Work Diary - Shoot 7

Evaluation

As book photography is something that I have always enjoyed photographing and manipulating, I wanted to try a different approach. For this shoot I took a few photos in the studio with lights and an SLR camera, and another few photos at my home on my phone. I tried out with different camera qualities as in shoot 1 I'd captured a grainy photograph on my iPhone and was pleased with the outcome. I therefore wanted to try this again as the grains can make a photograph appear more vintage, which would link to the book being read in both of the pictures below - It's a vintage copy. I manged to produce these images in Photoshop using manipulating tools, as I wanted to create the perception of the reader being drawn into the story, literally. They are engrossed with the plot and being sucked into the action. I used the quick selection tool to select the segment of the subject that I wanted to expand e.g. the distance from someones eyes to the top of the book. I then used the liquify tool to drag out the selection, which creates the appearance of the readers' faces being sucked away. I then touched up the final outcomes by using the smudge tool to blur any unnecessary marks and increasing the brightness and curves to make each photograph more appealing to the audience.

This was a photograph that I took in the studio with two lights either side of Josh, lighting him from the front. I was experimenting with the liquify tool in Photoshop when it came to the editing stage, but I hadn't fully grasped how to create the patterns in the motion as it all became one big blur. I included all of Joshes features in the blur as I wanted to convey how the majority of him had been sucked into the story, whereas in my other images only half of their face had been drawn in. This is a development from those images, yet I don't feel the technique was as successful because the extension to Joshes face isn't evident; it just looks like his face has been blurred because the liquify effect isn't that evident. If the book was at a longer distance from Joshes face then you would be able to see it being dragged down, therefore this is something I can use to improve this shoot. I am however, happy with the composition and contrast in this piece. Joshes black shirt and hair compliment the white book and background as there is an equal amount of black and white in the frame, with an accent colour of red - which links to the black, white and red colour theme in the story.

These were the two images that I captured on my iPhone at home by sitting the phone on a shelf and using the self timer. I took two images from the same angle but with me making different expressions to represent a small pattern. Firstly I start off peacefully reading a story, soon developing into me being startled at the fact my face is being physically absorbed by the story. I put these two photographs together as they didn't look complete as solo pieces, and I also used the black and white effect to wash out any colour featured in the frames as the combination of colours in the background was a mixture that didn't compliment each other, such as blue and yellow and pink and brown. The contrasts were too unappealing, so by making the image black and white I have allowed for just tones to feature in the composition. I was happy with the outcome of this photograph as the short sequence is something I quite like, and am interested in developing; presenting something in a before and after technique.

Progression

As this shoot was extremely successful with experimentation, I could develop it by thinking of more subjects to photograph and manipulate. I could also try to create more of a pattern, by perhaps lining up 5 lip balms of different colours, shooting a close up, and using the liquify tool to smudge out the bottom half of each balm - this would create a rainbow effect conveying colourful pattern. I could also try to have more than just one liquified object in the frame, to divert the attention from one focal point, but between multiple focal points.