Alternative Media Project

The alternative media project has been the most enjoyable project, for me, thus far.

The assignment was to select/sketch a simple image/logo, then reproduce the image through non-traditional media.

My process started with brainstorming to generate ideas for the kinds of media I would use. I had a lot of ideas that I was excited about. Some of the ideas that I wanted to do didn't work out. I wanted to make my image out of Cheerios in a bowl of milk. The cereal kept moving and sticking to each other and made it impossible to create my image. So I figured I could edit the picture in photoshop, so I took a picture of the Cheerios the way that they were in the bowl. When I started editing the picture in photoshop, I ran into a couple problems. I think if I was more proficient in photoshop I would have been successful at editing the images. The first problem I had was cutting out the Cheerio. I should have taken the picture with just one Cheerio in the bowl. The problem was getting all of the unneccessary Cheerios out of the picture and then filling in that space with milk. The way the lighting was, the milk had a slight gradient effect, which I tried very hard to reproduce, but couldn't. I ended up not using the cereal picture at all, which I was a little upset about. I think towards the end of the semester when I am better at photoshop I will try the cereal image again.

The other photo I wanted to have was one where the image was cut out of grass. So the image would be really short grass and the other grass would be taller around it. This didn't really work out either, I think the grassy area I was using had too short of grass. That is how I ended up with the dandelion picture. I saw the dandelion in the grassy area I was in, and decided I could just create my image by reproducing dandelions. I was pretty pleased with the outcome of the dandelion photo, but I think, again, if I was better at photoshop, the photo would be more convinving.

The other photo that I edited in photoshop was the photo of the water on the pavement. The original photo (which is not on my picasa album) was actually my third attempt at making the image with the water. It was a lot harder than I was expecting! The water would spread out when it was soaking into the pavement making my image into a jumbled mess. The third attempt was the best looking of the three, and then I edited it a little in photoshop. I just used the lasso tool to copy so of the pavement in the picture and put the pavement over some areas that were wet that I didn't want to be. I also used this process to clean up some of the edges and to tighten up the image some. I was pretty pleased with how it turned out.

I really enjoyed this project. I think I could probably do this project again using the same image and still have 10 new photos done. Once my brain got going, I just kept thinking of ideas.

Check out my album:
http://picasaweb.google.com/JordanBeckerDesign/AlternativeMedia?authkey=Gv1sRgCOPK2sjZ8o-6PQ&feat=directlink