Behold the fist project of the semester, Utopia/Dystopia panorama project!
The premise for this project was that we had to go out and take a panorama photograph and explore the concept of Utopia or Dystopia through the manipulation of the photograph adding a subject into the foreground. When we were giving this assignment I was originally thinking of doing a Dystopic scene because it was rather dreary and rainy in Vancouver. When I went to take the photos however the weather turned more pleasant and I was inspired to explore a more Utopic scene.
With our pixals combined we are... panorama!
Above is the original panorama image I put together from 8 separate photographs using the automated stitching program in adobe photoshop CS4. Such an awesome tool! I chose this marina near Granville Island because I feel it exemplifies the quintessential Vancouver urban-scape. The complex mix of ships, bridges, and towers I feel has a futuristic, almost cyberpunk, feel to it and was the perfect canvas for me to explore these concepts of future Utopian, Dystopian futures for Vancouver.
The five images of boats to the left are the subjects I chose to integrate into the image.
Each boat was painstakingly cut out from it’s original image. I then carefully edited out the physical supports that held up each boat to give the illusion that four of the five boats are floating. Great care was taken to match the reflections of light and colour on the hull of each boat to make it look as real as possible.
On average I spent about four to five hours working on each each boat making sure every detail was included in the cut out and hiding the supports as best I can. The boat with the mast and green stair beside it took five hours alone to cut out because I included each hairline rope and cord that was strung up on that mast. Unfortunately the detail is impossible to see against a white back ground. Thankfully the details are more visible in the final image.
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Putting together the final image took approximately eight or nine hours to complete. Above is an in progress snap shot. Here I’ve only just started adding the boats in after editing the panorama photo. I cropped the photo in to get rid of the uneven edges, removed several dust spots and corrected several places in the image where the stitching didn’t quite match up. The most notable being various places on the bridge, and the railings and parking lot lines in the foreground.
Below we have the final image. After adding in various boats I added a couple shadows under the boats close to the ground to make them look more natural and darkened the bottoms of some of the more prominent boats in the air to give them less of a flat look. Finally I upped the contrast in the image to make the colours more vibrant. Overall I spent around 26+ hours working on this image.
Despite the ridiculous number of hours I spent on this image I feel I could have done more to explore the Idea of Utopia within this image. If I had more time I would have tried adding in more monolithic looking structures in the distant background to give the image a more futuristic metropolis look. I would have also liked to find more boats with sails and various other boat like vehicles to give the image more variety and adding to the realism of the image.
You can interpret the various boat formations as you like. I’ve been told by a few people that the three black boats in the top right surrounded by the small flotilla of little boats gives the impression of an invading force of some sort. Perhaps it is, perhaps its a fleet of visiting dignitaries from a foreign land. It’s open to interpretation.
Overall I really enjoyed working on this project and would like to continue exploring this idea of Utopia versus Dystopia in the future.
