Comparing one of my final image to  Jesse Treece (my chosen photographer)

Overall I think I have been inspired by my chosen photographer very well as she uses photo montage/layering which is what I had to do in order to produce my final image.

Technical-I took both of my images in the day light which consists of natural lighting on a sunny day in order to get a nice colour of the sea. However Jesse’s images are more cartoon like therefore you cant tell whether she actually took those images or copied from a different source, however both of our images are in the day as you can see the light blue sky reflecting on the water in her image, implying its day time. Jesse’s image is definitely more over saturated and brighter as the colours of the cars pop out and the white mountain contrasts sharply against the darker background. Compared to my image that hasn’t been saturated as much in order to keep it natural as I didn’t want to use mountains in my pictures as Jersey doesn’t have them. Both of our images create quite a cold tone/temperature to having more blues and darker colours in the image than more oranges and reds, this creates a more sad atmosphere. Both of our images have been taken from a more wider and further away angle. By doing this we both captured more of the image and there’s a lot more to look at and analyse than a close up photo, as both photos are landscape in my opinion they look best when taken the furthest away.

Visual- Both of our images are in colour which makes the image brighter and easier to analyse as sometimes black and white photos can hide details due to the colours all blending together. I cropped my image down to not get as much sky in it as I wanted the main focus of the image to be the urban section and where I manipulated the image the most. Whereas Jesse’s image probably hasn’t been cropped down as it has the mountain as its highest view then the reflective middle section and the cars at the bottom, broken down into 3 sections, this can make the image appear more longer whereas mine has more of a square shape. We both use aspects of natural and urban environment. Such as , I used the sea/coast for my natural and Jesse used a river or water bank and the mountains. I then used buildings and a section of our town in Jersey whereas Jesse used cars and a big museum like building in her image that’s being reflected on the water.

Conceptual- We both wanted to contrast two images together to juxtapose opposite ideas, such as I wanted to show how our natural environment will eventually get built on top of or turned into a city if we don’t do anything to protect our land, showing what we humans do to our planet linking it to the theme of anthropocene. Whereas Jesse’s image shows a natural environment ( the mountains) and reflects a building onto the river showing what it can and most likely will get turned into.

From my chosen images in the previous blog post I am going to use photoshop in order to edit my images together.

Firstly I upload my chosen image of st ouens as my starting image as I want to edit over the bay and beach. I then open up a second image of my chosen urban image, I find sections and areas of the image that I think will look good and fit over the coastal image best. Once I’ve figured that out I use the ‘ Quick Selection Tool’ and cut out the parts that I want to use over my first image, I copy that specific area and paste it on top of the image of st ouens. I then moved and dragged it around until it fit into the perfect space and where the buildings looked the most natural. The last tool I use is the ‘Eraser’ tool in order to smooth out the edges on the buildings and to blend the two images together to make it look more realistic.

I want to show the original photos first in order to show how I’ve changed and manipulated them using Photoshop skills and the urban images

These are the main images I used for my background / the ‘original’ images;

before and after-

My final and edited images;

Overall, I’m extremely happy with how my photo-shop/ editing turned out. I used all the sections of the urban photos that I wanted to and the most built up areas in order to create this idea of what the future might look like. I used 3 main coastal images that I used as my background/ base image each time as they were the most open and clear images that allowed me to have plenty of space to edit on and paste buildings into. I used a mix of rows of buildings and buildings from the harbor to create different ideas and impacts. I kept four of my images in colour as my chosen photographers also edit their photos in colour, however I did change one image into black and white to create a more sad atmosphere as the changes in an ‘anthropocene’ topic mostly have a negative effect on our planet. I wanted to explore this idea through building up our natural environments , the beach, with buildings.

Before I was happy with my final 5 images I experimented a few times to make sure I was happy and confident with the ‘Quick Selection’ tool and I would be able to neatly and precisely cut out the buildings I want to use over my St. Ouens images. It also took me some time to make sure I adjusted the shape and length of the buildings that I wanted to use right and they fit into the shape of the bay well enough to make it look natural.

When I was editing I used the ‘eraser’ tool almost every time I pasted in a new section to make sure there were no random edges or background colours that looked wrong and unnatural over my original image. When I was placing and re sizing the images I always wanted to make sure my longer and further away town images were at the back of the coastal image to make it look as naturally placed as I could. Therefore, I then used the photos of the harbor and the roads a lot closer when I edited them over St.Ouens to create an illusion of those buildings being the closest.

When I finished using my Photoshop tools and all the final digital manipulation, I merged or flatted all the images down into one and adjusted the brightness,saturation and contrast to give a more warm and brighter finish. The last part of my editing process was cropping the image down. My original images had a lot of the sky showing therefore I cropped almost more than half of it to make the editing/buildings the main focus as it was placed in the center of the overall image.

For my two photo shoots , I took photos of st ouens and the coastal/bay area of Jersey for my first shoot. For my second shoot I went up to fort regent in order to capture the urban area of Jersey with plenty of builds. I chose to photograph those areas for my shoots in order to be able to edit them together and successfully produce my final image that fits into the theme of Anthropocene.

contact sheets-

I have selected my favourite images or the images I will be using to make my final image and to use when I edit them on Photoshop. I chose the photos that captured the whole bay in a clear way and I wanted to make sure it was very open with some sand to make the edited buildings on it look more natural. I also selected the images where I photographed the most amount of buildings and from a good angle to make editing them easier and look more natural. Having more space and open areas will create a better and bigger impact on my final image as I’ll be able to add more buildings and move them around until they fit perfectly and look the most natural.

With these chosen photographs I’m now going to use Photoshop and edit them together. My Anthropocene idea is to show how our bay/ coastal areas will most likely turn into urban areas or get built on top of which fits into the Anthropocene project. By using Photoshop for this I will successfully produce my final images and take inspiration from my chosen photographers as they both use photo manipulation too.