're always near each other. When I saw the bee land on the head of the dandelion, I thought it was such a perfect opportunity to get a clear, detailed shot of an interesting insect with a bright plant. I didn't want to use the zoom function on my camera because I felt it would ruin the quality of the photo, so I got as close as I could for all my photos to get the best results. To begin my post-production process, I cropped the image from the sides and the top, which makes the dandelion seem taller with more grass space underneath. I enhanced the image in numerous ways, including hue & saturation, shadows & highlights and colour adjustment. The focal point is definitely the radiant dandelion, and the bee catches you off guard so you will notice it quickly as well.

Original

Somewhere Over the Rainbow - Colour

For my second image, I experimented with changing the dandelion from one colour, to a kaleidoscope of colours. "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" is the chosen title because I used a rainbow stripped gradient on a new layer over the dandelion. Before I made the gradient, I converted the image to black and white, making the gradient would be more visible against the white petals rather than the yellow ones. I also had to adjust the shadows & highlights so the tiny details in the dandelion would be seen through the gradient. I also cropped the photo tight on the bottom and right side, while leaving the rest open, making the dandelion in the corner of the frame. The multicolored dandelion stands out against the grey grass, which shows that it is the focal point.

A Rose Without its Thorns - Balance

Original

Here is my final macro image. I chose the title "A Rose Without its Thorns" because the original flower is not a rose and has no thorns, but after the editing process the flower transformed into a rose-like beauty. For the post-production process, I cropped all four sides slightly to take out extra background space. I then revised the hue to embrace the green of the leaves, and change the soft pink petals to red ones. As always, I played around the the saturation and highlights to bring life to the photo. As most of the small flowers were changed to red with the hue enhancement, one of them that begun to bloom chose to stay its light blush colour. Either the red flowers or the light pink one could be the focal point of this photo.

Restoration Photos

Original Photo #1

After

After (gradient)

Here is the first photograph that I restored. Before I made any changes, the photo had several stains, scratch marks, and wrinkles that made the appearance unpleasing. I duplicated the layer, converted to black & white, and cropped the sides and bottom of the image to take away unnecessary space. The majority of my time I used the clone stamp tool to take out the damage to bring the photo back to life. For my final images, I chose to put a gradient in the background, and one without the gradient. I am pleased with the result of this image, the gradient isn't as appealing as the alternate photo though.

Original Photo #2

After (painted background)

After

This is the second photo restoration. This image also had multiple stains and scratches, including one large tear through the baby's mouth. The same process was repeated; duplicate, convert, crop, and clone stamp. It was more difficult to eliminate the rip that is covered in tape that's horizontally stretched across the photo. I played around with selecting different sections to clone so the colour would look realistic, and eventually it cooperated. Again, I replaced the background with a grey colour for one of the final images, and I personally think that one turned out better than the other one.

Composite Image

Poly-chromatic Shore

Water

Sky 

Mountains

This is my composite image entitled "Poly-chromatic Shore" due to the various colours that draw most of the attention. My concept was to make an image that portrayed a strong sunset with a contrasting landscape. During the technique process, I found three images on Google to piece together to create my composite photo, one for water, one for sky, and one for green mountains. I used the water photo as my base and replaced it's sky with the photo of the more eye catching sunset. I played around with the hue & saturation on both the sky and water layer, and added gradients with lowered opacity's to bold what original colours they had. Even though I wanted the water and sky to be very clear, I decided to add in some distant mountains for details. I took them out of their original photo and adjusted them so they would look as realistic as possible on top of the water. I copied the mountains and placed them behind the first copy so they would shadow them. Again, I revised the hue & saturation to blend the mountains in with it's new surroundings. This image turned out good, but I think it could have been better if I had added more layers and details.