Monday, March 13, 2023

Exploring Science Fiction!

 

"Media...envokes in use their unique ratios of sense perception.
The extension of any one sense alters the way we think and act--- 
the way we perceive the world."

---Marshall McLuhan, p.148


I've always said I wanted to get more into sci-fi but never quite knew where to start.

The genres I love the most are fantasy and horror. This goes for all forms of media: books, tv shows, animes, cartoons, video games, and music. These forms intersect with sci-fi on occasion, but I haven't actively sought out sci-fi as an individual genre. One of the biggest franchises in sci-fi I have gotten involved in has been Star Wars which has a huge fan base. Outside that though, I've wanted to consume more sci-fi but have yet to branch out.

With that being said, my last project for my New Media in Art class is heavily inspired by Science Fiction. I wanted to experiment with blurry images and the smearing of light. I wanted the pictures to be super dark and exposed for long periods of time. I've worked with exposure time before back in my photography summer school class when I was 15. It was fun but I never played around with it as much as I would have liked. This was my chance to experiment and see what kinds of images I could get.

Portals pt.1 (2023), Nayla J. Brunnbauer

Portals pt.2 (2023), Nayla J. Brunnbauer

I achieved two things with these images: light smudging and double exposure. To get both of these looks, I would often change the exposure to be super low; in the negatives. I would then take the picture and turn the camera violently to the side. Sometimes I would tilt the camera up or down too. The point was for the camera to capture two different directions of the same general location of the subject. It was a fascinating discovery and made for some really cool images like Portals pt.1 and Portals pt.2. Another really cool camera movement I would do was draw triangles, circles, or squares with the camera. I would snap the picture (still with a low exposure) and then move the camera in the shape I wanted. This technique worked best when I had some isolated light sources in the image. This can be seen in the picture Testing Ray Gun.

Testing Ray Gun (2023), Nayla J. Brunnbauer

I wanted these images to have an unsettling feel to them, and I would say that was achieved. Both my subject, Nina Broberg, and I were able to achieve this sense of unease through these images. I would also say, the added tone of an alien invasion also makes the images really eerie. All in all, I'm super proud of this project. It's something I have made into a book and would love to get published in the near future too. I'll attach here a link to my Flickr if you'd like to check out the entire collection!

1 comment:

  1. I really like your photo book!! That's sooooo cool! It is a entire complete story. I also love your photo with long exposure, which looks really interesting.

    ReplyDelete

Exploring Science Fiction!

  "Media...envokes in use their unique ratios of sense perception. The extension of any one sense alters the way we think and act---   ...