My Photography - (1)

Although I don't have a lot of practise nor talent for photography like other people (such as my friend Sarah) but I thought I would give it a try and take some photos in and around Bradford University and Bradford town centre. I also took some inside the Media Museum but was unsure if they were any good.
Here are some of my photos:

Machinima - The Online Sensation

On many of my posts here I've talked about the RoosterTeeth company in Austin, Texas as they are one of my favourite online industries because of their use of humour and brilliant machinima episodes such as their popular web series, Red vs Blue.



A machinima is were someone uses a game engine to recreate scenes of their favourite movies or (in the case of RoosterTeeth) to make brand new shows with new story lines, plots and characters. The use of these storylines and these characters make intresting episodes, popular with people as they use games which as popular to most people. For RoosterTeeth, they use the Halo series engines to create these storys. Halo was an extremely (as still is) popular video game released for the Xbox by Bungie in 2001.

After Red vs Blue became popular, other people saw the idea of using a game engine to create new stories and episodes. Some even used a mixture of real life shots with game action which was also popular (such as the Arby n' the Chief webisodes)

These games within games are extremely popular as it uses an engine available to everyone which allows anyone to be able to make one if they had the right story. That is one of the reasons why this series became so popular - its ability to be done by everyone.

Just to finish, this is my favourite part of the RvB Series:

Angry Birds Trailer - Why parodies are becoming more believable

RoosterTeeth's latest creation, Angry Birds: The Movie was put online as a parody trailer for a popular game available on the iPhones, iPads and also Android Phones recently. Although this was supposed to be a fun trailer for people to watch and enjoy, many bombarded RoosterTeeth asking for information on its release and how they were going to film it.

So my question is, on the internet what can you actually believe to be real (like films being released, information given etc.) and what is just for fun (like the angry birds trailer)

It been a long running problem on the internet with information been released  on it is its lack of validity and truthfulness. Wikipedia is one of the most famous examples as its a website which can be changed and edited about anyone who visits the website. This caused many problems with people as they believed that some of the information that was added to be true when infact they were edited for people's own malicious reasons.

For example Vernon Kay had to report to the police in 2008 when an editor said on Wikipedia he had died in a boating accident. Even close members of his family heard about it and questioned his wife and family.

So on the internet how can we tell if something is true or fake?

The Music Industry - The Rebecca Black Hate Campaign

When the video was released in February of this year, it was received extremely badly by both the audience and people within the music industry. To create another pop-sensation like "Justin Beiber" record labels are getting younger and younger pro-formers added to their label in hopes of attracting a younger audience and making more money. However what was actually happened?

Although yes Justin Beiber was an immediate attraction for their female audience, Rebecca Black wasn't as the song was very well written and looked like someone tried to make the song quickly to try and attact the same audience as Beiber was appealing to... however the song was badly recieved that people made a mockery of it. Instead of attracting the needed people, they laughed as the song was "annoying and sung by a girl who hasn't got the best voice". The parodies however were an immediate attraction due to the media coverage of this "bad" song.

The parodies were popular to the audience as it took a song and made it into a joke attracting the audience originally intended for the original. The media coverage and popular shows mocking this also made parodies more popular - they were simulating a collection of the media's ideas and thoughts and making them into one public video for people's enjoyment.

Ways of Seeing (1972) John Berger

Ways of Seeing was a collection of four programs created by John Berges in 1972. They were created to help people understand the concepts of the painting, and the "process of seeing a painting". In the first episode, he explains about perspective and the originality of paintings and how they "changed after the camera captured the image and sent it around the world". He explains how cropping the images into different sections can changed there perspective, meaning and seen in "the context of your own life" (your surroundings and not within their frames were they usually hang)

"Its the image which now travels to you and no longer resides in its original surface and its meaning can becomes transmittable.. the faces of paintings become messages... pieces of information to be used to purchase their reproductions".

With the invention of television, cameras and the internet, the production of photos from original source can be made available to anyone in huge amounts of copies, edits and variations meaning that some of the original meaning is lost as they are "pinned to the wall".

"The images remain still within their frames - occasionally the stillness of the painting can make it most striking... pictures can be used for easily manipulation. they can be used to make arguments or points... completely different from its original meaning. Its manipulated with moment and sound."

His example of Venus explains that the crop of the image has changed it from "an allegorical figure to a beautiful girl which can be seen anywhere".

So the cropping an image and adding movement and sound can change its meaning to something simple or change it into something the image wasn't meant to be intended as. Therefore can we say that the reproduction of images changes the painting into something it is not  or does it simply try or take the original and its the perception of the audience which changes it?
.

GIMP Photo Editing - 2nd Attempt.

Putting together what I had practised with the other images about light, layers, effects and colour I create the above two images. The green image reminded as I was making it of a "techno" swirl I'd seen on Windows Music Player a few years ago and so I tried to imitate the colour, light and positioning accordingly. I integrated a mix of swirl, spectrum and explosion flame renders and got the above effect. After colourising the different layers I grained it slightly to make it look like the Windows player and added the lens flare for added depth. 

The second image was a mixture of the flame rendering but also being able to position the flame around the pink globe in the enter. By using the globe I was able to stem the flame effect to give this expanding smoke effect which made the image attractive. I used a variation of whites, purples and blues to give this warmer effect and to contrast specifically against the black background. 

Botticelli's 'Venus and Mars' (1485)

This painting can be seen and interpreted in many different way by the way people perceive and see the full image. Some may say that Mars could represent evil with him being surrounded by small horned children  with all this clothes and staff. Some may say that as he sleeps, Venus and her horned helpers maybe stealing Mars' clothes and weapons to make him a weaker man.

However I see this image as an image of love (represnted by Venus, the goddess of love) being relative to the image of war (Mars, the god of war). From the look of the image it shows Venus seducing Mars and using her beauty and love to disarm Mars of his his clothing, his weapons and other items. This could represent that by the use of love, war can be prevented and stopped with the use of its pureness (as you can see Venus is "pure" with her wearing white, smooth skin and facial features. ) The small satyrs who are playing with Mars weapons and armour could should that they are mocking him as he was "disarmed by love".