Instructions

For this task we were asked to note down instructions for taking a photo that our classmates could follow at home. At the start of the lesson we were shown the work of various other artists who have used instructions within their artwork. This gave me some ideas for what I could write down on the class Jamboard.

I wanted to write down a combination of very open and very specific instructions. Below shows the whole classes instructions:

I chose three instructions that were not my ideas to try out:

"Look up and photograph what you see"

"Find something that has lots of patterns on it"

"Photograph beauty"

I found the more open instructions more interesting, but I chose a more detailed one just to make sure I had a varied selection of instructions to follow. I then went off around my house with these instructions in my head to follow. The results of following the instructions are below.

Instruction 1: Look up and photograph what you see

Instruction 2: Find something that has lots patterns on it

Instruction 3: Photograph beauty

WWW: I very much enjoyed this task, I liked to have some instructions to guide me with what to photograph. I found the looser instructions more intriguing, fun to work with, and they made me think harder than the more prescriptive one.

Once I had decided what I was going to photograph, I found framing the shot easy. I also enjoyed experimenting with various compositions and camera settings.

I am most pleased with my photographs for the instruction - look up. I was lucky enough to capture a sunrise that day. I also quite like the more abstract style of the ones I captured of my living room lamp. They are more minimalist in design, which I like.

I would like to try this method of using instructions again to create photographs. I enjoyed the experience of having some directions to guide me.

EBI: The only element that I disliked about this task was that I mostly only had areas around the school to photograph. I found this narrowed my options for subject matter. So this is what I found tricky about this task, that I had limited options for what I could photograph. But on the flip side this restriction made me really think about what I was going to photograph it and how I could compose the shot to make it visually interesting.

I am not unhappy with any of my photographs. I feel that I managed to capture the essence of each question in all my photos.

I would have liked to have spent longer searching for the objects and locations that I was going to shoot. I think this would have given me a wider chose of photos to select from.

This is an edited photo where I experimented with overlaying the instruction that I followed to take the photograph.

To create this effect I used the text tool to type out the sentence, I then chose a style of typeface from the options in the list that I felt matched the overall mood of my photograph.

I wanted the text to blend in to the photo rather than look like it was just placed on top so I used the layer blending options and chose 'overlay' from the options.

I then wanted to edit the text again to try and get it to appear darker in the sky, so I rasterized the text layer. This meant that I could now apply filter and adjustments to the lettering layer. I dragged down the brightness and contrast settings to make the lettering darker in the sky.

Finally, I tweaked the photo layer ever so slightly using 'vibrancy' to make the blues and pinks of the more vivid.

Overall I am pretty pleased with the resulting edited photo outcome. I like how the words seem to blend into the sky and they have some opacity about them. I feel like the photo has achieved the dream like mood that I wanted to try and express in it.

I would perhaps liked to have explored a few other typefaces in addition to this one as I am not 100% sure that this one was the perfect choice. I would have liked to have tried ones that are a bit thicker in line quality.

Here is the video instructions for the making of this image: https://www.loom.com/share/a39df79e272c450fa4f298122acd67fc

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