For one of my three subjects within the theme of surveillance I decided that I would like to produce images that replicate that of a security/CCTV camera. I have begun to produce images that have the aesthetic of an image produced by a stereotypical CCTV camera. I spent a significant amount of time studying online images that have been produced by security cameras in order to see which visual qualities they hold. I found from doing this that most of the footage was overlaid with a visual noise, that which you would see as static on an old Television. On Photoshop you are able to add this visual quality to any image using the noise filter. Within this filter you are able to control the density, size and colour of the noise, so when looking at real footage I was able to see that the noise was quite soft however dense, and most of the time coloured to an extent. Therefore when adding noise to my images I made sure that it remained consistent in this manner. Some people may disagree but I feel that adding noise to certain images can make them much more interesting and mysterious as it distorts how the viewer can identify certain parts of the image. Here is a simple example of how the noise filter can alter an image…

Another visual quality of CCTV footage which I have identified is that when monochrome (black and white) the whiter shades within the image has more of a grey tone, as if the image has begun to become slightly inverted. This is again something which can be replicated of Photoshop using the black and white tool and the curves tool. Here Is an example of how this changes the image…

The final visual quality which I have found among the footage which i have looked at is that they have camera time and date tags, such as 12:32:17 or 7:45 18 for example. This as well can be added to an image using Photoshop using the blending tool or the text tool. Here is an example of the final replicated CCTV footage once all of these elements have been added to the original image…