After Rebecca and I had come up with a firm idea of what our slides would look like, and what assets would be needed for each, it was my job to go on a shopping trip and gather the materials and objects which we would need. Some of these were easy to come by and would take little work, while others would need carefully crafting and fashioning before use.
One of the first compositions which Rebecca and I agreed upon would feature a fishing net swallowing up the vast majority of the ocean's fish. For this we decided that we wished to use various fish shaped foods, to reflect humanities vast over consumption of the planet's fish stocks. We ideally wanted something along the lines of Goldfish Crackers, but were disappointed to learn that these are not widely available. Our tutor informed us there was a variety of crisps (only stocked in one Supermarket chain, bizarrely) which were fish shaped. I also found a variety of cat treats and other crackers which featured fish (or rockets which could masquerade as fish), which would be more than suitable.
Once I had gathered and scanned in the fish I passed them along to Rebecca so that she might alter the colours and make them a bit more vibrant in preparation for assembling the final images.
While searching for assets, I also came across some small buttons in the shape of cars, which I felt would match the aesthetic of our project perfectly, and would serve well in our composition dealing with CO2 emissions, as a source for the noxious gas.
More challenging was creating the globe which would be the centre piece of each of our slides (with the exception of the over fishing composition). Rebecca and I had concluded that we could best represent the consumption of our world's natural resources by showing the Earth itself being consumed. I bought a variety of different plums, peaches and apples which might make a suitable globe. Although Rebecca's experiments had shown that digital editing could create fairly good results, we were eager to achieve as much 'in-camera' as possible. My idea was to use food colours, as we needed something non toxic so that a bite could be taken from the earth for a later image.
Unfortunately, conventional, liquid food dyes were of little use, shrinking back from the smooth skins of the apples and plums, and staining the peaches far to dark to ever convincingly look like land and sea. I was beginning to fear that this was a doomed plan, and I would have to craft the earth's surface from royal icing, when I came across gel food dyes.
This dye worked much better, maintaining a translucency and shine upon the skin of the apple (the yellow plums were a little too small to masquerade as the world) which was perfect for water. While I also had a green dye for painting in the land masses, this seemed unnecessary given the natural brilliant green of the apple. Although the blue of the dye was perhaps a bit dark when photographed, I was able to adjust the colour balance digitally.
We also used food to create the trees and shrubs required for the deforestation image. Alongside a selection of 'trees' formed of coriander, thyme, and rosemary we also included florets of broccoli and sticks of celery. Whilst photographing the herb trees I had neglected to take into consideration the numerous small gaps visible through the branches, which unfortunately created a fair amount of editing work for Rebecca. I cannot thank her enough for her patience with such a laborious task.
One of the first compositions which Rebecca and I agreed upon would feature a fishing net swallowing up the vast majority of the ocean's fish. For this we decided that we wished to use various fish shaped foods, to reflect humanities vast over consumption of the planet's fish stocks. We ideally wanted something along the lines of Goldfish Crackers, but were disappointed to learn that these are not widely available. Our tutor informed us there was a variety of crisps (only stocked in one Supermarket chain, bizarrely) which were fish shaped. I also found a variety of cat treats and other crackers which featured fish (or rockets which could masquerade as fish), which would be more than suitable.
Once I had gathered and scanned in the fish I passed them along to Rebecca so that she might alter the colours and make them a bit more vibrant in preparation for assembling the final images.
While searching for assets, I also came across some small buttons in the shape of cars, which I felt would match the aesthetic of our project perfectly, and would serve well in our composition dealing with CO2 emissions, as a source for the noxious gas.
More challenging was creating the globe which would be the centre piece of each of our slides (with the exception of the over fishing composition). Rebecca and I had concluded that we could best represent the consumption of our world's natural resources by showing the Earth itself being consumed. I bought a variety of different plums, peaches and apples which might make a suitable globe. Although Rebecca's experiments had shown that digital editing could create fairly good results, we were eager to achieve as much 'in-camera' as possible. My idea was to use food colours, as we needed something non toxic so that a bite could be taken from the earth for a later image.
Unfortunately, conventional, liquid food dyes were of little use, shrinking back from the smooth skins of the apples and plums, and staining the peaches far to dark to ever convincingly look like land and sea. I was beginning to fear that this was a doomed plan, and I would have to craft the earth's surface from royal icing, when I came across gel food dyes.
This dye worked much better, maintaining a translucency and shine upon the skin of the apple (the yellow plums were a little too small to masquerade as the world) which was perfect for water. While I also had a green dye for painting in the land masses, this seemed unnecessary given the natural brilliant green of the apple. Although the blue of the dye was perhaps a bit dark when photographed, I was able to adjust the colour balance digitally.
We also used food to create the trees and shrubs required for the deforestation image. Alongside a selection of 'trees' formed of coriander, thyme, and rosemary we also included florets of broccoli and sticks of celery. Whilst photographing the herb trees I had neglected to take into consideration the numerous small gaps visible through the branches, which unfortunately created a fair amount of editing work for Rebecca. I cannot thank her enough for her patience with such a laborious task.
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