Week 1: Surrealism

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Having previous experience in photography, i'm really interested in the theme of Surrealism. But i wanted to find out some background information on it first to help gather ideas for possible themes.

What is Surrealism? 
https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/phsr/hd_phsr.htm
Surrealism is a 20th century movement which aimed to release the creative potential of the unconscious mind.
'Photography came to occupy a central role in Surrealist activity. In the works of Man Ray and Maurice Tabard, the use of such procedures as double exposure, combination printing, montage, and solarization dramatically evoked the union of dream and reality. Other photographers used techniques such as rotation or distortion to render their images uncanny.'

Features of Surreal images that can be used in Photoshop:

Blur
People associate blur with unusual modes of perception, it can connotes feelings of dizzines, moving rapidly, spinning and being disorientated. In these different states of mind, we see the world in a different way. Objects lose their boundaries and everything blends in together, we can feel like we are falling or spinning. This technique of blur can be used in images to recreate the feelings of dizziness or a dis-orientated state. Photographers create these effects using a variety of techniques: by spinning, shaking, panning, and racking the camera lens; by slowing down shutter speed; by opening apertures wide to create shallow depth of field.

Intensified and unusual color
When editing an image you can change the hue and colour saturation to give your image an intensified effect. By magnifying and altering colors, we can expand the scope of emotional and symbolic expression that colors offer us. We create a world of hues and color saturation that reflect our personal subjective reality, rather than the objective one.

Composites and blendings
In photography we can build several elements to an image images either by multiple exposures, layering images on top of each other in an image editing program, or shots into reflective surfaces like water, glass, mirrors, and metal. By doing so we create a surreal distorting and merging of spaces, scenes, objects, people, and time frames. We present not just one reality, but several blended into each other. This is how the unconscious works.

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