Happy Friday!

Today's experiments with composing images were actually really fun! When I got up this morning and checked the course website I was a bit anxious about everything I needed to get done (along with working all day), but I feel like it turned out well!

The first image I created was a fun, Jackson Pollock-esque doodle created on an online program. Here it is:

Pretty neat, right? To be honest, this was also the first time I had ever tried to do a screen shot and it worked pretty well! This was just a fun, simple program that I really enjoyed!

Next was my "double exposure" photo edit. At first I was really confused about how to make the layers do what I want but, after watching the video tutorial, I got it to work. Here is my photo:

I really enjoyed working with this technique of making one of the photo layers more transparent. I love how it looks and I like the different pictures I used (one being more serious and one a bit more cheerful). I'll probably play around with this technique some more with some nature photography. I think its interesting to see the duality of the image and want to explore it further.

Next, I made a gif of the same image using five different filters. (Thanks again to Pixlr!) Here ya go:

Playing around with the different filters was definitely fun! I especially enjoyed using the "Blur" filter. I attempted to make a gif where I transitioned from very blurry into completely in focus, but it didn't turn out very well. I'll admit, I was a bit intimidated by the thought of making a gif, but it was really easy! It's also a great way to show transitions between images without making the viewer scroll or shift their gaze. Very interesting.

Since making this first gif was so simple and fun, I decided to do another for my third photo composition! I used a few different photos of me making different expressions and in different poses and here's how it turned out:

I'm really fascinated of the idea of using the gif format to create variability in between photos. It creates a serious amount of contrast but I feel like it works better than just pasting five (or more) different photos onto a plane. This way, the viewers eyes do not have to even move or disconnect in between images.

Overall, I feel like I've learned a lot this week. I may not have concrete answers for what composition is, but I am further along the road of figuring it out. I have also learned quite a bit of snazzy new software! As someone who is not so great at computers, I feel like this is a very big accomplishment.

I feel that new media composing is a great advancement in the field of composition. Sure, the "old" ways of composing are wonderful, (The phrase "If its not broken, don't fix it." comes to mind) but some of the new-media ways can be more efficient or even more visually (or aurally) interesting. New media can better demonstrate variability even in short periods of time, where as older methods of composing may not. However, I'm not convinced that technology in the field of musical composition needs to progress as far as having Artificial Intelligence compose symphonies and such. To me, there is a certain line that is drawn in between something that needs to be created out of passion and something that needs to be created as quickly and efficiently as possible. I'm not positive of where that line is at the moment, but I'll let you know once I find it.