Student Work: Surreal Composition

One of the projects that students work on in my Digital Imaging class is to create a surrealistic image that combines 5-7 images into a single composition. The goal is to not only create an interesting composition, but to have the lighting, shadows, and effects all appear natural, and to make the composite images look like they were part of the original photograph. I selected this particular piece, by student William Deem, as a great example of creating a good looking and interesting composition. I think his lighting is dramatic, and the appearance and message that the composition conveys well fits the surreal concept.

William provided the following statement about his piece and some comments about the process of creating the piece:

Title: "The River"Meaning: This piece depicts the U.S. and its need/greed of oil. The sharks represent the U.S. military aircraft and the hook represents an anchor of the U.S. navy. Ms. Liberty is slightly sinking in the sand representing her overspread military forces around the world. The river of oil is what is being protected or taken from the foreign nation represented by the child with the instrument. The boy may be alarming its citizens or may be sounding off for war. Disclaimer: This is not a personal viewpoint.

This piece had some challenges. One of the challenges was getting the reflection of the child to appear in the oil as a true reflection. The challenge was met by duplicating the child layer the flipping it vertically. The boy's reflection needed to be transparent so I selected the child and deleted 'his area' from the river background making it a black background so the mountains wouldn’t be inside his reflection. I set the transparency to the appropriate level then merged the reflection to the background. The next step was to make the river move, so I duplicated the river onto its own layer without the surrounding elements. Using the Liquefy filter I made some movement in the water being sure not to make it too wavy and ensured it was all moving one direction. I also used the match color tool located in layer adjustments for getting the colors of everything to go together. I didn't always go with the default and had to use the slider bars to match the hue/saturation. Using the burn/sponge/dodge tools I changed the position of the shadows on the objects to match the lighting in the scene.

The psychic lines of Liberty and the sharks along with the implied lines of the hook and river draw the viewer's eye to the child after first noticing the anchor surrounded by the blackness of the oil. The psychic line of the child's eyes and implied line from the horn along with the contour line of the mountains bring the eyes back to the sharks and Liberty creating Harmony and Rhythm. The wavy reflections in the oil add a sense of motion to the oil as it flows freely like a river past and around the anchor. The scale of the hook creates emphasis because of its larger than life size. Balance and unity is created with repetition of sharks and placement of objects using the canvas evenly. The color creates a warm feeling with the contrast of the river drawing the eye. The smooth texture of the river adds to the oil/fluid feeling.

William 'Bill' Deem

Ridgecrest Bytes

ridgecrestbytes.com