WR7

Plans for Shoot

For this shoot, I will be researching into an even more complex editing process to incorporate into my photos. I will also be creating a shoot involving gels to continue my more colourful work but adding in portraiture to make the photos more social and intriguing. This inspiration will come from Victoria Siemer, who created colourful surreal landscape photos, and Phillip Lorca Dicorcia, who created meaningful and mysterious portraits of the people of Hollywood and New York. 

Research

Victoria Siemer

Victoria Siemer is a Brooklyn-based American graphic artist who focuses mainly on photo manipulation using Photoshop. She goes by the moniker "Witchoria" because "digital manipulation has given me the ability to create my own alternate realities where anything is possible. Sometimes it feels like magic." Her personal portfolio 'Hue Don't Own Me' is an exploration of 'emotion + light + colour'. She used gelled lights to create the landscapes and added the text in Photoshop. I did further analysis into Siemer's work on the blog post 'Photographer Research - Victoria Siemer'.

Phillip Lorca Dicorcia

Dicorcia is an American photographer who captured people of America in the 1980s-90s who were in pursuit to follow the American dream and were not so successful. Every photo of a person was titled their name, and certain photos would be titled the person's name, age, location and price. The price was related to the fact that some of these people had to sell themselves to survive in the states. I did further research into Dicorcia's work in the blog post 'Photographer Research - Phillip Lorca Dicorcia', after research into Dicorcia's work there, appeared to be no specific camera or editing techniques to the photo, but Dicorcia does use a composition technique of positioning the artificial light to highlight the subjects face as if a stage light to create a story to the photo.

Image bank

These are a few photos from Siemer's portfolio 'Hue Don't Own Me'.


These are a few photos of Dicorcia's work.

Contact sheet
These are all the photos for this shoot.

Best Photos
These are the best-selected photos from the shoot.

Photos that require improvement

These photos I believe required improvement. For the first photo, the issue is the lack of exposure, the exposure settings were aperture F22, shutter speed at 1/250sec and exposure set to ISO12800; these were the common settings for all the photos taken. From the top of the stairs, my appearance is too dark and my expression is unclear to the camera, to resolve this I would've either had to increase the flashgun intensity (it was originally the lowest setting) or made the exposure settings more sensitive, such as expanding the aperture to F5. For the second photo, the issue is the lack of vibrancy. I used a thin magenta gel over my flashgun, the colour was too transparent to create a vibrant overlay of colour in the photo, this can be resolved by editing possible, or use a gel similar to the colour but with more density.

AO3: Record ideas, observations, and insights relevant to intentions reflecting critically on work and progress.

My Ideas

My intention for this shoot was to further experiment with my gels and flashgun to create colourful and vibrant photos, but this time incorporate portraiture into the photos so they have a more social and lively atmosphere. My inspiration for this incorporation was from the photographers' Victoria Siemer, with her colourful landscapes and surreal text, and Phillip Lorca Dicorcia, with his mysterious and emotional portraits using light to highlight their appearance. I feel I was successful in meeting my intentions, but believe I can make these photos even more lively and intriguing in the photo.

Reference to best photos

I selected this photo because of its mischievous and troubled atmosphere. The deep red surrounding the stairs creates a dark and tainted feeling to the subject. The subject is slouched over the stairs but still composing a confident expression, this suggests a mischievous personality to this subject.

I selected this photo because of its calming and simplistic presentation. The subtle magenta hue surrounding the photo creates a calm and gentle atmosphere to the subject and photo overall. The composition of the subject just sat at the couch probably staring at the TV can make a viewer feel relaxed as if they are able to sit with the subject.

I selected this photo because of its vibrant and enticing composition. The deep cyan hue surrounding the photo creates an eye-catching feature to the photo, this is then emphasized by the subject looking directly to the viewer as if they are aware they are being captured. This adds a mystery to the subject and their body expression.

AO2: Explore and select appropriate resources, media, materials, techniques, and processes, reviewing and refining ideas as work develops.

Shoot Process/Use of Camera

For this shoot, I used a DF-400 flashgun attached to my Nikon D3400 camera; a tripod was also used since I was capturing myself in various locations of my home. A self-timer was also necessary for this shoot because I was capturing myself. The flashgun was set to mode M, which means that the flash will flash in synchrony with the camera capturing the photo, and the flash intensity was typically at its lowest possible setting due to it being a very intense flash. The camera's exposure settings were aperture set to F22, the shutter speed would vary from 1/250sec and 1/320sec (however, 1/320sec appeared to be too fast for the flashgun as it created a black line at the bottom of the photos because it didn't capture the light there), and the exposure was set to ISO12800 due to the photos being taken in dark settings.

Experimenting

Siemer's edit style involves inserting surreal glowing text into her photos, I used photoshop to do this with my photos.

Firstly, for a few photos there was a blank line at the bottom due to the shutter speed. So, using the crop tool, I removed this black line.

 I also made a copy of the original photo so I could go back to the original if needed (CTRL+J).

 I then added an adjustment layer of 'levels' to increase the contrast and make the photo's hue appear more vibrant.

 Then, using the 'horizontal type tool', I inserted a text layer into the photo and typed an appropriate piece of text for the photo. I positioned the text in an area of the photo I feel looks best.

 I copied this text layer (CTRL+J), right-clicked to then pick 'rasterize type', making this text layer into a whole image layer. Then, I added a filter called 'gaussian blur'.

 For this copied layer the blur only had to be subtle, for this photo it was 8.4 pixels.

 I then copied the original text layer again (CTRL+J) and rasterized this layer also. Then with a paint bucket tool and a cyan colour I filled in the text on this second copy.

 Once filling all the letters, I added the filter 'gaussian blur' once again but this time increased the radius of the pixels to 80.6. To finish this off I moved this copied layer just below the original text layer.

 To then increase the colourful appearance, to the original text layer I altered its colour to a pale cyan tone.

This is the before and after effect.

AO1: Develop ideas through sustained and focused investigations informed by contextual and other sources, demonstrating analytical and critical understanding.

Through my research, I was able to further experiment with portraiture and artificial light incorporation. I was also able to practice and look into more possible photo editing possibilities for my final pieces. Philip Lorca Dicorcia and Victoria Siemer have inspired me to continue creating emotional, lively, vibrant photos.

AO4: Present a personal and meaningful response that realises intentions and, where appropriate, makes connections between visual and other elements. 

Here are my final pieces.

Progression

Overall, I feel this shoot was successful, but not outstanding. I was able to further experiment with my flashgun and gels, but this time I incorporated portraiture into my work, this made more lively and meaningful photos to me. I was also able to also further experiment with surreal edits and glowing text. Moving forward, I am moving onto my three final shoots for my final pieces, for these shoots, I will continue to use gels and portraiture to create colourful and social photos. This work will continue to be inspired by Victoria Siemer and Phillip Lorca Dicorcia for my photos. For improvement, I have looked into more intricate editing processes and believe for the final shoots I will be editing areas of the subject also to create more enticing photos.