pentaptych destroy and fears

How did I create these pictures?

I created montage of photographs using a digital camera.   I took the photographs and loaded them into Photoshop. I changed the colour of the photos to black and white (Image>Adjustments>Black&White – Alt+Shift+Ctrl+B) This was to give more impact to the pictures.

What worked well?

I have managed to show my fear of being trapped and imprisoned against my will. The change of photographs from colour to B&W has worked well, it provides more uniformity in the images and removes some of the changes in coloured walled backgrounds and lighting levels. All the photographs look to be part of the same series and theme.

How can I improve the pictures?

I can improve this pentaptick by making the pictures bigger, this would make the pictures easier to see and more impactful on the screen.

How does this fit in with my theme of destroy and fears?

These images are suitable for the theme of destroy and fears, because I have tried to show my fear of being silenced, overlooked, ignored and hidden. The fear of heights with the low perspective behind bars. Is this to protect me from falling down the stairwell, or bars to keep me locked away?

The photographs also are aligned with the theme of destroy because it shows how a person can be destroyed by their mental as well as physical emotions and change their personality.

I have also experimented with the same 5 photographs to change the sequence and background to see if this is more powerful.

 

4 Pictures that represent me

How did I create these photographs?

I took the pictures using my DSLR, using the same settings ISO-800, F stop F/5.6, Shutter speed 1/125 second.  I set my camera up on a tripod for stability and so I could focus the area I was planning to be posing when the camera took the photograph.  I had the assistance of someone else to press the shutter release.

How do these photographs represent me?

I have chosen these 4 photographs for my quadriptych to represent.  They were taken in the summer because they describe me well.  They all have a quality of innocence.

I love the warmth of the summer.  The large photograph of me I am looking skywards, I have a questioning expression on my face, I am wondering what I should be doing or day dreaming.

The top right picture I am looking away, not making eye contact, this represents my reserved nature and shyness. I look to be higher up in the tree to signify my head in the clouds.

The middle right picture I have my head down signifying I am trying hard, I always put the effort in, even if I do not fully understand what I am trying to do.

The bottom right picture I am not in full frame, this represents the fact that I do not always see the full picture or understand, even when I am looking straight at something.

What worked well?

The sense of light and summer, the pale tones.  The use of a large f/stop aperture to give a shallow depth of field so the distant backgrounds are out of sharp focus.  This means you focus on the face more.  The fact the 4 photographs were taken at the same time so that the lighting, surroundings and clothes did not change.

The composition of 4 photographs, 1 portrait and 3 landscape looks good, it gives a balance grouping, and better than trying to put the 4next to each other in a row.  I like the fact that I am looking up at myself in the large photo, and looking down on myself from the middle photo.

What could be improved?

The photographs look slight pale and over exposed.  I could have tried a slower ISO light sensitivity. Also the focus is not as sharp as I would like when examined close-up.  This was probably due tome trying to focus the camera where I thought I would be posing, then I would try and stand where I had pre-focused.

The framing of the bottom photograph, part of my face is out of frame, this cuts off my mouth and part of the right side of my face.

Merging layers together

How did I create these pictures?

I created these pictures in Adobe Photoshop, this is so I could layer four photographs and change picture opacity for different layers.

I used the same 4 individual photographs. layerd on top of each other.  I set all the opacity to around 50% (Layers > Opacity 50%).  I varied the opacity so that no one image over powered the others.

I selected a layer and increased the opacity so that the image layer becomes more dominent and visible above the other images.  I saved the merged layered composition.

I reset the dominent image opacity back to the previous level, selected the next image and increased the opacity so that it became more dominent and showed more, saved the modified layered composition as a new image.

I then repeated the process so that I had in total 4 compositions that looked different although they were made up of the same images.

What do these pictures make you think of?

3 of the 4 pictures remind me of fear and punishment.  The person standing in the middle wearing a blind fold looks like they are about to be punished .  This is reinforced by the faint images of someone about to have their hair chopped.

What worked well?

I believe this worked well because I have managed to show and display destruction through the series of pictures.  Different elements are more visible by the change in opacity of the mergerd images.

What didn’t work so well?

The 4th image bottom right image, there is not a large spalsh of red that can been seen in the other 3 images.  The last image all there is also a lot of elements are showing making it difficult to focus on any one thing.

Do these pictures fit in with your theme?

These pictures fit in with my theme of the self and destroy, this is because I have slowly made the pictures harder to see through the photos

THE DAILY JOURNEY INTO COLLEGE – A photostory

This is a photostory or photodiary of my morning journey to college.

Story board of the daily journey into college

How I created the photo-story

I took a variety of shots that would eventually be used in my 6 shot photo-story. I used a digital camera because it is easy to transfer the images from the camera onto a PC for later editing in a graphics package such as Photoshop.

I reviewed the photographs I had taken using the PC file manager plus the image pre-viewer and  viewer software.  I selected six photographs that represented key elements of the start of my day and journey into college.

I opened Photoshop, then opened the six images in Photoshop.  I created a seventh new larger image.  I created a guide grid of  3×4 cells on the blank new image and arranged them so that working from the top of the image I had a row of 3 large cells where the first tree images will be placed, a narrow strip of 3 cells where the text of the story for the photograph above will be written. another large row of  the same height as the top row where the next three photostory images will be placed.  Final narrow strip of 3 cells for the story text to accompany the pictures above.

I then clicked on the tab of the first picture, select the image, copy then click on the tab of the new blank document and pasted the image as a new layer.  I then clicked on Transform so that I could resize the image and move it into place using the guides to show how big the image had to be.  I repeated this process for the remaining 5 images.

I clicked on add layer and the text tool in Photoshop, created a “text box”  I changed the font size to 18pt, Font style Myraid Pro, Regular, checked the colour of the font was dark grey.  I then typed the words to accompany the picture above, if the text was longer than the text box, I clicked on the box to resize it to fit under the photograph and dragged it down to increase the depth to accommodate 2 lines of text.  I repeated this process for all 6 images.

What went well?

The photograph sequencing tell a story. The photographs are bright and clear, the viewer can immediately see the elements of the journey without having to read the text beneath each photograph. The text beneath describes the journey and gives extra detail that enhances the photographic record.

What could be improved?

The change between landscape and portrait photographs makes for large white gaps. I could have put the portrait pictures immediately next to the landscape pictures so there was no large white space and the top and bottom rows would be of similar length.
It would have possibly been better if all the photographs were landscape, portrait or possibly cropped so that they are all the same proportions and dimensions.

Photographic montage of a bench

How did I create this image?

I created this picture by using Photoshop

First I went out and took a series of photographs of the same object close-up and at different angles. This was so I could open the various images in Photoshop, build a new composition using layers in Photoshop to overlay the different pictures on top of each other to show the same object but in slightly different angles and positions and projections. Then finally to merge elements of the pictures together and produce the montage.

What worked well?

This picture worked well because I managed to match all of the pictures up to display the same area without the pictures looking out of place.  The original pictures the light levels stayed similar for the multiple shots, so when the various photographs were overlapped  there was not a large variety of changes in colour tone. 

What could be improved?

The area near the pavement and legs of the bench on the left hand side of the picture I could have been more tightly cropped so that there is not a different coloured band of pavement running along side the concrete leg.  The extreme right hand side the pavement under the bench the lines of the paving slabs are out of alignment with  the other slabs.  I should have flipped this element vertically so that the lines all point to a similar ‘vanishing point’ in the distance.

There is a hard line visible on the horizontal bench, I could have used a blending, blurring or cloning tool to better merge the images together

Rainbow Picture

A collection of photographs composed to represent a Rainbow.  I created this using photographic image manipulation software.

Composite photograph of images to represent a rainbow

How did I create this picture?

I created this picture using Adobe CC 2015 Photoshop to make a single image from six individual photographs.

I looked at my collection of photographs for six images that had strong colours that when combined could describe the theme of “Rainbow”  The main colours I wanted were in the pallet range of Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Purple.  Any photographs missing a suitable strong colour I went out and shot.

I composed the final by using Photoshop, this was so I could put all of the smaller pictures together to create one big collage picture.

I launched Adobe Photoshop 2015, opened in Photoshop the six images I wanted to use.  Next I opened a new blank document (Ctrl+N).  I split the new page up by applying a grid guide of 2 cells by 3 cells, View, Show, Guides. I then clicked on the tab of the first picture, select the image, copy then click on the tab of the new blank document and pasted the image as a new layer.  I then clicked on Transform so that I could resize the image and move it into place using the guides to show how big the image had to be.  I repeated this process for the remaining 5 images.  For many of the images I cropped the layer so that a strong colour image was shown. The close up of the poppy flower head, the purple/violet coloured chive flower head, the orange stripes and the close up of the individual leaf.

What went well?

Photographic montage looks very effective. I have the main colours of the rainbow in each image, and there is also a common theme of nature, plants and flowers that also ties the rainbow theme together.

How could I improve this?

On close inspection I could have improved the lining up of the images, there is a slight gap between the bottom four pictures.