LIGHT-BOX IDEA

After looking into how X-ray scans work, I have come up with an idea to create a light-box as a method of presenting my final outcomes. In order to create this I will have to have my outcomes printed on acetate sheets, so that they can act as slides to go in a light-box. The inspiration from X-rays was that hard materials absorb x-rays in order to produce a layered image, but with the acetate slides the colour on the slides will absorb light in order to produce an image (X-rays and visible light both being part of the electromagnetic spectrum.) This is because the white from the images will be transparent once printed on acetate, meaning various pieces can be layered in order to create nearly endless combinations of images.

Here are some very quick 5 minute idea drawings for how I would like this light-box to look and function…

I plan to have my favorite outcomes of my white background images to be printed on acetate and then put inside suspension files because this will make sure the slides do not bend or misshape in the light-box.

I plan to make the actual light-box either out of scrap wood or a wine crate, as I will need to make it to fit the dimensions of the suspension files.

Here are two simple Photoshop edits of how I expect the images will look when layered in the light-box…

HOW DO X-RAYS WORK?

As I was basing a large part of this project on the aesthetic of x-ray scans, I thought it would be necessary to look into a simple explanation of how x-ray scans actually work.

So to put it briefly, x-ray scans work as soft materials do not absorb the x-ray radiation, whereas dense materials do. The absorption of the x-ray causes a negative image to be projected onto a photographic plate or the absorption is measured and then used to produce a digital image.

For example with bodily x-rays ‘The beam travels through the air, comes into contact with our body tissues, and produces an image on a metal film. Soft tissue, such as skin and organs, cannot absorb the high-energy rays, and the beam passes through them. Dense materials inside our bodies, like bones, absorb the radiation.‘

Merging Photos

As an experimentation I decided to see what effect it would have on my current images if I was to merge them with urban landscape photographs which I have from my coursework.

Below are the outcomes of this experimentation (Originals Left, Edits Right)…

Although this experimentation is interesting and gives the images another element, I personally think that it makes the images too complicated and possibly over-done.

THRESHOLD EXPERIMENTATION

Just as an experimentation, I decided to see what effect it would have on my images by using the threshold tool in order to get rid of any colours and shades, to see what my images would look like in bold black and white.

Below are some of the outcomes of this experimentation…

Personally I was not as much of a fan of this style of the images, as I believe the element of colour in the images I have previously produced have a high visual value to the image. This lack of colour being the downside of these images, I decided that changing the black for alternative colours could work, and here is what I came up with…

But I was still not a fan of this threshold style. I think this is because the colours within my original images give a lot of visual information about the textures, layers and contrasts of the objects within the images, and this is lost within this style. Therefore I believe this experimentation was unsuccessful in terms of image production, however it has helped me to look at the objects in terms of their shape and their placement.

WHITE BACKGROUNDS

After looking at the work of Jim Golden, I decided to experiment by inverting and enhancing the colours of the images which I have already produced, in order to see how a white background with the real object colourways work in comparison with the inverted colours on black. The outcome of these images is something that I am very satisfied with, as I believe that they have an alternative but equal visual value as the original inverted images. I simply used the curves tool on Photoshop in order to un-invert the images and enhance the colours. I enhanced the colours and I like when they’re enhanced they stand out a lot from the white background, due to the strong contrast. This allows the viewer to have focus simply on the objects without having any surrounding distraction in the images.

Here are the outcomes of this experimentation…

JIM GOLDEN

Jim Golden is a Portland based photographer who in this instance has produced various works which explore the idea of collection and objects. His work is very carefully layed out in order to balance composition and the effect of colour on lighting. The layout of these objects makes many things one collective, which is something I really like about his work.

Below are some examples of Golden’s work which I particularly am a fan of…

His work explores a large number of composure elements such as: Colour, Texture, Pattern, Contrast and Shape.

Here is a link to an article which looks at this particular collection of Golden’s work and the ideas behind it…

https://www.wired.com/2013/09/this-photographer-is-a-high-class-hoarder/

FURTHER OUTCOMES

As I was very satisfied with how my initial outcomes came out, I’ve decided to continue producing images using the same editing and composure techniques in order to produce the following images ,which I believe are strong pieces…

EDITING PROCESS

This post will be a step by step run-through of how I am Photoshopping the images…

The first part of the editing process can be approached in two ways, so I will run through both

Part 1-

Approach 1

 1 – Open one object/photograph in Photoshop.

2 – Use the curves tool in order to invert the image.

3 – Use the curves tool in order to get rid of any surrounding tones that aren’t black (as the black tones are removed later in the process when merging/overlapping the objects.)

4 – Once it is only black surrounding the object, crop the image as close to the object without getting rid of any of the object.

Approach 2 

1 – Open object/photograph, and then crop close to the object.

2 – Use the curves tool in order to remove any tones surrounding the subject that aren’t white.

3 – Then open a second curves tool in order to invert the image (as long as all tones around the subject were white before doing this, then once inverted all surrounding tones will be black.)

Part 2-

1 – By right clicking on the image layers flatten all images that you wish to compose.

2 – Once the images are flattened, open up a new blank Photoshop file

3 – Then use the invert tool to turn the image background black.

4 – Drag the flattened images into this piece.

5 – Position the images as you wish (As you can see, the black of the images overlap…)

6 – In order to remove get rid of the black/ blend the images together, double click on the image layer to open up blending options, in which you can edit how images overlap due to the opacity of certain tones within each image.

7 – In this case the black tones need to be removed from the images, therefore, using the blend mode drop down change ‘Normal’ to ‘Linear Dodge (Add)’ and leave the opacity at 100%. As you can see on the left of the image below, this removes any black tones of the image, but any necessary black in between is filled in by the black background.

3RD PHOTO-SHOOT

Here are the contact sheets from my third photo-shoot. Which follow the same photo-shoot plan and annotations as my first and second photo-shoots…

INITIAL OUTCOMES

Here are some initial outcomes/edits which I have produced with my initial ideas and thoughts in mind. I believe that for a first effort these have come out rather successfully, therefore I plan to take this style of editing and composure forward in this project. I believe that they are a good initial response to the exploration of Maha Malluh’s work and the idea of the x-ray aesthetic.

This was my first outcome in which I used some photographs from earlier in my coursework, as I wanted to see how this style of editing/composure worked visually before using any of the photographs that I purposely took for this project. I was very satisfied with this outcome, therefore I decided to go forward with this idea…

…I believe that these images are well balanced with textures, tones and shapes…

…The way that the objects/subjects contrast with the dark background is also something that I believe is successful with these images…

…Overall as an initial response to my idea which was ‘to photograph individual objects and then use Photoshop to compile and overlay them in order to create images with a similar aesthetic to a mix of the X-rays and of Malluh’s work. However this will require me to find alternative objects which aren’t obvious in order to give the pieces individuality and visual interest within each piece itself. This will be a response to development in technology and the everyday objects that are found around us, and how this development is causing a loss of security and privacy (which will be symbolised by the security X-ray aesthetic as it something that breaks the line of privacy.)’ I believe that they reflect this statement.

I will soon follow up with a blog post on my editing process, so that the way I have edited these images is explained.