Final Shoots

Plans for Shoot

For my three final shoots, I will be varying my presentation in portraits and locations. For the first shoot, I will be using gels and artificial light to capture portraits of myself and various objects that will be edited to appear luminous. For the second shoot, I will continue to use gels and artificial light to capture myself in various areas of my phone to present a forlorn character, and luminous text will be edited into the photos. For the third shoot, this will be a smaller shoot where I capture various objects using gels and artificial light, to then edit them to appear luminous.

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.

This is the editing process that inspired my editing for my first shoot.[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJyTaUOpz5Y&t=481s]

This is the editing process that inspired my editing for my second shoot. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q41vifReiMk&t=7s]

Contact sheet
Shoot 1

Shoot 2

The original plan was to have three shoots, but the first two shoots totaled to 312 photos, so I felt that a third shoot would not be necessary and the concept for the third shoot was not as interesting anyway.

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

My Ideas

My intention for my final pieces was to create colourful yet emotional presentations of a character with constant forlorn thoughts; this presentation would involve surreal appearances. The first shoot presents the characters colourful yet somehow dull interactions with objects as if they wish to be more colourful and emotional, but it always ends up ennui. The second shoot presents the character in their life, the dull, and lack luster moments, but in colourful settings; presenting their struggles and boredom with life. The contrast of a forlorn character presented with colourful lighting creates a symbolic juxtaposition, then combining the surreal editing makes the photo emotional and surreal to intrigue the viewer. My inspiration was a combination of photographers Phillip Lorca Dicorcia and Victoria Siemer. Dicorcia's work uses artificial light to highlight a subject's face and uses their backgrounds to create the subject's story; the story is always rough and appears difficult, for example, the collection of photos of male prostitutes, titled with their name, location, and price of service. Siemer's work uses colourful artificial light to present landscapes and inserts surreal luminous text that state emotional and ennui quotes that will confuse and intrigue a viewer. I feel I've been successful in combining and creating these final pieces. The photos present the character in dull lifeless moments while adding colourful lighting to somehow compensate for the dull atmosphere.

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

Shoot Process/Use of Camera

For both shoots, I used my Nikon D3400 camera and stabilised it with a tripod, attached to the camera I used a DF-400 flashgun. I used the self-timer setting on my camera to capture myself, placing an object where I would be positioned in the photo to make sure the camera focuses in the right place, then setting the timer on and getting into the position for the photo. The camera would then proceed to take five photos every two seconds and I would pose for each shot. For both shoots, the exposure settings were very similar due to the same light setting being used in every photo, the aperture varied from F14-20, the shutter speed varied from 1/200-250sec, and the exposure was always ISO12800. The flashgun was also always either on its lowest intensity or the second to lowest intensity, as the flash was very intense in general. For the first shoot, the flashgun setting was set to mode M which would flash in synchrony with the camera when attached to it. In some of the photos for the second shoot, the flashgun was not attached to the camera and instead placed somewhere else to have two directions of light, therefore the flashgun was set to S1 mode, which will flash in synchrony with the flash from the camera.

Experimenting
Shoot 1

Firstly, I copied the original layer of the photo (CTRL+J), so if I make mistakes, I can go back to the original photo if needed.

To improve the colour and contrast in the general photo, I added an adjustment layer of 'hue/saturation', to then increase the saturation and lowered the lightness.

I also added an adjustment layer of 'levels' to increase the white tones in the photo, and bring out the shadows.

For later use, I added an adjustment layer of curves and brought up the centre of the line to increase the light areas of the photo.

 Then pressing CTRL+I to invert the effects and added a layer mask to use later.

Using a 'pen tool', I selected around the object that will be made to glow, then pressing CTRL+ENTER to create a selection on the layer which I've copied and brought to the top of the layers.

I added a layer mask to this new layer and so only the object had its original appearance compared to the rest of the photo.

To make the object appear brighter for an improved glow effect, I went to 'image', 'adjustments' and chose 'curves'. I brought up the centre of the line to increase the brightness.

I copied the object layer (CTRL+J) and added the 'gaussian blur' filter.

I increased the radius of the pixels so that the object presented a glow appearance.

I added the blend setting 'screen' so the blur appearance merges with the original object layer.

Finally, going back to the curves adjustment layer, I used the soft, white paintbrush tool on a low opacity to add areas of light onto the photo so the glow appears more realistic.

Here are all the layers for the photo.

Here is the before and after of the edit.

Shoot 2

Firstly, I copied the original layer of the photo (CTRL+J), so if I make mistakes, I can go back to the original photo if needed.

To improve the colour and contrast in the photos, I added a few adjustment layers. I firstly added 'hue/saturation', increasing the saturation and slightly lowering the lightness to deepen the colour.

I added a 'levels' adjustment layer and increased the light tones and increased the shadows.

I then added a 'brightness/contrast' adjustment layer and increased brightness slightly and increased the contrast to deepen the tones.

I added a text layer using the 'horizontal type tool' and added in a piece of text that fits the photo and represents the character's emotions.

I copied this text layer and right-clicked to select 'rasterize type' which turns the text into a whole layer. I then added the filter 'gaussian blur'.

For this layer I only made the pixel radius small, this will make sense later.

I copied the original text layer again, brought this to the top of the layers, and rasterized this layer also. I had the paint colour match the photo's pallet of colour.

Using the 'paint bucket tool' I filled the text with the colour I chose previously.

I added the blur filter 'gaussian blur', and this time had the pixel radius larger to expand the glow appearance to the text.

Here is all the layers for the edited photo.

This is the before and after of the edit.

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

Through my research, I have been able to develop my own interpretation of artificial light where I present a character that contrasts harshly with colourful settings. I have developed my skill in flashgun photography and the use of gels, I have also improved my method and composition of location portraiture, as I have previously had flaws in this area. Research into photoshop has also helped me develop skills in surreal, luminous editing, which has increased the quality of my photos immensely. 

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

My final pieces are presented in the blog post 'Final Pieces'.