Immersive Advertising

In comparison to the meat project (see below) this was the project I actually wanted to do. I got into appropriation scans after that first scanning collage project and thought I could take it to the next level, combing it with street photography (which I have never really taken before). I basically combined a model from a magazine ad and placed it into a street photo, adjusting the colors and values to make it look more immersed. I attempted to show the ridiculousness of the advertising icons we attempt to model our lives after and how, when placed in a real life setting, these people would look like fools. Basically, I really enjoyed this project, especially since I was able to leave my comfort zone without needing to handle raw meat.

WARNING: THIS IS KINDA GROSS (aka Delicacy to Disaster )

So, it has been forever since I did my last update, probably because I have been spending all my time photographing fish. I started this project as a side item while I was waiting to get a translator to begin what I really want my thesis to be about. Unfortunately, it stuck for the whole semester. It started off as a survey of the Hong Kong wet market. After being told that everyone and their mom has done a project on the wet market, I decided to actually buy the meat and make still lifes out of them, comparing the super fresh, unsanitary, raw meat to the over-processed, plastic meat you buy at the western grocery store that is probably 80% corn. This resulted in my apartment smelling like a fish stall every weekend for the past 3 months. I am just super happy that I never have to touch this project again and can start photographing what I really want to work on.

Scanned collages

For this assignment, we had to utilize the scanners to create collages with both imagery and by laying objects directly on the scanner bed. The prof said he wanted me to start doing more cohesive concepts for these exercises, so I chose to mirror religious iconography in the media with all of these. Basically, I really love how these turned out and kinda want to do more.

Graduate Photo Work

Holy crap, this thing still exists! Well, for those of you who haven't been following, I was accepted to SCAD Hong Kong's MFA Photography program and have been here for 2 months. I started posting my graduate work on facebook, then realized there is no copywrite protection there. SO, I'm gonna start posting them here again. Here is the first photo project for my Digital Craft class (basically Digital Photography the sequel). For this project, we just had to take multiple photos without moving the camera and stitch them all together into one (basically the same project as the one of me dancing with myself) but hey, exercises is exercises.

The Camera is Racist

Well, this is the photo series I did last semester that everyone has been wanting me to put up on the facey bookys. I don't feel comfortable giving facebook royalty free rights to my images and google has their image policy laid out more in my favor.

ANYWAY, This series was for a photographing light course. Our only stipulation was that the subject had to do with light and everything had to be ambiently lit, so no studio lights. I was wanting to show how metering for different skin tones in turn changes the surrounding area's tone. I took two separate photos at proper meterings, then stitched them together to form one photo. No photo shop was used outside of basic color correction and the stitching of the photos together. There is a large artist statement about racial perception, but I think it would be quite lengthy to put on here, so just ask if you want to read it and I can email a copy to you.

Also also, a big thanks to all of my models, in order (David Ogunjobi, Margaret Loehnig, Dipesh Niraula, Jenny True, Samah Hassan, Patrick Gross, Hazar Khidir, Reina Koyano, Alexus Wong, Mikey Sistek, Hannah Pey, Jun Kwon, Hiroki Shibuya, Rocio Hopson, Marc Polaski, Alexis Morris, Yazan... (I know it's not Smith, but you never gave me your real last name), Hannah Pey (again, but bald this time), Nifemi Adio, Albert McCorrmick, Jenn Fank, and Duong Dinh)

If any of the models want to use the photo you are in (like printing it out, putting it on Facebook) feel free to, but I would appreciate it if you would credit me when putting it on any social media websites. 

First batch o' magazine ads

And at 4:20 am... I have finished the first set of magazine ads. I was super happy with these all around. I got that really awesome feeling after finishing them like I just made something really bitchin', and that doesn't happen very often. Thanks to Katrina, Mark, Sara, David, Margaret, and Hazar for being
awesome models.

Shaving Private Ryan

That title courtesy of Albert. This work represents when I went totally insane. It started out being a series on people whom I idolized in my childhood for arbitrary reasons. I was going to take away the thing about the figure I idolized to show how my perception changed for the figure over time.

I was starting off with a portrait of Ulysses S Grant without his beard (his beard being the reason he was my favorite president as a child). In order to do this, I drew Grant in colored pencil without a beard, then intended to add in background texture by using real beard hair. Because I was unable to find anyone who was willing to part with their beard at the time, I just used what little I could grow before the due date.

However, after the due date, I ended up with all this beard hair being donated to me thinking that I still needed it. As to not insult their sacrifice, I decided to change the concept to people infamous throughout history who had memorable facial hair, then remove the facial hair and see how the perception of the figure changes. After a night of rearranging a strangers beard hair with surgical gloves on a drawing of Karl Marx, I decided this was ridiculous and changed away from this topic. Now... I have two hairy drawings, and I'm not totally sure what to do with them.

Standards of Beauty

This was the next concept I explored for drawing 3. Since the professor encouraged us to try something different and risky, I decided to do a whole lot of stuff I had never touched before in a single work. Doing a chalk drawing on a fabric tapestry that I sewed. The concept was comparing the modern, artificially modified beauty with classic beauty (represented by Josephine Baker). The biggest issue with this was, although both figures are pretty damn accurate, the figure of the woman who has undergone plastic surgery could read as a poorly rendered figure to someone unaware of the fact that it is representing plastic surgery. That mixed with me not really enjoying doing chalk on fabric, and it taking far too much time, I decided to end this idea after this work. But hey, at least I got a really interesting conversation piece tapestry for my apartment out of it.

Stuff for Drawing 3

Wow, I haven't touched this thing yet this semester. Well, I have been in my senior capstone course, so there hasn't been much time to update this blog and there is not a whole lot of blog worthy stuff being created as of yet. BUT, I can at least show some of the stuff I have done for Drawing 3. These are two versions of the same assignment where we had to make a conceptual work with a long list of guidelines. I don't remember all of them right now because it was the beginning of the semester, but there were a lot. The basic concept was integration into another culture and how, when you are a visitor in a different culture or country, you occasionally have to mask who you are or discard traits of your personality to more comfortably survive. The first version dealt with the topic in general, the second was a self portrait that illustrated my personal experiences more specifically.