Do you remember all the planets? Let’s see them from left to right… The first one is Mercury, the closest planet to the Sun. The second one is Venus, the hottest planet. The third one is Earth, where we live on. The fourth one is Mars, where we might live in the near future. The fifth one is Jupiter, a huge one. The sixth one is Saturn, which has cool rings. The seventh one is a melon, which always reminds me of craters of moon…
I encountered with two challenges. One was that I had no idea which pictures to choose and another was that the editing software “Paint 3D” crashes every time when I open it. I chose the following images:
There is no deep meaning to why I chose these images. A melon’s surface just looks like a planet, and I tried to edit so that the edited image seems to be right. I wonder why a melon looks like this way…
I started out picking my favorite color and looking up what objects are red on google. There were plenty of children picture book references. I then put away the project for another idea. After a quick study session of anatomy, I realized that apples and hearts are red and decided to go along with that age-old statement about apples and doctors.
Some challenges I faced was deciding whether to overlay the apple or just stick it on top of the heart. Overlaying the apple would make it not look like an apple, but sticking it on top would make the heart seem an odd shape. I went with the second option and erased the apple enough to fit the heart. I saturated the colors more to match the reds. The longest part was erasing the overlay, but a quick question on the internet helped me to figure out how to use PicMonkey. A tip: Use the Graphics Icon to overlay and insert more than one image. Also right-clicking brings up the eraser and fade options to blend the two images.
Final message
This image conveys how healthful eating can prevent heart problems and other diseases/illnesses. The clash of 3d to 2d creates the hypothetical situation of awareness where eating healthfully would not produce obvious results of healthiness but still contributes to it. It is my take on “An apple a day keeps the doctor away”.
This combo image was inspired by the dessert-scented body lotion I purchased yesterday, the sweet, delicious fragrance in the air pushed me to make this assignment dessert-related. Being a baker myself. one of my favorite things to bake is cupcake, and my favorite part of making cupcakes is decorating them, therefore, after choosing cupcake as my base image, I was trying to come up with an idea for the “frosting”. I thought using cloud was a perfect idea because we always make the analogy comparing cloud and cotton candy because of their fluffy, pillowy textures and appearances. To make it more attractive and dream like, I chose a castle-shaped cloud to be the frosting. This combo photo reminds me of my childhood fantasy when I sat on the grass and looked at the clouds, and I hope you like it, too.
The most difficult part of this assignment for me was to find two pictures with very similar background tone so that they wouldn’t look too “separated” when I combine them; other than that, there was no major obstacles.
I did not enjoy this task. There is nothing inherantly wrong with it, infact I found coming up with potential ideas incredibly fun. The frustration of this task was entirely my fault. I looked through Stephen Mcmennamy’s instagram page and my mind went in to overdrive, spitting out exciting ideas and potential photo combinations. I then went to Flickr’s Creative Commons website and had an ‘Oh shit’ moment. These pictures are grainy, the backgrounds are terrible, the lighting is awful.
My issue was that I was far too ambitious. I looked back at Combophoto’s page again and my brain was filled with dissappointment. ‘There’s no way I can even come close to recreating these’. Sometimes boundaries and limitations can be benefitial when it comes to being creative, not in this case. I felt deflated and annoyed that the images I was picturing in my mind would never be seen by others.
In the end I took inspiration from ‘Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs’ with my Hippotatomus. I wasn’t happy with how it looked so I also made a space shuttle where the main fuel tank has been replaced by a carrot.
The significant challenge for the Combophoto is to find two images that are graphically and chromatically matching. For the first attempt, I failed to come up with a decent idea. However, later when I was watching the documentary film First Man (2018), the idea of combining the image of astronaut and moon popped into my mind. The shape of the space helmet ideally matches the shape of the moon. With the basic idea, it is not hard to find the images of the astronaut and the moon.
However, I had a hard time piecing two pictures together. I was too lazy to explore new apps, so I tried to use Procreate on my iPad. However, this app is not friendly to rookies like me. I tried hard to figure out how to work with the layers and brushes.
People are naturally respectful and curious about things like outer space and astronomy. The idea I would like to convey here is similar to the spirit of moon landing: to explore the unknown.
I created this image based on a common comment on Porsche cars: they look like frogs. The iconic design that hasn’t been changed carries within every model in the brand and they all resemble frogs from multiple views. I figured it would be a great idea to combine a green car and a green frog in an image. This image can be used as an appreciation for the timeless design of Porsche and how the curves and shape convey the beauty.
Honestly speaking, I did not expect this to be the final image. I simply clicked around on Flickr, and this Lonely Sausage distinguished itself as a high-quality picture. As it appears, most of Mcmennamy’s work depend on color matching in addition to shape. So I went on to search for an adorable pig with reddish-brown fur. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find the appropriate species. Then, this squirrel popped up, and I used it. The background of the two pictures are disparate. Here I bent the rules by cropping the squirrel out of the original image. What message does my image deliver now? “Imagine yourself to be devouring an adorable squirrel whenever you savor a sausage?” Well, that’s a bit extreme. Guten Appetit.
For my combophoto creation, I chose a photo of the Empire State Building and a rocket ship being launched into space. I chose the image of the Empire State Building because I am from the suburbs of New York City and I believe that the skyscraper is a great representation of my hometown. The building displays different colors and patterns over Manhattan and is recognized by everyone around the world. On top of the building is a radio antenna that stands tall and thin. It took me some time to think of something to combine the picture of the Empire State Building with, but in the end, the image of the Space X Falcon 9 rocket lift off to the International Space Station fit best. This image is really interesting because you can see the line of flames coming out of the bottom of the aircraft. It meshed well with the building picture because both backgrounds are the sky and the rocket looked just as skinny as the antenna.
I found it very challenging to find two images that would form a great combophoto. It was hard to think of objects that looked similar enough to match up in a combined image. After going through pages of Flickr photos, I decided to think of things that meant something to me or things I could use as inspiration in my life. The Empire State Building reminds me of home and the rocket ship taking off is symbolic of my perspective on life. If I put in hard work and dedication to something I want to accomplish, I could do it. NASA has completed years of research to be able to launch rockets into space and the pictures and observations from space made it all worth it. I believe my final image conveys my perspective and meaning in my life because New York is where I grew up and the rocket ship shows the endless opportunities I will present myself with in the future.
I’ve heard an idea a long time ago: that our planet is merely a tiny single cell of another grander world. The assumption is interesting and legit, the planet and the virus both come in as different sizes and shapes, somehow follow certain rules, they can die, and they can be “merged” or “eaten” by other individuals of their kinds. How we view a moon or a cell completely depends on the standpoint of us. That’s how I came up the idea of generating a picture putting a single cell under a microscope and a planet and make the comparison.
I left for dinner after I put the thoughts together, and I saw my friends were sending me links and ask if I would sign a petition to ask for a formal apology from wall street journal writer and editor for publishing an article called “China Is the Real Sick Man of Asia” talking about the Wuhan Coronavirus Outbreak. The article itself seems objective and fair, but the title was an undoubtedly racial discrimination. I decided to change my “cell” into a computer-generated picture of coronavirus. Coronavirus, like any other species, struggle to find ways to survive and thrive. Unfortunately , this year they were able to breakthrough the barrier between wild animals and human and start to cause nation-wide infectious diseases. I have had controversial feeling on Coronavirus for a while. After-all it did all start in a wildlife market in China, and the government did not take the correct responses in time (from my opinion, maybe they did their best). But when I see jokes and criticism online from foreigners about Chinese citizens, I also want to dispute their opinions. There is no way to cut interactions between human and wildlife, and people of my country has been trying their best to fight this battle physically and psychologically. I do not want to comment on the government actions, as I do not actually know what has been hidden from or shown to us for various purposes, beneficial to our people or not. At least I know that the patients, medical caregivers and just any civilians do not deserve criticism for possibly carrying a disease.
This picture might not work 100% well as a combophoto because of the difference in the backgrounds, but it’s the best-matching ones I could find. I guess it helps me make the point, just like a silver-glowing full moon, a virus can be pretty looking from a different perspective. And just like the existence of the moon, it is no one’s fault of carrying a type of virus. I had a hard time deciding whether I should post political viewpoints in this side quest, because it should have been fun and relaxing. I did it anyway because this is probably the only place I could express my feelings and thoughts without being attacked by people with all sort of objections, and
Let's play a game with photo editing this week! For this week, you'll make a combophoto, which combines two different photos to create a new image.
Stephen Mcmennamy is an Atlanta artist and Creative Director at the advertising firm BBDO. He first came to my attention when I saw his series of “combophotos” that splice together two different images to form a surreal new creation.
Here are a few examples from him:
cauliflower + poodle
paintbrush + spaghetti
bridge + guitar
Take a few moments to look through the images he’s posted on his site linked above or on his Tumblr or his Instagram. Then create your own square combophoto and publish it to your site. You can take your own photos, but probably you’ll want to use CC_licensed images you find on Flickr — make sure you give credit to the originals that you modify to create your combophoto.
The level of technical aptitude for this assignment is actually relatively small, just simple cropping and resizing. The greater part of the challenge is thinking creatively and finding images that you can work with. That said, note that Mcmennamy comes up with ideas and then specifically stages photos to combine, and he seems to often spend significant amounts of time shooting and selecting his images. You won’t have lots of time, models you can hire, or expensive photo equipment to work with, so I don’t necessarily expect your final images to be as polished and perfectly aligned as his are. More important is for you to be playful and come up with images that combine to create something funny or witty or striking.
To edit the two photos together, you can use whatever photo editing software you’d like. Pixlr is a good free web app, as is PicMonkey. Adobe Photoshop is also available for you to use on the computers in the Media Library on the 4th floor of the Woodruff Library.
Once you have your image, publish it in a post on your class site. Don't forget to give it a funny or witty title! Tag your post "sq4"
Write a paragraph about how you went about choosing the two images you combined and why. What challenges did you face as you created your combophoto? What do you think your final image conveys?
