9.11.11

Images of Azeroth: 50,000 Words (10/50)


Stormwind after Deathwing

If there is one thing that ruins screenshots for me, at least in terms of photo-realism, is the lack of depth-of-field. Video games render all scenes in perfect clarity, but what I want to see is a little bit of blurring of the background or foreground. It's a very old photography technique to not only enhance the sense of depth in an image, but to also emphasise and draw the eye to the most important part of the image. In this image of Stormwind, I added a progressive blur to the background, which forces the eye to the towers up front.
 


Of Light and Darkness
A lot of my more recent photography work has been exploring motion. I've been working with a lot of camera movement trying to reduce the realism of the photograph, because if there is one thing that is hard to do as a photographer it's to create a truly abstract image. This particular image has a great deal of extreme camera movment, and because of this the image has a distinct feel of unreality to it. It actually reminds me of a painting; the streaks of light the brushstrokes.



Angelya over at Revive and Rejuvenate has come up with another Challenge that I, as a Photographer and self-styled Visual Artist, am very excited about. It's IntPiPoMo, or International Picture Posting Month. As a picture is worth 1,000 words, the goal for this challenge is to post 50 pictures during the month of November. I will be posting 25 Images of Azeroth and 25 photographs or art projects that I have been working on personally (and no baby photos, sorry ladies). As well, I will be posting commentary and context with each image.

Please note that all World of Warcraft screenshots are copyright Blizzard Entertainment. The photographs are copyright Brad Stover and should not be reused without permission..

3 comments:

  1. Now that is a very unique shot of Stormwind. Makes it look like a theme park entrance!

    Where is the second abstract piece from?

    - Jamin

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  2. lol, I hate giving context to "abstract" photographs since your mind is just aching to provide a context for it. The lovely thing about abstract art is that the viewer sees what they want to see in it, not necessarily what is actually there.

    That being said, it is an image of trees with sky showing between them (the bright blue streak). If you enlarge it and look carefully you can still see a surprising amount of detail in the trees, despite the crazy camera movement. This is achieved by keeping the camera still for a portion of the exposure, and then having the camera movement "wash" over the details.

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  3. Indeed you are right, good statement :)

    Thanks for the response!

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