Project No.3

For my final project, I have decided to take my idea a little further;  To do this I am going to go in search for landscapes that fit the shape of a human head or features of the face.  This is more complicated and perplexing as with animals, you already have the same shape of the head, you still have two eyes, a nose, and so on;  With landscapes, you have to be able to see these features within the landscape, and to engage and operate your imagination on a whole new level.  An example of my idea would be this photograph below.  You can see that the artist that created this piece has observed his surroundings very well, and has considered all possible angles in which they can produce a photograph like this.  They have addressed the fact that the arch of the door can represent the shape of the woman's skull, but not only that, you can always decipher the meaning of the photograph that is hidden within.  I see here the outline of a woman who is in black and white.  This could tell us something about her life, events in time that has occurred to her, or her personality;  Combine this theory with the fact that what is shown in her head as a peaceful, calm, and serene setting, this could suggest that she is defensive and maybe unapproachable on the outside, but if you are able to get under her skin or into her head (literally) she is beautiful, gracious, and collected.  All of this tells us that people who seem not so pleasant on the outside, can have a completely different personality hidden from the world, and that only a select few people are allowed in and see what beauty she possesses.

This is my emulated piece of work I have created using a class mate and a picture of an old gate I saw whilst on a canal boat.  I like this as it follows the colour scheme within the gate and the face, but then it changes to colour for the surrounding scenery.  I like this photograph as it looks as if her mind is all confused, as the black and white stripes have a disorienting property to them.  The baffled look on my models face backs up my idea of her being confused both inside and out.

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Project No.2

For my second project, I have decided to expand on my idea of having two halves to someone, and their face;  For this I am going use an animals face instead of another humans.  This should hopefully show development within my work, and the extra techniques I have needed to use to get the results I am looking for.

Combined with:

To create an image like this:

This is the image I was able to create using a photograph I took at a zoo, and of a class mate.  I feel like it is already an improvement to the one above as the eyes, which are the centre piece of the face, match up and are in line with each other;  This keeps the perspective and ratios of the two photographs combined.

Project No.1

This is my first attempt at a development project leading up to my final piece of work.  My theory was to take the idea of having complete opposites within one or more photographs put into a series;  For example, my topic of choice is polar opposites, but in this case I have flipped it and I'm using their similarities as the topic.  I have taken a photograph of both a student in my class and her younger brother, and combined their faces into one image.  This really shows off the correlation of features between them, and how they are related.

Below is a screen shot of me touching things up in Photoshop;  Such as getting all the features aligned using the morphing tool.

Here is a contact sheet of the photographs I took to reach my final photos I chose to use for the project.

Vanessa Berlowitz

For my ideas leading up to my final piece, I will be looking into the Documentary director Vanessa Berlowitz and her way of showing emphasis on certain things that happen within Planet Earth II;  This could be something like a certain shot of a rare animal.

  My idea I want to portray is a series of photographs which show either objects, landscapes, or people who are divided in two;  One half is the human, and the other half is an animal.  I have the idea of showing one half as a class mate and the other half as a lion,  as Vanessa Berlowitz, known for her love for animals, and studying their mannerisms;  The hardest part is trying to tie some of those mannerisms to some of our own as a human race.

Emulation

 This is what I was able to capture, except my photograph shows the complete opposite emotion within the frame;  That emotion being loneliness, feeling timid, and also cautious in a way as he’s waiting for the lights to change.  In my eyes I see a lonely old man who is just watching the world go by whilst waiting for something to happen.  He’s already lived the majority of his life and is just watching people live theirs.  I think this is quite a powerful concept as many thoughts could be running through his head at this one given time about previous experiences or memories.

 Another photograph I have taken that ‘both sides of the argument’ are in is this photograph to the left.  I think that this is a really powerful photograph as it shows a rich man carrying on with his business as normal, wearing an excessively priced suit and holding a £500 mobile phone, whilst there’s a man virtually 3 inches away from him barely able to feed himself and his only friend.  This just shows the contrast in power, and how money can influence us in both good and bad ways.  The man walking past could change that man’s life forever with one simple act of kindness, but instead he sticks to following the same convention every other human follows in this world, which is to be self centered and unforgiving to those around us.

 This photograph I took is still following the trends of polar opposites, as one half of the photograph contains young men walking together, and on the other side is the old man sat there observing, being separated by a lamp post from youth.  I love the composition of this photograph as it shows off just how vulnerable and alone older people can get, whereas the youth of the present day have friends to rely on, technology to contact them, and in general a better connected generation

Contact Sheets

Emulation Plan

HDR

   By taking three photographs below, I was able to combine them and create a HDR photograph that showed detail in both the foreground, background, land, sea, and sky.  This technique is a unique one, and as the saying goes, you either love it or you hate it;  This is because it gives your photographs a very potent look when finished.  This look is either very effective, or a complete fail, there is no room in the middle for compromise.

Combined with:

And also:

To achieve this look:

Personally, I think that the original photograph I took looked better quality of image, as it wasn't as raw and as harsh to look at.  Even so, the effect is clearly displayed and has a punchy feeling to it.

  This was some work in progress.  as you can see, when you use the sliders to adjust you photographs look, the image changes, and it's about getting the correct balance between the lighting and the detail.  As seen below, I had put the slider towards the darker side of things, giving the photograph you can see.  I then adjusted this to give the effect the image has above.

Focus Points

  With the use of the focus points on my camera, I was able to select the area within the view finder that I wanted to keep on focus, and the rest to be blurred. The use of this mode is very effective as it gives you free reign over your macro and tilt shift shots.

  Some examples of these points of focus in actions are below.  From here we see that the focus points are towards the bottom of the photograph.  As you look further down the post, you see that I changed the focus points to higher positions within the view finder.  This shifted the focus to other parts of the photograph.

  This photograph below shows the photograph when I left the focus points untouched;  You can see that the photograph is more in focus on the whole that the others.  This is because the focus was spread out around 15 different points of focus.

  The Focus point in this photograph is blatantly obvious, and it just shows how much using these focus points can help you take stunning macro shots.

  With this one I switched the focus points to the left hand side instead to get a different perspective on the scenery.

  Going back to the same idea with having everything in focus, I left the focus points untouched, and by doing so, I was able to capture this photograph which is all in focus;  Not just a small sections of it.

Mock Exam - 19th.20th/April/2016

Combined with:

To get these photographs:

  First Attempt.  This went well as I was able to see straight away what I needed to improve and fix;  This being the reflection within the lens of the glasses.  This one you see straight below is the one I cut the lens completely out of it, then placed the sunset within the rims of the glasses.  I soon found out that this wasn't the best idea, as it looks rigid and false.

  Second Attempt.  As you can see here, the problem with the lens has been fixed, and now looks a lot more authentic, as you can see the reflection of the sunset on the lens instead of inside the rim.  I also toned down the saturation in this picture, as that gives it that 'real' look, and it doesn't stick out like a sore thumb.

Combined with:

And also:

To get these photographs:

  First attempt.  When I first tried the idea of placing a sunset and the sea as a replacement for my friends eyes, I thought it looked quite effective, especially when you compare the contrasting colours between the two eyes and also taking into account the monochromatic face.  I used the idea of blue + red = purple, but that didn't go as planned so it turned out that the lips stayed a bright red, accompanying the right eye.

  Second attempt.  Once I had edited this version, I immediately loved this version better than the other, mostly because of the effect the eyes have;  They look like they are serving a purpose being in the photograph, whereas the first attempt looked like there was a larger gap than planned where the eyes used to be.

Combined with:

To get this photograph:

First and only attempt.  I had previously drawn out a design for this photograph, and I knew exactly what I wanted to see, and where I wanted to see it.  I think this idea of fire and water being together, fighting against each other, is really effective, as the colours both contrast and compliment eachother other simply because the two colours are so different and also both primary colours.

Combined with:

To get this photograph:

  First and only attempt.  This was just an idea I had in my head which I wanted to try and put into my work, but as you can see it hasn't worked as well as I had hoped.

Contact Sheets:

Concept Ideas: