SIXTEEN9 by Keith Kin Yan

The SIXTEEN9 series came about through a combination of procrastination at work and drunken discussion fueled inspiration.

I've gotten into quite a few discussions with photographers and motion graphics artists about the post-process in digital photography. We've gotten into the "is this really photography" discussion so often that I can hardly give a flying fuck what people think what is and what isn't nowadays. It's an image, like it, hate it, get over it.

But it got me thinking. During my day job I've done a lot of image enhancement work with film and video footage that I've really liked, but I had yet to consider applying it in the photography realm. Maybe it was time to give it a go.

I apply different techniques and tools I use in each realm to get the look I want. I tend to be more aggressive and much more heavy handed with enhancement in my motion work (a lot of filters, masking, etc. - a healthy dose of computer generated enhancements). Whereas with my photography work I tend to only stick to things I can do under adjustments, keeping it a little more pure (heh, all things cannot exist without at least a hint of irony).

I decided to see what would result if I applied the level of work I do to my video, to my photos. What if I treated my photos like footage? Better yet, what if I used video apps to work on my photos?

So here's the premise of the SIXTEEN9 series:

Shoot and treat 9 shots to look like they were screen captures from a single movie.

Make all adjustments and enhancements in my video application of choice: Adobe Aftereffects (the RAW images were processed via C1 SE.)

Work in the 16x9 HDTV format (resolution of 1920x1080, 1080i/1080p if you are a real dork).

And finally crop, cut, slam, treat, filter, and bitchslap the image to my heart's content.

For more work by Keith Kin Yan, please visit The Artist Showcase.