My Urban Camouflage

Urban Camouflage 

#1
This is my first photo of Urban Camouflage. The location is my coat hanger in my basement. I chose this location because when I was little I used to always try and blend into it. My process was I first arrange the coats so they are spread out, then I took one of my coats and put it on and hung the hook on the hanger. Then I took the picture at an angle that made the coat look flat and normal. Afterwards I just cropped the photo a bit to make it more focused on the coat hanger. I left a bit of my pants in the photo to show that it's really me. Here are some test shots and my final image.

 

Final Image

#2

This is my second Urban Camouflage. The location is in my living room. I had to lamps in my living room and I put one is the corner and then I took one of the shades of one of them and put it on my head. I first put on all black since the lamp poles were black, then I put on my hood and put the shade on my head. I chose to do this because I wanted to blend in with the other lamp so it looks like the two "lamps" are just sitting there. I took the picture from the side to make the pole appear more skinny. I'm showing one of my hands so you knew it was me. Theses are my test shots and my final images.

 

Final Image

#3
This is my final Urban Camouflage. The location is in the school gym lost and found. I chose this because I wanted to make it seem like you could hide in a pile of clothes without really hiding and going under the clothes. My process was I sat on top and covered everything except my hair (because I wanted you to notice where I was) then I just covered little parts of my body so it looked more natural. I took the picture from a certain angle so you could see me the most. I camouflage into the clothes because it's hard to tell which is me and which is the clothes. Here is my test shots and final image.

 

Final Image

Sabina Keric Examples

Sabina Keric has a lot of amazing examples of urban camouflage, but these are my three favorites:

This is a Urban Camouflage photo by Sabina Keric. This photo was taken in a department warehouse, she takes a lot of her photos there since they have a lot different sections. I really like this photo because all the boxes look like they are naturally stacked but there is really a person under there with boxes taped on them. Sabina put it in an aisle that had lots of other boxes so it did not look out of place. One thing I would've changed is I would've made the boxes wider so it looked more natural and not all up right.

This is another photo by Sabina Keric. She strung a bunch of empty bottles together and shoved one of them in the recycling and the others hung there. It looks like the bottles are spilling out of the recycling. I like this photo because she used her surroundings as well as props to camouflage is into the store. One thing I would've changed it having the bottles less upright and perfect and instead I would put them all over the place. This is my favourite piece of her work.

This is the last photo I chose that is by Sabina Keric. I like it because it looks like all the paper is falling out of the bin. It looks so real and if I were walking in a store and I saw that I would think it was real. It's good that she used all different colours so it doesn't look perfect. You can barley tell there is a person under there. One thing I would change is I would spread the paper out on the floor so it looks like it's falling out more. This photo is very creative and artsy.

Sabina Keric

Critique of Urban Camouflage- Sabina Keric

       Sabina Keric is a German artist/designer who takes many different types of photos including urban camouflage. She became an artist/designer in October 2011, before she became an artist she had to go through many years of schooling and workshops. Sabina received her degree in June 2011 for communications and design from Karlsruhe University of art and design. She had about 8 years of schooling in total to graduate with her design degree. Over the years she has became very successful and received 3 awards and counting, one of her awards was the international stickeraward! A lot of her work is put up in museums and displayed in workshops; the most popular museum her work was shown in was a German museum called, "Museum fur Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg". She is a pretty famous German artist, plus, she has many biography's about her. She has come along way with her accomplishments.

       Sabina has produced many different types of art. One of her most popular ones is urban camouflage. Urban camouflage is a type of artwork where you try and make someone or something blend in with it's surroundings. Sabina thinks of it as "how you can camouflage oneself and one's identity in commercial space." Most of her projects and ideas of urban camouflage take place in stores or public places, I think this is because she wants to prove to you that one can hide in plain site. She has many different types of urban camouflage and I will post my favorites below. Sabina works with her friends (who are other designers/artists) to establish these amazing pieces of artwork.

       Sabina's second most popular type of artistic work is phantom shots. She uses phantom shots to represent symbols and events that take place in the military. She makes her shots vivid and pop out because it helps you visualize the "strong fusion" and reality of war. One thing that people have commented on her blog is that her war pictures have so much emotion and warming feelings behind them without showing gore and gruesome pictures. All of her examples are great but my favorite would have to be this one where there are two water bottles filled with mysteries liquid and connected to an electric machine, I like it because you have to make an inference on what you think it means. I guessed it represented a bomb from war. A cool and unique thing about these is the fact you have to step out of the box to try to figure out what they represent.

      Sabina Keric has an influence on many peoples art projects and photography. Her phantom shots really influence iraq soldiers and other veterans. They influence them because they are based on the war. She influences me in a way because all her art is unique and not many people would think of that idea. Her  ideas are so neat because she can use art to scare people and shock people. Sabina puts a lot of effort into her work and it seems like it would take a lot of patience and time to do. I think that her camouflage could have a bit of an impact saying that you can blend in wherever you want as long as you change who you are. When I do my camoflague project I will do something related to hers because her work is neat.

       I have lot's of opinions on her camouflage work. My strongest is opinion is that it has such a strong representation of being able to blend in with anything you put your mind too. I really love how she uses real objects to camouflage people, she strings along objects like costumes. Her camouflage ideas are very unique because she scares people while testing out the costumes. I love how all of her ideas work well and you can hardly even tell it's a person. One thing I would change is maybe visit other places instead of department stores, she could maybe go to a petstore or some other place. One day I would love to try that in a store and see how many people fall for it and get scared. Sabina Keric is very talented.

HDR photos

My experience

      I took 9 different photos for my HDR. The way I did it was I took 3 pictures; one overexposed, one underexposed and a normal one for each photo. I put the camera down and kept changing the setting each time I took the picture in the exact same position. I couldn't take my photo outside because it wasn't bright enough so I took a picture of a garbage can. I also took two others outside when it was a brighter day. My first picture is of a garbage an in the hub, I chose to take this one because i thought the crinkles of the bag would look really good with an HDR effect. My other two were outside and pictures of nature, I chose these because they were very detailed so it would really make the picture pop. I edited these photos in Photoshop using the HDR pro merge and tone tapping options. I played a lot with the advanced settings and filters until I got it just right. The theme of the first two photos is nature and detail leaves and grass. The other one is school because it is taking in the cafeteria. This was a long process but it turned out good. 

HDR photography research

HDR photography stands for High Dynamic Range, it's suppose to be used to make your images look better and more vivid by combining three of the same images in three different exposures (normal, underexposed and overexposed). HDR was invented in 1985 and was more modernly introduced in 1993. The history of HDR has improved so much that it is now on most smartphones. There are many different ways of producing HDR such as; a setting on your phone, taking 3 different pictures with different exposures, editing it on photoshop and many more. I took 9 different pictures and had my own experience making HDR photos, look at my last post to read all about my experience.



Resources:
http://hdrphotos.org/hdr-information/history-of-hdr-photography/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-paul-caponigro/iphone-hdr_b_4059328.html