I wanted to see what else I could create with my final images- here are some edits I have created of my final stitched pieces. The quality is lower as these are re-photographed.

For this image, i wanted to highlight the biometric science of eyes and identity. By removing his eyes I am some what removing his technologically recognised identity.

This image I have created to highlight the multiple identity’s someone may have.

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Photo-montage editing

I have got some old headshots of my mum and my dad which I have halved and put together to create a montage of their faces. I used photoshop to do this as I am able to layer the two images on top of each other to get this effect of the spilt faces. I also used the cropping tool to take off the white boarder which was around the two photos, I did this because they were hard to line up as the faces are different sizes, in the end the final photo looked better without them. After editing them on photoshop imported the new montage into Lightroom where I increase the exposure and adjusted some others like contrast and whites so that it didn’t look to dark but also so its not to bright as well.

I found some old pictures of my Granny and Grandad from when they would go on day trips, as they could only take photos of each and none together, I have taken the picture of my Granny and put her into the picture with my grandad. As they had taken the photos in the same place it was easy to match the surrounds in each picture, I have cropped the individual picture of my Granny so that you can only see her and moved it top my Grandad’s picture. Once I got it so the railing they were both sitting on lined up I used the history brush tool to take away the background that was still surrounding my granny and to show the scenery behind my Grandad. As the photo below my Granny’s is more blurry I decreased the opacity slightly so that they look more similar and not out of place. I then moved the final montage to Lightroom to fix the lighting and just make the image brighter.

Carolle Benitah Inspired

One of the photographers that I have chosen, often used different materials such as paint, embroidery or beading to create her pieces. On photoshop I have tried to recreate that but I have experimented with different colours and brush types. In Benitah’s photos she used gold paint but I have chosen red as it links with the other photographer I have chosen and will link with the other ideas that I have. I decided to paint over the people in the background as I thought it was to plain to leave with it just over my dads face.

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I like that is Benitahs style you are taking old photos and creating and giving them a new meaning, You are also able to direct the attention of the viewer to whoever/whatever you want in the photo.

I have taken some ideas from Benitah and adapted them into what suits my photos, I didn’t just want to leave this photo with just a red streak over the eyes so I outlined her body so that it stands out from the background. I used the same tools on photoshop as the ones above as well as a mixer brush over the eye so that it replicates a brush stroke, light at the beginning and slowly gets more pigmented.

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Yoshikatsu Fuji Inspired

I am planning on adapting one of Fujis ideas the ‘Red String’ book which they have got many awards and recognition for. Once my final outcomes are printed out I would like to put them into a black frame and connect each one of them with red string. I am going to be using the red string as a link between all of my final images. I like how Fuji crops his photos, on the front cover of his book he has his parent wedding photos with their heads cropped off, even without the key feature of someone’s identity the photo still tells a big part of their story. There is also a photo where their coloured wedding photo is crop off at his mum and layered on another black and white photo years later of his mother at the beach, this shows how his mother has aged and matured but is still the same person who his father married. I have tried to do something similar with one of the old headshots of my mum and dad, I had already edited half of their faces together but I got two photos from a few years after and edited their eyes onto the headshots.

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Once these have been printed I would like to add embroidery to the bottom half of the photo which is taking from Carolle Benitahs style. I would do it at an angle which would go from the bottom left to the middle of the right side of the photo. I didn’t want to do this in photoshop as I thought I would look better with a different material added onto it.

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For this image I exported it from Lightroom and into photoshop where I used the line tool which I coloured red so that it would link in with the other images and the red string that I will be using once they are framed. I made triangles which came from the sides of the photo and crossed over many parts which highlighted different elements of the photo like my dads face, hands and legs. I then used the lasso tool to select the triangle which I turn black and white so that they would standout more against the coloured background. With some of the triangles I slightly moved them so they wouldn’t be lined up exactly to make the final piece more interesting and eye catching.

initial edits on Lightroom

for my final images I wanted the simplicity of black and white as it doesn’t pull focus away from the actual images it also allows for more depth and the shadows create a good balance against the contrast of the head piece. I also wanted to keep them as close to my chosen artists theme of identity loss.

For all my images I adjusted the WB and the contrast in order to bring more depth into my images once they were turned into black and white I also cropped them to allow for a cleaner finish.

The coloured images lack a certain brightness which helps to pull focus to the more defiant facial features such as the lips and eyes as a persons eyes can tell you a lot about them and how they perceive themselves or portray themselves to others around them. The contrasting cool and warm tones go hand in hand with the softer and harsher shadows in the first images which make them a more correlated final outcome.

for the coloured images I wanted to focus on not losing the brightness of the red tones in the lipstick as it was one of the main focal points of this shoot. I strategically chose to make two images cooler tones in order to show an almost dark and mysterious side to her identity and two warmer tones to show a sense of calmness and youthfulness through a more playful tone.

final images after Lightroom

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reworking ideas

idea 1: print off these two images and stitch the mouth closed to add contrast to the red of the lipstick I’ll either use black or tan thick thread in order to use colours that are already in the images.

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I printed the images on A4 paper and used adhesive to glue them to some card so they wouldn’t rip when sown threw I then made a selection of a thicker almost yarn like thread to pull more focus in the images.

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Idea 2: Double exposure on photoshop to create a set of dream like images and add a factor of surrealism to my identity project. These are the images I will use to achieve this.

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Final Double Exposures

i used 2 black and white images and one in a cool tone to create a good contrast and made sure to use different angles and poses in order to create a sense of chaos to the images.

comparison

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Both mine and Andreas use a head piece to create a sense of mystery as to who the person under it is although my subject is more visible than his it still holds the same feeling of loss of identity through the facial expressions.

My image is taken at a different angle with a smoother lighting which creates less focal points and mine opposes his full loss of identity through having some of the more prominent facial features exposed.

I started by doing small adjustments to each image which included increasing the sharpness, contrast etc on Lightroom before beginning to experiment with colours.

Experiments

————– Experiment 1: ——————

For this image, I wasn’t sure whether I wanted a dark image with the light being the only thing lit up in the photo or whether I wanted a really bright and colourful image so I decided to attempt both and choose which one I liked better.

I decided to combine both these ideas, focusing on adding one colour to the the foggier image which led to this:

I like the way this edit turned out and I’d like to try and use it as a part of my final project, however, I do think I’ll struggle to make it work with the rest of my images due to how different and vibrant it is.

————– Experiment 2: ——————

For this image, I knew I wanted to use the light in order to reveal something although I wasn’t sure how I wanted it to look so I experimented with a few ideas I had.

My favourite out of the 3 experiments is the second one as I like how simplistic it is which is emphasized by the lack of colour, allowing the images to blend together better than the other experiments. I like the ideas of creating a collage using my portraits and am thinking about using something similar as a part of my final project.

I decided to create my virtual gallery on a website called Artsteps.

On this website you can walk around the spaces you make.

This was my process of creating this gallery

First I chose my space to work with. I chose this space.

I started to place my photos on the walls.

I chose to split the space into sections. I did this to make the gallery look neater

I chose to use this section to show my process in making my photomontages. I thought this was a good feature to add to my gallery.

To explore what identity means to me I decided to focus on my cultural heritage. My idea is to take portraits of myself and edit them to reflect my identity and to make them more interesting to look at. I enjoy the work of photographers like Carolle Benitah, and Dryden Goodwin, and wish to incorporate their editing styles into my final pieces.

Photo shoots-

Saris-

My plan is to sew the patterns from the saris my family owns onto portraits. Saris (sometimes spelled ‘sarees’) are a traditional South Asian garment and my family own quite a lot because that is where my mum’s side of the family is originally from. They are significant to me because I would never normally get to wear one, despite it being a part of my cultural heritage. I did the photoshoot during the Christmas holidays in preparation for the project.

I did a second shoot in the studio so I could get better images, I will be using the images from that. In the studio I put them onto a white background so they can be the main focus, and just used the basic lights already on in the room.

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To edit them I mostly increased the brightness, contrast and saturation.

I most liked the patterns of the white one and the pink one, and also like how the pink one looks photographed. Pink Saris are often associated with femininity while white is often associated with purity and new beginnings, but also has connections with mourning and death. The patterns on the fabric themselves often do not have much meaning, at least, the one’s owned by my family.

Portraits-

The second shoot I am planning is some portraits which could be used to draw on or embroider into. I will take this portraits in the studio so I can use the best lighting setup I can get. These images need to be high quality as they will be used as a base for my final products.

I edited them using a variety of styles, keeping some in colour and others in black and white. I was thinking of doing another photo shoot so I had more pictures to choose from but could not find the time.

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IMAGE EDITING/EXPERIMENTATION

SET #1

The first set I chose to edit was on violence and restraint, I really liked the first image as it reminded me of the underground punk movement in the 70s- which was fuelled by violence and soon became mainstream thanks to the likes of The Sex Pistols and The Clash, introducing a new generation of teenagers to the turmoil of “punk life”

These images also reminded me of Ryan McGinley and Corinne Day’s work, showing an autobiographical display of adolescence culture.

First I started by turning each image black and white to mimic Francesca Woodman’s distinct black and white style as she rarely shot in colour.

Then I played with the exposure and contrast to create images that look like they were taken with a film camera so they did not look unnatural when I changed them in photoshop to look like a grid of polaroid images.

I wanted the two “violent” images highly contrasted so they looked shocking to the eye and stand out while the middle image (showing restraint) nearly sinks into the background as it has lots of dark negative space – demonstrating how quiet behaviours often go unnoticed.

I also turned up the texture so facial expressions and details on hands were more noticeable.

While I was editing these images on photoshop (see bottom of blog post for arrangements of sets on Adobe Photoshop Classic) I realised I didn’t like the way they lined up as two of the images were landscape while the other was portrait, so on photoshop I resized the middle image to make it more square-shaped so it would fit in with the other images better- then I exported this image back onto Photoshop.

SET #2

The second set I chose to edit was on bad habits, I really liked the third image as it looks similar to Corinne Day’s photography style with my take on it where I took the photographs from a higher angle to make the perspective look more unusual.

I decided I wanted every set to be black and white so I changed all the images into monotone and resized them to focus on the main subject of the image.

My images taken from this shoot are quite blurry and out of focus but I decided to keep them like that because I believe they look more raw and improvisational, as they show a short timeline which looks natural and intimate.

I edited all the images in the same style, playing with the texture to make the images look more grainy and heightening the contrast between black and white so the images are more drawing to the eye.

I turned up the contrast and whites while turning down the exposure and blacks to create more of a simple tonal spectrum that concentrates on the textures of the images and the main subject.

SET #3

Finally I edited my third and final set of images, these images reminded me of Francesca Woodman’s work, they carry a similar theme where identity is see through someone’s body, while their face remains anonymous.

First I changed all the images into black and white and resized them to centre on the main subject.

I wanted these images to have more of a minimal, light tonal composition to portray the idea of the pureness of the human body which is highly contrasted with the darker tones of the clothing the subject is wearing.

I turned up the contrast and whites while turning down the exposure and blacks to create more of a simple tonal spectrum that concentrates on the textures of the images and the main subject.

ADOBE PHOTOSHOP ARRANGEMENTS FOR ALL SETS

First I opened a new page and changed the first layer to landscape with a black background (as all the photographs are in black and white I believe this will make them stand out)

Then I imported my images into Photoshop and resized then arranged them in a way that I believe told a story about the images. After this stage I decided to experiment try and make them polaroid-style on Photoshop.

I created a new white background and resized it beneath the images so they would look like polaroid pictures. Overall I’m unsure if I like this style and if I will continue with it on all sets.

I repeated these steps with all my sets, then I flattened all the layers on each separate set to create my final sets of images.

I knew that I wanted some of my images to be bright and colourful so I experimented with a variety of colours and images in order to create a set of neon images.

Experiments

—–Experiment 1: ——————–

I like how this edit turned out and plan to use it as a part of my final project as the colours as really vibrant and work well together which I enjoy. I think it would contrast well against some of my other photos that are less vibrant and would add to the project as a whole.

—–Experiment 2: ——————–

I plan to use this photo in my final project as I really like how it turned out. I like how the vibrant colours and transparency of the plants don’t distract from the details within the photo and make it look interesting without being so busy that it looks tacky.