Good things come in small packages

     We have been looking at elements of typogrophy, color and photography lately, looking at how much you can really get out of a word or two, a color combination of a few colors and focusing on only a part of a photo.

1.  Photo Cropping Activity - Krause, 2004, p. 193
Here, we were challenged to take 6 photos, and crop them in different ways for any reason that we saw fit. I decided to go on good ol' Facebook and dig out some pictures I have taken so that I did not have to worry about any copyright issues.  At first, I thought that this activity would be simple, but it was really difficult for me to decide which picture to choose, what to look for in each picture, and find the right space in that picture to produce something interesting. I also think my general indecisive nature complicates things even more, but let's see what I've got...

Here is a cropped photo of a structure from Cobá, Mexico. It's part of a game court, where there are walls of the same structure that encloses a space. The idea of the game is for each team to get a ball through the hoops that are spaced apart along the top of the walls (as pictured). The winners of the game are the ones sacrificed to the gods (to offer them the best). One reason why I decided to focus on one goal along the wall is because I found the round shape in the midst of a pretty linear structure interesting; the slant of the bottom creates lines, there is a line when the slanted wall meets the vertical wall, and the stones that make up the walls create lines. Also, the circle is the goal of the game, it's the important part to adding points and making one's self worthy of being offered.

Here is a picture I took inside the central area of a cruise that I went on with my family. From the open balcony of one of the higher floors you can see beams running from one side to the other, supporting this large planters pot that holds a tree.  I cropped out the view of the other open floors below me, trying to focus on the tree against the elevator columns. To me, this was another idea of contrast: the organic shape of the tree against the linear beams that support the linear planter's pot that is viewed against the linear columns of the elevators. Also, the plant and it's pot provide rich colors against a very "clean" color scheme (the blues, silver, black).

This is a view of the beach at St. Kitts. It was a large open picture that had a view of sand, water and sky.  The only objects in the picture was the boat, and beach chair & umbrella set in the right corner that I decided to include.  I could have tried to make the chair more centered, but I also wanted to include the boat.  Also, I feel that by leaving the chair on the side, it still conveys that the view of the beach was vast and open.  As I cropped this, I pictured the placement of white text in the sky for a brochure or and advertisement.

This is a picture of my parents walking through a town in San Juan. In the photo, this part appeared towards the right, but I wanted to crop out the tan building and bench that extended towards the left. To me, this picture has movement and can guide the eyes towards the right. I pictured the next frame would be a view of my parents in the V of the tree, and the next frame would be my parents on the right of the tree.

This is a picture from Grounds for Sculpture in Hamilton. The original picture had a view of the whole statue standing over the water, and the greenery that surrounds it.  I cropped it down to this view because I found it interesting that although it's a reflection, you get an idea of what the original sculpture is, and there are different effects in the water in the same view: large ripples on the top left, smooth on the bottom, and smaller ripples on the top right. With a view of the original picture, the water adds special effects for me!

This, too came from Grounds for Sculpture in Hamilton, and was cropped for similar reasons as above.  The picture had a view of the Rats restaurant and the pond in front of it. I decided to focus on the bottom right corner of the picture to focus on the boat, the lily pads next to it, and the green color scheme with a hint of the establishment that surrounds it. The picture focuses on the nature aspect of the environment.

2. Typography Conveyance Activity - Krause, 2004, p. 299
In this activity, we needed to take a list of words and present them in a way that conveys what we think they represent. I do not have any fancy programs that can do the work that was exemplified in the text, but I do have Word, which includes Word Art, which works for me. hah. I'm not very creative, so I did literal representations of the words listed for the exercise.

For the word "lightly," I wasn't sure if the Word Art shows two possible meanings: lightly in color, and possibly the idea of illumination since the text is in white with slight gray shadowing around it.  For the word "brick," I had the Word Art represent what a brick looks like in addition to the imagery of brick laying, how they line up in a staggered pattern. For "XXL," I originally thought of t-shirt sizes, but I also thought of a men's big & tall kind of shop, so it was really an idea of grand size altogether. I wish I was more creative and had the tools and the knowledge to come up with something like the splat example in the text, but I think I have ways to go before reaching that level.

3. Paint Color Combination Activity - Krause, 2004, p. 227
Here, we were basically given the freedom to take the brush to the paper and come up with whatever we could think of. I started taking the prompt literally, as the activity suggested going to the park to get inspiration, but then I decided to combine colors in random ways as I thought of them.

The green and brown in the tree didn't really blend very well as the other colors did, but it did remind me something that I have noticed before: brown is a very underestimated color.  Though it's hard to get a bold pigment from water colors, that doesn't take the fact away that when paired with brighter or lighter colors, brown is great to include in a color scheme.  On the right of the paper, you can see that I started playing with paint strokes of color, either as a gradient with blending in the middle, or just bold stripes of color.  I tried to play around with colors that I've seen together before. Besides the tree, I tried combining other natural colors on the far, top right: brown twigs, green leaves, reddish berries or flower petals. To its left, I originally wanted to play around with red and black; besides being on a Rutgers campus, I see the color combination in the rubber composite that the floor of our playground is made from. However, the paint turned out to be blue once I added water. I tried yellow and blue, the colors that are in my current capoeira belt, and I threw in some orange since I knew blue and orange are complimentary. The purple and yellow were inspired from some flowers that were in my sister's wedding bouquet, and they actually work well in a gradient as one color turns into the next.  Last, I played around with blue and green because I love a nice, rich teal color. One overarching thing I realized while doing this exercise: there is a lot to layering colors.  With watercolor paints, you get a light pigment of the color that you're selecting, so each time you take the brush to paper, you're adding more of that color. You can control which parts are bolder, which are more transparent, when to have different layers of different colors, etc. I guess in addition to the purpose of exploring different colors that can go together, the activity allows the person to visualize what effects layering colors can have.