for this image, i used to lasso tool to crop out the eyes from a black and white photo then dragged ut onto a different photo to create this affect.
I copied a picture from google and pasted onto photoshop, I then used the magic wand to get rid of any un needed outlines and dragged to fit into the image.
I didn’t use this idea as it doesn’t represent his identity, only his emotions.
i simply just used to brush tool and drew over their heads, one in black for darkness and one in yellow for purity.
this idea focused more on the energy they present and not mainly on the identity.
identity – favourite place
i uploaded a map from google and copied the outline of jasmine and put it over the map in a new layer, then cropping out jasmine to fit.
I picked these as my chosen images because I feel like they do a good job at portraying this subjects identity/ personality through the setting of a skatepark. The skatepark setting generally comes with a stereotype of a “skater” which makes it easy to portray a personality through simple images. I will be displaying these images as a grid which is an idea I have seen before from previous exams. I will be linking these to some of Corrine Day’s work in which she attempts to portray the vitality/ pressures of youth, as many people would describe skateboarding as an escape from everyday problems.
Photoshoot 2
Final Selections
I picked these for my chosen images as I have a good idea of how I am going to lay out/ edit them to portray the idea of loss of identity, memories of childhood, and mental health. I will be trying to link the use of a decaying building to the deterioration of the mind that comes with time in terms of memories loss and mental health disorders . I will be
I started off with an idea to focus my project around my family, friends and my heritage. I took some photos to experiment but realized I wanted to go a different direction to what I had intentionally planned. Instead my plan will be to focus the project more on myself and the music I listen to because I feel like what style of music you listen to can influence you as a person.
The photoshoots I take will be loosely based off different genres/subgenres of music and how I view them – for example when I think of a style like blues or folk music I picture a scenic photoshoot of a landscape or something peaceful like the sea or night sky however with rock/punk rock or metal I think of a busy photo with lots of things that catch your eye instead of just one main focus.
For my first step I looked at some iconic photos of musicians, particularly in the rock or grunge scene from the past few decades, then picked some that really stood out to me:
I planned to give my photos the same atmosphere as these – some chaotic with a lot of things going on whilst some with one main focus like a few of these above. My original plan was to create a photomontage much like David Hockney or Christian Marclay’s work, but once I began my editing I realized I wanted to use a grid format instead. I then made a mindmap of where I could go and how I could take my photos.
I chose to base my project on photomontage inspired by Raoul Hausmann. I edited the pictures in photoshop to create photomontages like his.
I thought my final pieces came out well. I explored something real and embedded in my family. I worked hard over the 3 days and produced something that i am happy with
I could have taken a better photo of my background, which was taken at an angle
I think this would look neater as a pan shot from the top and would have made my photomontages more effective. I didn’t really plan well enough. If I had planned better I would have realised this before entering the exam.
I also think the idea of picturing my grandads belongings might not have been the best choice because I don’t have many of his items. I could have made more content for this project if I thought of multiple ideas and did other photoshoots.
I can use this to not make these mistakes in a real exam.
After editing my images, I exported them in higher resolution into photoshop to ensure they were good enough quality.
In my experiments below, I was inspired by Joachim Schmid to include halves/bits of faces, and to collage these together, but also collage and photomontage artists like John Stezaker.
I think that the work of John Stezaker and Joachim Schmid work well together, and are similar in some ways, which inspired my experiments below.
Combining my found images of my mum’s old bedroom with an image of her age 17, and a present day image of her. I chose this combination of images to show age identity, as well as to document and comment on the passing of time. I also like the way all the colours of this image go together. with the two monochromatic, Bill Brandt inspired images, and the old photograph with its yellow tones.
Step 1
Step 2
Final edit
Another of my montages/collages. In this experiment, I was trying again to comment on age and environmental identity, by including images of my grandmother on the beach, which is a place of great importance to her. By juxtaposing images of her when she was younger and in the present day, I think a contrast of age and a clear passing of time is communicated. – I attempted to link this piece to Joachim Schmid and John Stezaker by hiding parts of the picture of my grandmother in the present day, which causes the viewer to look carefully at only the parts that are included.
Another of my experiments -here I experimented with adding an old document in the background, which created a vibrant colour contrast. I used an old polaroid of my mum as a child with my grandfather, along with a picture of her when she lived in London, and an abstract picture of her in the present day.
In this edit I wanted to do the same kind of idea as my previous experiments, but with two generations. I used images of my mum and nana from the present day, on the bottom, with a family portrait from the 70s when my family lived in New Zealand, as well as two images of my mum (left) and my nana (right) when they were young. My mum would have been about 20, and my nana a little younger, in her teens. I wanted to produce a juxtaposition of generations in this experiment.
Step 1
Step 2
Final Edit
In this edit, I focused on my mum. I used pictures of her as a baby,( which my grandmother developed at home), as well as some of her in her late teens. I then included two of my Bill Brandt edits, one of which was half covered by the image of my mum when she was younger – I tried to use Joachim Schmid for that bit of the experiment, but used influences from my past collages and John Stezaker in this collage too. I love the way that my black and white edits contrast with the faded film images, and I’m glad I did decide edit in this way.
Joachim Schmid Experiments
Below are my edits specifically inspired by Joachim Schmid.
One of my not so successful edits – I think that in this experiment the colours might have been too contrasting, and I don’t think I got the angles quite right. I tried to improve on this as I went along, and after referring back to Joachim’s work, my experiments became more successful.
My second experiment – I think the angle and placement of my archival image was much better here, which created a much better composition and the two images of my mum blended more seamlessly together.
Another of my experiments – this time focusing on my grandmother. I placed the image of my nana in the present onto a white background, then added a slice of an image of her when she was younger, bringing it out of the border of the first image. I liked the effect it created, adding dimension.
I then added to this edit. I placed two more archival images of my grandmother into the background. I covered my nana’s face on the left, causing the viewer to focus only on the faces in the middle – this was inspired by John Stezaker. The image to the right contrasted nicely with the other image – the image above it concealed parts of the image, leaving just my nana’s feet and hair visible. I kept her hair visible as this is a huge part of her identity, and it shows in this collage, through the passing of time.
My most successful edit – I used an archival image of my mum (left) and my grandmother (right), to show the similarities and differences between them when they were younger. I think that the method of cropping the whole image and placing it on top of another was a better idea that just slicing a part of the image I wanted to add ( with lasso tool), as it created better composed edits.
I first went into Adobe Lightroom to use the black and white effects, I played around with the contrast, exposure, highlights and shadows until I got this edit below.
I then exported the image from Lightroom into Photoshop, to remove shine off the face and cleaned up the image using the airbrush and spot healing brush tools by creating a new layer at 50% opacity and then merging the two layers together.
Above are more black and white edits
Above is a final edit of my portrait compared to portrait I found from my chosen artist Andrzej Steinbach.
Other Edits
I took this photo and played around with different tools in Photoshop such as, the lasso, the marquee tool, the black and white filters and the spot healing brush to create the image below. For the section with the eyes I took another photo and pasted it over using the marquee tool and transformed it into the best fitting position. I then took the photo back into Lightroom and increased different tools such as the texture and clarity to create a beard like effect on the bottom half of the face.
The final edit is placed above a photo by one of my chosen artists.
For this edit I played around with the exposure, contrast, highlights, shadows, whites, blacks, clarity and dehaze tools in Lightroom. I then exported the edit into Photoshop, where I used another photo I found off of google of newspaper headlines and pasted it onto the photo. I then used the lasso tool as well as making the image black and white to make it look more effective. I then used the blur and smudge tool to make it look more realistic. I also cleaned up the background of the image using the spot healing brush. This created the final image below.
Using these 3 photos I created another edit in Photoshop, using the shapes tool and creating a clipping mask I added 2 of the photos into the shapes to create this edit.
I used these 2 images and merged them together on photoshop and changed the opacity of one of them to 50% to give the illusion of a double exposure effect with a happy face and a sad face. I also edited the 2 photos in Adobe Lightroom and increased the contrast and exposure of the images to make them appear lighter as they were quite dark.
From my first shoot I selected my best images using the flagging system on Adobe Lightroom, I chose the photos based on how well they represent one of my chosen photographers, Andrzej Steinbach, the quality of the image taken and the editability of the photo
From my chosen photos I then used the rating system to choose my very best images from shoot 1 to edit and experiment with in Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop.
SHOOT 2
I also used the flagging and rating system for my seconds shoot, to make sure I chose the best images possible for editing.
Best Photos
These 8 photos were selected as my best images as I believe that they included the best lighting and angles out of my photos, as well as, I believe I will be able to edit these photos the best out of all of them to produce the best final images that I would be able to produce.
To begin my selection process, I first went through all my photos from my previous photoshoot.
Then I colour-coded them from green to red – green being photos I would definitely use and red being ones I wouldn’t – for example photos that were blurry or had bad lighting.
Then I went through the list of green-coded photos and chose my favourites. I picked by photos judging by which ones went best with my theme and ones i felt had meaning behind them. Some others didn’t have a meaning but i chose because I thought they would fit well with my overall photo – for example, the statues of angels in the graveyard.
My best photos and why I chose them
PHOTO #1 or 2
For this photo it took a lot of tries to get the perfect shot. I wanted to mimic infamous photos of Pete Townshend from The Who jumping on stage as music is the inspiration behind my photoshoot.
I wanted the lighting to be dimly lit so I would be the main focus of the photo. I like this photo because it captures action in one still shot. I can’t decide between the two which one I prefer so my plan is to either create a double-exposure or settle for one.
PHOTO #3
This is my personal favourite photo out of my photoshoot because I feel it best represents the theme as it gives the 90s grunge-rock feel that I was going for. The photo itself completely changes my personality as from an outside perspective it looks like a concert photo. To make this photo look the way it did we used a slow shutter speed and for motion blur with the flash on to create a blurred photo with orange and yellow tones that to me could represent ‘stage lights’.
PHOTO #4
For this photo I used flash combined with a dimly lit background to put Alex as the main focus. The idea behind this photo was again inspired by the multiple headshots of rockstars, the main inspiration being the photo below of Robert Plant that I used in a previous post once again to go with my theme.
My plan for this photo is to add an ‘overlay’ over the eyes to convey emotion and have the main focus be the photo over her eyes instead of the photo as a whole.
PHOTO #5
Although this photo wasn’t intentionally taken this way, I plan to still use it as i really like it way it turned out – the photo itself again gives me the grunge, Kurt Cobain style vibe that could potentially go well with my intentional plan. My favourite part of the photo is the overlay of the shadows from Alex taking the picture. My idea for this is to maybe combine this photo with photo #3 because they have similar lighting and feel to them.
BACKGROUND IMAGES / OVERLAYS
Through photoshop I am planning to edit these onto my photos either through double/multiple exposure or layering. Each photo used is symbolic of my theme as it gives a nod to the impact music, especially early classic rock had on society as a whole. These images also contribute to my identity as a whole – the records and scrapbook are both my personal belongings – either bought or passed down from family to me.
For my third image, I went to Bouley Bay old hotel and took many photos. I went to this location because I believe derelict buildings are very good places to go to for a photoshoot because there is many things you can take photos of and many things you can do to the image when editing, such as, compare them to when the building was in use.
Original photo
Firstly, I chose one of my favourite images out of 60 and exported it into lightroom to edit the images contrast, texture, exposure and changed it to black and white.
To further develop this edit I cut-out around myself and duplicated and made a layer. Then I did that another 4 times to create 4 cut-outs of myself and further develop this edit.
Next, I lined up all the cut-outs of me next to the actual image of me and thought about how I could make this image look better.
For the first cut-out I changed the opacity to 60%. For the second cut-out I changed the opacity to 40%. For the third cut-out I changed the opacity to 28%. And for the final cut-out I changed the opacity to 20% to create an effect of lack of identity due to the model slowly fading away and showing no skin.
For the final step I added a small feature of a ghost like hand pressing up against the widow to the right of the image. I did this to create a sense of darkness and evil so it can slightly confuse the viewer.
the contrasting effect of the blurred faces and the faces in the background portrays judgement, confusion is shown. The light which rejects off of them is light meaning they give off radiant energy.
She is trying to relate to other peoples identity, we gain attributes and traits from other people.
I chose a cold darker lighting for this photo to create a dull emotion as there is no emotion on her face, as her face has been distorted the only way emotion can be shown is through the lighting and contrasts. The way her face isn’t in the middle of the shot, is showing a dramatized ragged look. No perfection
this is an interpretation of lost and hidden identity, the distortion of the face shows how his identity is lost but perhaps being hidden by his flaws.
