PLASTICS

studio shoot of plastics and rubbish

• plastic bottles, cans, plastic containers
• sea glass
• plastic buttons

Although I took around 80 images for this photoshoot, some of them turned out as not what I wanted, too blurry or dark, so i ended up with around 60. Some I took in the school studio; using the infinity board and experimenting with different lighting. Others were taken at home. I created my own photoshoot at home, improvising with backgrounds. I used a small stool as a surface to put the objects on, however, this is very relevant to vanitas style paintings and photographs as stools and wooden stools were used in the majority of them.

Contact Sheet:

The outcome of the images I chose to edit in Lightroom:

This photo is bland but I like the tones to the image.

I wanted to give the image a blurred look. I achieved this by duplicating 3 layers of the same image and then editing the opacity of each later. After I got them to the opacity I wanted them at, I moved each layer around to this chosen position.

outcome:

Photoshop

The kaleidoscope method:

outcome:

Gustave Le Gray

Gustave Le Gray is known as the most important French photographer of the nineteenth century because of his technical innovations in the still new medium of photography, his role as the teacher of other noted photographers, and the extraordinary imagination he brought to picture making.

All of Gustave Le Gray’s image have a vintage theme to them. He uses a grainy effect and the colours in his images consist of tonal yellows, slightly burnt orange and brown. His images appear to be black in areas, however, when you closely analyse the image it is actually dark browns.

I tried to base this image off of Gustave Le Gray’s work. I edited in the grain and I adjusted the tones and colours of it to create the tea- stained look. I really like the style of his work, that’s why I attempted to project it onto mine. I feel I achieved this and was left with a strong final image.

not edited:

editing:

In this image, I just did a simple edit in Lightroom. I made the image brighter, increasing the ‘whites’. I also experimented with the colours and saturation of the image; creating the tones of blue in the outcome.

outcome:

not edited:

editing:

outcome:

This image is very similar to the image above. I basically edited it in the same way, however, instead of increasing the cool colours in the image, I decided to experiment with the warmer colours. I prefer this image in contrast to the other image as it appears lighter but warmer.

Not edited:

I like the dynamic of the original image, with the focal point being the buoys, so i decided to not do a lot to the image.

Editing:

I just edited basic things such as the contrast, highlights, sharpening and texture of the image.

Outcome:

not edited:

This is the original image I took. The photo, when uploaded, came out very dark; this is because it was dark outside and I had the ISO on a low setting.

editing:

After adjusting the exposure and contrast, brightening the image, I decided to experiment with the colours within the image. I increased the saturation of the colour aqua and red to emphasise the colours of the car in the background. As it was just after sunset when i took this image, i lightened the sky; this gives the image some contrast: The natural light from the sky, against the street lights around the image as it’s dark outside.

outcome:

original:

I decided to experiment with the colours in this image, adjusting the hue, saturation, luminance, highlights and shadows of every colour.

I like these as they contradict the original colours of the original image and the original colour of a ‘twix’. Although they are different to the original colour of the image, it isn’t too obvious, this is because the negative space in the image hasn’t significantly changed.

After editing the image, I decided to crop it. I did this so the rubbish wrapper was the centre of the image; creating an obvious focal point. Also, so the bottom and top part of the image were similar in size making the image even.

not edited:

This is the original photo I took. It is very bland and not particularly even. The colours and tones of the image are boring and very dark; nothing stands out.

However, I was drawn to the left side of the image as it creates a perspective distortion, so I decided to crop the right side of the image out a lot to move the focus of the image to the wall and ocean in the distance:

editing:

I turned the ‘warmth’ of the image up and increased the saturation of the yellow, orange and red in the image. I like that the image now looks tea-stained. I edited a ‘grain’ effect into the image, this creates the illusion that the image is old, it has a vintage look to it.

I was inspired by Gustave Le Gray with this image. His images are always very grainy and yellow toned.

outcome:

not edited:

The original image I took of this wall is very dark and boring. I took thus photo as I thought the rust on the wall was very interesting and with some editing and tempering with the image, I could make the colours of the rust really pop.

editing:

outcome:

The outcome of this image is very abstract. Its simple in the fact that it is straight up an image of a rusty wall, however after I edited the colours, textures, exposure and highlights, it becomes a much more interesting image with intriguing colours.

I like this image as it is a photo of a rusty wall. Rust is often displayed as dirty, disgusting thing that usually appears in brown, orange and copper colours. In this case, I’ve turned something that’s overlooked and not liked into a colourful photo.