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Posted on 29/07/05 08:54:35 AM |
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Steve Caplin
Administrator Posts: 6838 Reply  |
Contest 56: Housing crash
I know some of you are interested in 'real world' tasks, so here's an example from my day job. This was a commission for an image published in last week's Sunday Telegraph to illustrate a story about the fall in house prices. They wanted a house crashing to the ground and breaking up on impact. It was a really enjoyable piece to do, and you should have fun with it as well. In the original photo, there was another house in front of this one, on the right; I used the Vanishing Point filter in CS2 to rebuild the right hand wall. High res is here.  |
Posted on 29/07/05 4:31:57 PM |
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Neal
Master Manipulator Posts: 322 Reply |
Re: Contest 56: Housing crash
Steve, will we be able to see your finished design? |
Posted on 29/07/05 4:45:57 PM |
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Steve Caplin
Administrator Posts: 6838 Reply |
Re: Contest 56: Housing crash
Oh, if you like - I could post it next Friday. But I wouldn't want it to appear like "OK, you've all had a go, this is the right way of doing it" - I'd hate it to look like that. On the other hand, if you come up with something that's much better than my solution, I'd feel even worse! Shall we just wait and see how it pans out? |
Posted on 29/07/05 8:28:51 PM |
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Atomicfog
Virtual Visualizer Posts: 238 Reply  |
Re: Contest 56: Housing crash
I want to see yours too, Steve. I think your over thinking this situation. _________________ -Atomic |
Posted on 01/08/05 5:16:49 PM |
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Steve Caplin
Administrator Posts: 6838 Reply |
Re: Contest 56: Housing crash
Well, let's see what you guys come up with first! |
Posted on 01/08/05 9:01:03 PM |
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Neal
Master Manipulator Posts: 322 Reply |
Re: Contest 56: Housing crash
Okay, here's mine. I don't think Bob the Builder can save it. I missed last week's challenge, because I got a new client who's in Australia. I was too busy. Unfortunately, I had to resign the account. The time difference was killing me. It's bad enough clients want their work done yesterday, but when I spoke to this client, it was already tomorrow.  |
Posted on 01/08/05 9:03:51 PM |
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Steve Caplin
Administrator Posts: 6838 Reply |
Re: Contest 56: Housing crash
I love that statement! Can I use it? Fantastic! |
Posted on 02/08/05 8:01:55 PM |
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BobbyJo
Image Imaginator Posts: 250 Reply  |
Re: Contest 56: Housing crash
I found this one tricky but here it is   _________________ BJ - Image Imaginator |
Posted on 03/08/05 02:44:32 AM |
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mj
Guest Reply |
Re: Contest 56: Housing crash
Sorry couldn't find a pound symbol so I used good ole us dollar sign.  _________________ -Never met a PS'er I didn't like- Will Rogers |
Posted on 05/08/05 09:08:49 AM |
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Steve Caplin
Administrator Posts: 6838 Reply |
Re: Contest 56: Housing crash
This one was obviously tougher than most! Still, it produced three very varied entries, and it's worth looking at each one in a bit more detail than usual. Neal produced a classic - and classy - shot of the house having just fallen to the ground. By placing it on a mountain road, he's giving us strong clues that it wasn't built there: the inappropriate setting strengthens the sense of the house having just fallen from the skies. Each wall has been broken into a separate slab of brickwork, and there are plenty of extra touches here: the ridge line on the right section of roof is curled up convincingly, and the missing tiles on the left help the sense of destruction. I particularly like the rebuilt interior of the roof seen on the far left, and those boxes and bags of trash seen within the house. Only a couple of observations: the shadows seem a little inconsistent - there isn't one beneath the piece of wall on the far right, for instance, and the shadow under the central wall should break as it passes over that lump of masonry beneath. But here's what really jumps out at me: why are the windows all painted black? Once they've popped out of the walls, don't you think they should be transparent? A really good sense of movement in BJ's entry, and I see some of that trademark lightning has crept in again. And the glass has been taken out of the windows! Yay! This one was actually more painstaking than it might appear at first glance. Notice how each element has been given a different amount of perspective to accentuate the chaos: the door and window to the right of it, for example, are flying out at completely different angles - and there's just enough blur to make the point without obscuring it. And each drainpipe has been surgically removed from its retaining wall! The broken roof, the flying tiles and chimney stack, all combine to make this a powerful scene. Only thing I'm not sure about is the background: I don't understand what the ground means, and I've got this nagging feeling you've got the sky upside down. Look out of the window: small clouds at the bottom, big clouds at the top. It's all a question of perspective… There's a definite charm to MJ's entry, and it's got nothing to do with the stone cladding he's applied to that lovely brickwork (shame on you - that's a sure way to bring on wet rot and rising damp, you know). MJ's clearly upgraded to CS2, and is making the most of the Image Warp feature. I really like its ability to create these cartoon distortions! This is a radically different approach to the others, and the lack of destruction suggests that the price is about to bounce back up again. Great blur on the dollar sign, though perhaps I'd have added some 3D effect to it first to make it look more solid. The sky and background, however, suggest you ran out of time on this one! Next time you're out and about with your camera, photograph some grass and other surfaces, and a few blank skies. That's exactly what I always do - which is why I'm never stuck for a realistic backdrop. Which brings me to my own entry. This is the illustration for the Sunday Telegraph newspaper that sparked the whole thing off: 
I decided that, in the wake of the London bombings, I shouldn't make the scene too much one of death and destruction, so adopted a more cartoony approach to the problem. Where Neal chose to present his house in a clearly inappropriate setting, I opted for a regular housing estate to enhance the sense of this being an ordinary building. This is helped by the multiple visual clues: the house next door, the patch of road, and, lastly, the picket fence that shows exactly the housing plot concerned. A few extra details help this scene along. The couple in the foreground not only add a much-needed human element, they also prevent the scene from looking too serious: they're not jokey in themselves, but their pose and location suggests that this isn't a natural disaster so much as an everyday occurrence. Most important of all, however, is the shadow. By placing this at such a distance from the house we're accentuating the fact that the bulk of it is still in mid-air, rather than already on the ground and at an awkward angle. Put your shadows to work! The final trick here is the placement of the horizon. Although I'd originally photographed the house from a standing viewpoint outside it, by moving the horizon high up (and putting the people and the fence correspondingly low) we've located the viewer on a level with the top storey windows. Not standing on the street, then; more like looking out of the bedroom window of the house opposite. The message: this could happen to you, and these are your neighbours. One of those subliminal message type things! |
Posted on 05/08/05 12:58:50 PM |
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mj
Guest Reply |
Re: Contest 56: Housing crash
Thank you for the posting and the lesson. The fine details of subliminal messaging is an area that eludes me at times. I wanted the dollar sign to break through the roof of the home but didn't take the time to do so. I was going for the cartoon look, and missed the mark. _________________ -Never met a PS'er I didn't like- Will Rogers |
Posted on 08/08/05 1:13:51 PM |
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Paul McFadden
Dream Decryptor Posts: 138 Reply  |
Re: Contest 56: Housing crash
Steve Thanks so much for posting the detailed commentary along with your excellent version- that was so educational, and very much appreciated. _________________ |