Passports are very basic images that’s sole purpose is a means of identification. In the UK the photos are very simple, a clear head shot with a white background however, in a beauty obsessed country like south korea, passport photos are so heavily edited they no longer look anything like the passport owner.
I am going to create two different pieces, one based one the utilitarian style British passports and another heavily Photoshop-ed to fit strange and unrealistic beauty standards.
SHOOT PLAN
| WHEN | WHERE | WHO | NOTES |
| 2:30 03/02/21 | Photography classroom | Tiago | Photography studio not available so need to create white backdrop with A3 paper |
CONTACT SHEET
A lot of these photos need parts of the background cropped out. This is because the photography studio was not available so I had to create my own white backdrop using white A3 card however the card was not big enough and some of the wall can be seen. Some of the photos are not deadpan or central, with my models head often tilted to the side. These photos will not be used for my final piece.
I removed a few more of my selected photos as his hair wasn’t fully pictured. These photo are very central and have a consistent deadpan expression which makes them look like passport photos. For my British passport version all i am going to do is slightly crop the photos.
To create the Korean version I used spot healing tool on Photoshop to remove blemishes and then lightened the images to emulate Korean passports I have seen. I would’ve liked to make more extreme changes to my models facial features however I was limited by my lack of photoshop skills.
To display I copied the same image four times and layed them out in the same format you would get when you had your passport photos taken as I think that it shows the contrast best between the two cultures while also gives a sense of verisimilitude.
