On October 10th, 2016 as part of our VFX Course, we started our first project, Astronomic: Experiment, or as we all call it, Astro. For the next 6 weeks, we had to come up with 10 HD plates assimilating any space or astronomic phenomena, with limited use of any editing software. We needed to take pictures in a creative way so it looked as if the images were from space. Using Photoshop we could layer them together, scale them down (but not up) and use blending modes. Only with this techniques, I was able to create the images above.

As any other project, this one had its challenges and complications. One of them was the trial and error with many objects. As humans, we are not used to taking pictures that end up looking as space. We are always looking to frame the perfect moment or the best scene but in this case, I need to be creative and try things I would never imagine. For example, in the picture of Astro_1, the big giant planet is a gum that I took a picture against a black background. Also a creative way to make the stars was using black paper and sprinkle some white paint with an old tooth brush, this create the effect of stars in the space that I could use as a background in many of my images. Another challenge was to capture the perfect angle. As I was not allowed to rotate or crop the image I need to take the picture from the right angle and hope it would work. for example if I wanted the image to be vertical I couldn't rotate in photoshop, I had to take the picture vertical with the camera. 

This project help me understand better the light and how it affects different objects. I had a lot of fun making this project because I needed to experiment with different lighting, angles, objects and andy crazy idea I had I tried to make it to see if it would work. 

Our course leader, Saint John Walker, explained to us, this projects get us thinking outside the box. Sometimes in the VFX World we would be ask to make something without any software or just with very limited tools. Astro project helped all of us to understand the importance of the camera material and how important it is to capture everything perfect to have better results in post-production.