Assignment 6: Photo analysis

"If you really want to touch someone, send them a letter"

Semiotic Analysis:
Iconic representation:
The 'touch' is being represented directly in the picture as the figure in hugging the lady. Direct contact of 'touch' is being protrayed.

Indexical representation:
The wordings in the background closely resembles the styles of a hand-written letter. On closer observation, the words inside also fits to the styles of letter-writing with some narrative sentences.

Symbolic representation:
The non-physical meaning of 'touched' is being represented by the figure giving a warm hug to the lady. Its like the lady is being touched having a warm hug.

Connotative and Annotative Meanings:
Connotative:

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Sense of warmth when the figure is hugging her. This gives a feeling like when an overseas family or close friend that you did not see for a long times meet up and hug each other. Thus the letter here (represented by the letter) claims to be able to touch and give the feeling of warmth.

Dennotative:
The word 'touch' can be interpreted directly from the image that you could literally touch the person in the physical sense.

Syntactic Analysis:
Elements present in the image:
1) Words in the background
2) The figure representing the letter as a whole
3) Figure and the lady hugging

These elements combined to give a meaning that rather than using email to send messages which nowadays many people does, it would be more heartwarming and touching to send a hand-written letter instead.

Rating: I feel that overall our analysis was quite straightforward and the image is quite direct. Nat and I could rate ourselves for 9/10.

Rating of fellow classmates: I feel that chew yue and jie ying analysis on the environmental issues on pollution is rather good. I like the way they interpreted on aliens and witches which does not exist at all. I would rate them 9/10.

Feelings creeping over Clarke Quay

For our new assignement, we are to take 3 photos representing realism, expressioism and formalism. The place I choose to take is in Clarke Quay.

Realism
This photo shows Clarke Quay as it is. What I like about the two buildings is that they have a 'stepping' structure that seems like creeping out to the skies.

Formalism
I took this photo at the bus stop just outside Clarke Quay MRT station. It gives a feeling of the sun that is slowly 'creeping' out from the shadows of the clouds.

Expressionism
This photo is the interior of Clarke Quay MRT during a non-peak period. The feeling I want to express here is that, for a MRT station which always will have people busying buzzing by for work and stuffs, can actually looks 'creepy' and isolated without the human factor.

Overall, I feel that the place could represent the 3 views quite well. However, one major flaw that I failed to consider is the fact that from the 3 photos, it is hard to tell that the place is actually is at Clarke Quay. Mr. Reddy suggested to take a more depictive photo of Clarke Quay for 'Realism'.

Rating: I feel that I could get a 8/10 but could be higher as my audience could not tell straight away that the place of my subject is at Clarke Quay.

Photomontage

For Assignment 4, our topic is on a photomontage on the them 'The Day After'. So, I decided to come up with this photomontage signifying 'the day after' in my everyday life.



This is a 'fish-eye' view of the scenery outside my window. Everyday when I reach home, the first thing I would do is to turn on my computer and start doing my stuffs. Chatting, gaming, and programming is becoming a major routine in my life. I took this particular photomontage as I would want to create an effect of 'drawing' the outside world nearer to me. The view of things other than my computer and my room would always be there even the day after.

Rating: I particular like the 'fish-eye' view effect as it seems to magnify the view of the scene outside my window. I rate it a 8.5/10. However, in the tutorial, Mr. Reddy did mention that the image did not bring out the feeling I want to express. Thus I have to re-rate my work to 7/10.

Changes

This time I have learnt how to use a SLR camera in a more effective manner(using low ISO to reduce noise and such). Our assignment is to describe changes using 8-10 photos. Thus I decided to a geographical changes of landscapes of Singapore over time.


Shutter Speed: 1/60
Aperture: F7.1
ISO: 200
Remarks: This photo is taken near Dover along the stretch of shops where I used to live. The place used to be a tailor shop. I like this picture because it is the only shop among the rest that still retains its original state. The surrounding shops like the bookshop, paintshop, mini-mart have been renovated.


Shutter Speed: 1/125
Aperture: F5.6
ISO: 200
Remarks: The swing is some of the childhood games that we often played when we were once young. Though there are swings in playgrounds now, however it is hard to find those playground with sand as the ground of most playgrounds are made of synthetic rubber.


Shutter Speed: 1/30
Aperture: F13
ISO: 200
Remarks: Shophouses are a rare sight in Singapore except in places like Chinatown, Little India or Kampong Glum.

Moving on to the modern....


Shutter Speed: 1/20
Aperture: F11
ISO: 100
Remarks: HDB flats can be seen almost everywhere in Singapore.


Shutter Speed: 1/400
Aperture: F10
ISO: 200
Remarks: Olden schools were tore down and new schools were built in its place.


Shutter Speed: 1sec
Aperture: F11
ISO: 800
Remarks: As time progresses, more structures of the past are being demolished to make way for commercial buildings.


Shutter Speed: 1sec
Aperture: F11
ISO: 800
Remarks: However drastic the changes, we must learn to embrace the great changes occuring for the better of our future.

Self-assessment: I feel that overall I manage to show the changes of landscapes over time through buildings and various distinct places like the playground photo. I would rate these 9/10.

Exposure

Below are 2 selected photos I chose to represent for this assignment. However, as it was my 1st time using a SLR camera. I was still figuring out various combinations of shutter speed, aperture and ISO settings.

Shutter Speed: 1/100
Aperture: F10
ISO: 1600

It was around evening time when i reach the Swan Lake in Botanic Gardens. Thus I set the shutter speed to allow more light to be captured. I was trying to capture the 'live' effects of the swans flying but there were some comments pointed out in the class which I find it very true. When the picture was being looked from far, the swans were like 'blending' with the trees in the background making it hard to stand out as a subject of the photo.

Rating for the photo: 5/10 as the overall photo was rather pale when looked from far and the subject of the photo does not stand out distinctive enough.


Shutter speed: 1/1250
Aperture : F6.3
ISO: 800

I like this shot taken near the lake. There seems to be like a 'path' leading somewhere in the center of the picture. In the background, there are mainly trees, like having a sense of exploration into the deep.

Rating of the photo: 6/10 due to the lack of contrast in the picture as mostly are 'green'.



RATINGS OF SOME WORKS I LIKE:
CHONG XU ER SHERYL: http://www.photoblog.com/prinxess/2007/09/02/
I like the style of her dog being photographed. I feel there is some level of contrast like some cold,non-living feel of the drain vs the naive,innocent dog in the foreground.
Rating of the photo: 9/10

LEONG LI XIAN SAMANTHA: http://community.livejournal.com/dicosanostra
Her style of using dolls as subjects in her photographs really amaze me. One work in particular is titled "Uomo di rispetto". The picture speaks a thousand words and really express the mood and ambience to create a 'wow'-effect from the audience.
Rating of the photo: 10/10 (One of the best expressive photo I saw)

Photograms

Here are some photograms that I just created:





Mr Smiley

Was trying out a smiley face where I used some flowers to be the 'hair'. Simple design.

Falling petals

For this photogram, I remove the background and try scanning without the cover on. The effects was rather nice as there were plenty of light but as I am using the scanner in school, the light was sort of 'extra' and i could not move the scanner as it was fixed on the spot.










Final Product

Kinda like this as the crumpled background at the back nicely display the different shading of light reflected.

Also added more petals to create a twirling effect on the top.











Luminescence

This is one image that I accidentally came upon during the trial and errors of scanning my photograms.

This effect is created when I covered the scanner with papers without letting any external light enter into the main components.










I kinda like the picture 'Final Product'. Its like having some withered flowers on some rocky ground. There is a feeling of isolation and a feeling of being deserted.
Self-assessment: Though its in grayscale, but I feel that the 'color' version is not very nice. I feel that I could get some 70/100 for able to present the feeling of isolation out.