Digital Surrealism

The message I tried to convey my photograph was the lack of awareness regarding Canada's water supply, and the fact that such an important matter can be so overlooked. I showed this by using a photograph of the water tower outside our school an attaching legs to it. I then placed the photo in the grass to make it appear smaller, I tried to make it look as though it was sneaking through the grass. I did this to show that although this issue may not be at the forefront of our concerns it's definitely a problem though less flashy and more discreet than what the media usually covers. I chose the legs that I did mostly due to how well the fit the colour scheme and style of the water tower.

I knew I wanted to create a robot like figure from the beginning of the project. I looked at many artists who had used mechanical figures in their photography which made me start to sketch some spider like figures. On the first day of shooting I didn’t really know what I wanted to photograph so I just went along looking for some inspiration. on the second day it was still too gloomy to get a good shot of the water tower so I started planning my idea and playing with the blending on photoshop. A few days later it was finally bright enough outside to get a well lit shot of the water tower, so I took a few shots of the tower and got some pictures of the grass. I then started work on the image, I started by creating a mask for the water tower (which would later have to be edited). I tested many different legs with the water tower before finally deciding to use the AT-AT walker legs from Star Wars, deciding that they best fit the image. I then had to combine the image with the photograph of grass I planned to use as the background, putting it on I realised I would need to edit the legs so that they would not awkwardly rest on top of the grass. After some fiddling around with masks and layers I finally got the look I was going for.

In conclusion this project taught me to use both layers and masks in new ways allowing me to artistically express myself in a more successful and organized way. Allowing me take photos and effectively and neatly compile and merge them together. I learned to effectively use masks when moving an image to a different background, and overall I am pleased with the final result.