Photography
Photography
* Transforms the passing moment of a three dimensional event into a frozen instant reduced in size on a flat piece of paper. * Transforms a three dimensional composition into two dimensional.

Uses of Photography in the Philippines

* Portraiture * In the Philippines, the first forms of photos were of the size of calling cards called cartes de visite (4” x 2 ½”) and the tarjeta (3 ½” x 5 ½”) used for mailing as a postcard. * In the 1800’s, photo studios sprouted in Sta. Cruz, Binondo and Quiapo. * Life-size photos are hung in living rooms and became status symbols.

* Research and Documentation * Photo journalism became a field which shows a visualized history through photos captured in actual events.

* Travel and Tourism * Photos are used widely to promote the beauty of the country like photos of colorful festival celebrations, beautiful tourist spots and night life posted in the net and magazines.

* Propaganda * Used as an effective communication tool to promote political messages. * Photos are also incorporated in the campaign materials of the government.

* Advertising * Photographs are used to sell products, services and personalities. * Billboards and print ads used photographs more than text to sell.

* Artists’ tool and art medium * Augusto Fuster is the first painter who used photographs to composed pictures as paintings. * Photographs are also used by artists as reference of their subjects like Fernando Amorsolo, Mauro Malang Santos and Ang Kuikok. * Photographs are incorporated into collages and constructivist works. * Like other arts, it is also a form of an individual’s artistic expression.

What to look for when taking and looking at photos

* Content * Consider the content. Stop for a moment and decide which part of the scene you really want to show. * Get closer to eliminate distracting objects and simplify the content. Reduce the busy background by focusing the attention on the main subject.

* Frame * The frame or edge of a picture isolates part of a larger scene. You can choose to frame your subject in objects around the subject. * Hold your camera horizontally if the subject is horizontal and vertically if the subject is vertical.

* Background * Change your position if the background is not important to the subject. * You can choose to blur background to focus your subject by setting your lens to a wide aperture.

* Spot/Line * Look for a spot against a contrasting background to attract attention. This is good if the subject itself is a spot. * A line is a shape that is no longer than it is wide. Lines give direction by moving the eye across the picture. * Look for lines in the background or in the subject that will be helpful to focus your attention to the picture.

* Shape/Pattern * A shape is always two-dimensional but tonal changes across an object can give the illusion of depth. Look for the interesting shapes as subjects. * Objects that are close together can be seen as a single shape. * The repetition of spots, lines, or shapes makes a pattern which adds interest and unites the elements in a scene. * Take photos of pattern that can make your photos interesting.

* Emphasis/Balance * Emphasis on an element will direct attention of the viewer. Try to emphasize a subject by showing it in a setting against which it stands out. * A centered symmetrical arrangement, the same on one side as it is on the other will make you feel balanced but it is sometimes boring. * Try an off-center, asymmetrical arrangement especially when showing movement. * Using Contrast of Sharpness * Motion can be photographed sharp when you used a fast shutter speed to freeze the motion. * Or you can use a slow shutter speed to deliberately blur the motion.

* Using Contrast of Light and Dark * Contrasts between light and dark draws a viewer’s eye. Choose subjects that show contrast in color or light and dark.

* More choices in Framing * The horizon line is the dividing line between land and the sky. To position it, divide the frame horizontally into three parts, and then position the horizon line in the lower or upper third. * Consider the rule of thirds in placing your subject in the frame. Divide the frame into three parts horizontally and vertically. Position your important subject in the intersections of the lines.

* Perspective and Point of View * Perspective creates the illusion of three-dimensionalism in two dimensional photographs. * Focus an object sharply to make it appear bigger than the out-of-focus ones. * Position some subjects in the foreground; if similar objects are farther away, the viewer will make the size comparisons that indicate depth. * You can choose to change your position in taking photos like shooting from a higher or lower than the eye level. * Changing your point of view can make the photograph more noticeable. * When taking from a lower point of view the subject appears bigger and from an upper point of view makes it appear somewhat smaller.

Commercial Arts

Commercial Arts- uses art and its elements to introduce products and services to big audience. It uses mass media in presenting products. Here, the art is used as a tool for the public to appreciate and buy what is being sold.

Commercial Art * A sub sector of creative services and refers to art created for commercial purposes, primarily advertising. * Requirements of good packaging * Appropriately designed for target market * Eye-catching * Suitable to product * Compliant with retailers’ requirements * Promotes image of enterprise * Distinguishable from competitor’s products * Strong, convenient, well-designed * Point of difference in service and supply of product * Difference in uniform product design – “to look & feel” from the packaging (the box) to the product itself. * Requirements of a good advertisement * Attract attention * Stimulate interest * Create a desire * Bring about action

Billboard * A large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. * Presents large advertisements to passing pedestrians and drivers. * Shows large, witty slogans and distinctive visual.

Kinds of Billboards * Bulletins – the largest, has great standard size and located primarily on major highways, expressways or principal arterials. Bulletins afford greatest visibility due not only to their size, but because they allow creative “customizing” through extensions and establishments. * Posters – the other common form of billboard advertising, located chiefly in commercial and industrial areas on primary and secondary arterial roads. Posters are a smaller format than bulletins and are viewed principally by residents and commuter traffic, with some pedestrian exposure.
Sculpture

Functions of Sculpture * Functions in religion. Sculptures are used for instructional purposes to teach the beliefs of the church. * Sculptures used to commemorate individual or events, maybe a major or a historical one. * Sculptures are used as tombstones. * Another functional used of sculpture is the coin that bears relief or symbols of the country it represents.
Types of Sculpture in the Philippines * Colonial sculptures * Examples of these are the wood carvings and santo for the churches due to the Christianization of the early Filipinos. * Artists were under the close supervision of the friars since they could not practice art without ecclesiastical permission. * There are different styles of santo like: * The Archaic look that resemble the characteristics of anitos. * The hieratic santos that are often pallid and milky-white ivory, clothed in rich material that emphasizes the otherworldly and divine. * The classical santo is much simpler, often carved from wood, polished and unpainted, sometimes polychromed. * The realistic santo brings out human qualities and conveys that the saint is made of flesh and blood like mortals. * The expressionist santo emphasizes on the emotional quality of the figure to inspire and stir the feelings of the viewer and to move their greater faith, repentance of sins and mend ways at the sight of sufferings and saints.

* Early Secular Sculptures * First paintings appeared near the 19th century after the announcement of the royal decree allowing artists to seek their subjects from the familiar environment. * Busts or portraits, tipos del pais, symbolic and animal subjects, tableau-reliefs were examples of sculptures made by artists.

* Folk Sculptures * Folk woodcarvers take particular pride in creating a piece from a single block of wood. A good woodcarver is tested when he could create something beautiful out of a piece of wood without resorting to attaching parts with the glue. * Some subjects of folk sculpture are from myth and local legend, from their belief and local practices, traditions, and history.

* Classical Sculptures * Classical sculptors created nude, which in the classical art, is the basis of ideal form. * The back of the statues came to life as part of the dynamic form. * Jose Rizal, Marcelo Nepomuceno and Guillermo Tolentino are some of the classical sculptors who presented their ideas in nude sculptures.

* Contemporary Sculpture * It was in the postwar Fifties when modern sculpture made its appearance in the country in the work of Napoleon Abueva. * Sculptures are created from vast array of materials and artistic resources. * Assemblages, sculpture in mixed media, multimedia and intermedia, junk sculpture, compositions with found objects, installations of indigenous materials are examples of contemporary sculptures.

Asian Architecture

Tallest ‘Buildings’

This chart ranking is based entirely on the buildings ‘Height to the structural or architectural top’.

# Building City Height Floors Year 1. Taipei 101 Taipei 1,671 ft (509m) 101 2004 2. Petronas Tower 1 Kuala Lumpur 1,483 ft (452m) 88 1998 3. Petronas Tower2 Kuala Lumpur 1,483 ft (452m) 88 1998 4. Sears Tower Chicago 1,450 ft (442m) 108 1974 5. Jin Mao Tower Shanghai 1,380 ft (421m) 88 1998 6. Two International Hong Kong 1,362 ft (415m) 88 2003
Finance…
7. CITIC Plaza Guangzhou 1,283 ft (391m) 80 1997

Philippine Architecture

Sources of and Influences in Philippine Architecture

1. The Southeast Asian Tradition * Similar features in house are found in Southeast Asia, namely, pile or post construction, saddleback roof, and decorative gable-finials shaped like carabao horns. These can be seen in bahay kubo and Badjao’s houses lifted on the water by posts. * The function of the house is mainly for sleeping, cooking and storage for grain and valuables that it has one room and a storage below it. Most of the activities happen outdoors during day-time.

2. Islamic Influence * Islam discouraged depiction of the deity and of human being. * Dominance of abstract patterns are found in Islamic art. * Okir carvings are found in the panolong of the Maranao torogan and masjid or mosques. * Islam also introduced two types of mosques: * Ranggar – a sort of chapel, small and semi-permanent structure built for faithful who are living in farther places. * Masjid – larger and more permanent structure built on stone foundation often near a stream or body of water. 3. Spanish Influence * Spanish colonization has brought much influence and style in the different architecture built during their time. * Churches were built following designs of major architectural designs that flourished in the West during their times under the strict supervision of the clergy. * Bahay na bato were built changing the one room design of bahay kubo for the different activities of families who belong to the principalia class. * Among the architectural styles that influenced the Philippine architecture are Greek, Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, Rococo and the Revivalist.

4. American Influence * From 1901 to 1946 the strong influence of American media introduced European and American styles of architecture into the Philippines. * Art Nouveau rediscovered the power and vitality of the line which is used in most designs of walls, floors, grilles, furniture, etc. While it is naturalistic, it could also be abstract exploiting the potentials of pure line and pure form. * Art nouveau is better known as a decorative style than as an architectural idiom. * Modern architecture represents radical departure from or rejection of what has been traditionally accepted. From the sense of the term, this is the architecture of the present. * This character of art was acquired by the advance science of construction. * New materials and new methods of buildings gave rise to new forms. * Function dictated form, and building was to express its function by the truthfulness of its form. * Simplicity is applied to designs not only to reduce the ornaments but to show the purity of form and to employ only what was essential. * “Less is more” was another dogma of design.

Philippine Churches

Spanish Term Part of the Church 1. Campanario bell tower 2. Altar mayor main altar 3. Sagrario tabernacle 4. Crucero cruciform plan 5. Camarin delos campaneros bellringer’s quarters 6. Paredes walls 7. Postigo smaller door in the front 8. Coro baxo choir box 9. Facistol choir lectern 10. Langit-langitan ceiling under the dome