Photostory: Quick Edit

I started to play around with Photostory just to get a really basic feel of what I wanted to do - here a really simple story that uses motion and text - Photostory is quite an old photo editor that really is just used for putting albums together.  It can be downloaded and installed on the computer and then you can very basically edit the motion, text, sound and transitions. Normally I would not use Wikipedia however the best explanation can be found here of how Photostory started and what it was used for - the links on the Wikipedia page do not work properly to the original sources so this is the best information I have here: Photostory (this is why you shouldn't use Wikipedia!)

The video here is like an initial sketch here,  I shot these pictures and the rain was pouring down it was new years eve. - I will begin to start researching and practicing using Photoshop motion.  

Project Sign Off: The Beginning of Slow Beauty

W. G. Sebald: Image from Austerlitz (2001). München: C. Hanser, 2001.

I have created here an example of the project sign off that you will discuss and complete with your tutor.  Your tutor must sign off on your project! 

Here is my project that I will be carrying out this term.

Zoe's Project: Slow Beauty

To begin where there is no beginning is how this project shall proceed - Sebald writes in memories, in streams of consciousness, in layers of beauty that are like waves of feeling that wash over the reader.  What is most appealing to me is the use of photographs with the text as shown above.  Preuschoff writes:

'Sebald’s literary work is exceptionally visual, and his writing from and with images demonstrates an approach to literature not in competition with (or afraid of) the visual, but in dialogue with it, knowing that for both description and photo or drawing there first needs to be careful observation and study.' (Preuschoff N: 2019)

This dialogue is what interests me and the same could be said of Chris Marker's work.  There is a layering of meaning that means that you may never actually know what the whole answer, as is true in life, Preuschoff goes on to state:

'What makes Sebald’s prose unique and sets it apart from both his 19th and early 20th century patron saints and other contemporary German writers is a technique of montage, of which the included images are only the most visible expression: the extensive use of quotations and references taken from all kinds of sources, sometimes marked and exposed in the text, sometimes hidden and included like little academic riddles for intertextual research' (Preuschoff N: 2019) 

I enjoy the riddles, the strange references. It reminds me a little also of Beckett's 'Dream of Fair to Middling Women' in that strangeness of language and surreality.  I want to incorporate many of these elements into my photofilm, I want it to reflect the inconsistency, the chaos and the beauty of memory.

References

Preuschoff N. (2019) Unrecounted: Text and Image in W.G. Sebald [Online] Available from: http://enclavereview.org/unrecounted-text-and-image-in-w-g-sebald/ (Accessed 13/10/19) 

Sebald W.G. (2001) Austerlitz, Penguin Books Ltd, London

Publishers Weekly (05/03/1993) Dream of Fair to Middling Women by Samuel Beckett, Author, Eoin O'Brien, Editor, Edith Fournier, Editor Arcade Publishing [Online] Available from: https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-55970-217-1 (Accessed 13/10/19)

Major Project: Slow Beauty Initial Ideas

I have been considering my project for this term and I have spent some time really trying to envision what I would like to create.  I really wanted to spend time over photographs both past and present and I came up with these ideas below.  I used Milanote to add the ideas and initial research - to see the board and to be able to look at all the links Click here for Slow Beauty

 From these intial thoughts I will begin to start to plan my project I feel that this may use a mixture of photographs and the final piece will be a short film with narrative (not spoken) possibly there will be some non-diegetic sound ...much still to be considered!

Final Advert: Reflection

This is my final advert and I do think that the beauty of this is that it is timely - I genuinely did not find anything quite like this for Transylvania!  I think that the text works really well with the image and the logo could work with other horror tours.  If I had a little more time I would have made the image myself - taken the photo and this would have been much better.  I would also have perhaps added some further scarier elements, perhaps some blood or bats! 

Overall I think the final result is clean and works well and I wish I could go on my own tour of Transylvania to meet Good old Vlad the Impaler's ghost....

Creating my Halloween Advert

To begin I looked at lots of stock images here - these were from pixabay and petapixel - I liked the idea of a castle and I thought I could Photoshop something from Romania that would work well - I tried this out but actually preferred the image with the girl as I thought the spaces around the image would work well:

I then began to start working on Photoshop I created a new image with a black background like this - so I had a canvas: 

I chose A3 size at 300ppi and made this black by choosing the colour - I also made the canvas landscape as my main image was landscape.

I then opened the image that I wanted to use and then changed this to Black and White by going to Image, Adjustments and then Black and White and then I used the colour balancing sliders to create the effect I wanted here - a deeper red and purple hue. 0I then added the image to my canvas and I began adding the text as above - so the main message is Visit Transylvania with the tagline: 'Meet your nightmares'  I thought this worked really well with the girl looking towards the castle... I used the Text tool here and used the colour picker to change the text colour, I also changed the font and size of my text in the top menu.

I now needed a logo so I found this image and it was the doll that I was interested in so I cropped the dolls head and started working on this. 

I wanted my company to be called 'The dollshouse' and underneath I would put Horror Tours Inc.  This gives it more longevity so it is not just for Halloween. 

I used the text tool again changed the font to Blackadder and made it white so that it would work with the background,  I added this to my main image in the left hand corner but this was far too blue and did not match my image.  Therefore I also changed this to black and white and slightly lowered the opacity to blend this more into the background of my image.  

This is the final result!   Please see my next post for reflection...

Creating My Halloween Advert

Halloween is almost here so I thought a scary Halloween advert for Transylvania would work well. I started just by sketching out my initial ideas

What I  wanted was to incorporate the idea of visiting Transylvania for a Halloween tour - meet Vlad the impaler, stay in a scary castle etc.  

I started to look at other tourists' adverts to get a feel of how these adverts might look.  

This one was certainly surprising in how bad I thought it was! At the top 'vampire in Transylvania however no really scary images just a woman in traditional dress.  I am not convinced by this that I will meet Dracula at all - most disappointing!

 Source: Transylvania Live

This next one offered a tour from Bucharest to Budapest for Halloween but again - not very convincing I will not be parting with my money here! Scrolling down the sight it actually gets worst with just dates and itinery with nothing to really pull me in. 

Source: Gadventures

The last one from Intrepid Travel again bordered on the boring!  It says that it will be the spookiest Halloween ever but nothing really makes me think that is going to happen and it is £1200 of disappointment!

Source: Intrepid Travel

Well, it seems I definitely have a better idea of how to create a scary, terrifying and truly brilliant Halloween tourist poster here!

The Art Of Advertising: Photography Adverts (a misogynistic dream!)

As always at this time of year I write about advertising and it is important to recognise that there is a real art to creating adverts. As argued in The Independent (Glancey J. 26/07/1995) art and advertising are co-dependent as artists have reused, reappropriated and reimagined adverts with Andy Warhol's cans of soup to Richard Prince rephotographing the Malboro cowboys
 and claiming them as his own.  Art and advertising have a complicated relationship with copyright - owning ideas and concepts is difficult and often end up in court.  As explained here by 'Donn Zaretsky, a lawyer in New York who specializes in art law, is often approached by artists who perceive echoes of their own work in advertisements. “It does seem like advertising people are pushing the envelope on this,” he said. “They’re being more and more brazen in their borrowing. On the one hand, they should be mining the art world for inspiration, and you would expect them to be referencing works that people are familiar with. But more and more they seem to be getting into the territory of blatant rip-offs.' (Fineman M. 13/07/2008)

The importance of an advert is to grab the viewers attention in a second and that is why using familiar or well-known concepts works as it is already a part of people's consciousness however to create something new and really innovative is the holy grail of advertising, a brand that people will buy into and recognise globally such as Nike, Coke, Pepsi, M & Ms these are super successful in their branding, marketing and advertising. 

I, as always, love to look at photography adverts and I particularly like to remind myself that the misogeny is still rife throughout! Check out these adverts:

Ad Forum: If you have the usual thing in mind, now you have an option

In this Fujifilm advert the man gets to have it both ways, so to speak! with two versions of the instax 100 film.  

  

Bad Ads: Panasonic

Yet again - men get away with murder!  How interesting if I put on an advert that I was shooting my boyfirend I think teh outcry would be instant and I would be considered a murderous, man hating feminist however this is allowed all the time.  I am a feminist and I do not think it should be stated as an insult - just lately it seems to be getting a very bad name.  However when I look at these and other adverts like them there is still much inequality - in the western world we are comparitavely much better off as women however we should still stand up and remember that we are half the human race and where would they be without us!!!

References

Glancey J. (26/07/1995) Is advertising art? Art: THE CREAM OF BRITISH DESIGN & ADVERTISING Saatchi Gallery, London [Online] Available from: https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/is-advertising-art-1593252.html (Accessed 07/10/2019)

Fineman M. (13/07/2008) New York Times, The Image Is Familiar; the Pitch Isn’t [Online] Available from: https://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/13/arts/design/13fine.html (Accessed 07/10/2019)