Fear Of The Dark: Final Images

 

So these are my final images that I am really pleased with. I finally sorted out the storyline, (My mum as the witch > seeing herself growing old > transforming old because she has been living longer than she should > stealing the youth of others to stay alive. ) I’m really happy with my final images and glad they came together how I wanted. I am especially pleased with the second image, considering it was the one I had most trouble with to make look realistic. I generally think the second image does look like my mum is turning old and that’s really what I was aiming for. As for the third image I think that also turned out successfully as well. I wanted to create a soul sucking kind of picture and by doing that I created 3 layers and duplicated my face, lowering the opacity each time. For the first image I created a layer mask to place the photo of my nan in the mirror. The second image was also layer masking to add my nans face onto my mums to create the look of transforming. Overall to improve I think the first image could have the same kind of dark, unsaturated kind of colour tone like the other two. I think these images definitely emphasise my theme of snow white and the fear of growing old. I think the three images clearly show the storyline and I’m glad they turned out how they did.

Fear Of The Dark: Third Test Shots

So while shooting I realized that if my mum is going to be the witch she can’t be stealing the youth from my nan. So now for my final images I need to use myself as the person being strangled for it to work with the storyline. So these were the test shots when my nan was the witch and I used my mum as the one being strangled. I don’t mind the turn out of these images, the second one I was just experimenting it.

Fear Of The Dark: Second Test Shot

For my second test shots I am doing the transformation of my mum from young to old. How I am doing this is by photo manipulating a photo of my nan onto a photo of my mum to create the idea that my mum is gradually turning old. This was the first one I edited to get an idea of what I wanted to do. I took a picture of my mum looking scared and then I took a picture of my nan in the exact same spot. I then layer masked the pictures of my nan onto the photo of mum. I do like how this photo turned out although I wish her smaller finger was in a different spot and not creating that shadow. Also I should use a different background and have a different lighting area. I don’t like how the light is hitting the right side of her face.

Ethics In Photography

Photographers are willing to manipulate an image to improve their work or making something not as it seems. When it comes to editing photos there is a certain extent to what you can do with the photo. This will end up making the photo acceptable or unacceptable. For a certain kind of photography depending on what it is, there are some things that are completely intolerable. This is called the ethics in photography. What is allowed and what isn’t, it’s all down to the subject of photography and to the extent of which it is manipulated.

Being able to edit photos benefits us in many different ways. We can use it to our advantage to help improve our own photos. For example when editing a fashion magazine it could help a woman look skinnier or make a male on an athletic magazine look like he has more muscles. The subjects of photography that we mostly look at for ethics in photography are, journalism, medical, fashion, documentary and advertising photography.

When editing our photos we should take things into account before doing them. Yes we are able to edit our photos but there are some things we should consider like, the truth, racism, sexism, false information etc. Depending on the subject there is a line that shouldn’t be crossed when changing how people see our images. There are other things that we should take into account as well as those but Here is an example of what I think is unacceptable, when editing a photo to benefit us, the message, or just what we are looking at:

They used the exact same image and in the TIME magazine they have darkened his face a whole lot more. As you can see this photo is clearly unacceptable, both magazines were issued The public to could clearly see the different in both photos. I think we can all agree that this photo comes across as extremely racist and offensive to anyone that noticed the difference between the two, not that it isn’t obvious or anything.

Lastly my opinion on editing the photos and manipulating them is positive, I don’t think there is anything wrong with it. As I’ve said previously I do think there is an extent and there is a point where it goes to far. As long as people are willing to keep it suitable and appropriate I don’t think there is a problem. When editing my photos it really influences me to make sure I don’t offend anyone or bend the truth to much in my photo that will effect the people looking at it in a negative way.

In conclusion photo manipulation is a very helpful thing to anyone who needs to alter or change the way something appears. cThe ethics however show that you need to be careful on what you do because there are guidelines that can be sensitive towards others. Overall this is something that benefits us as long as we don’t take advantage or use it in the wrong manner.

Camera Techniques: Long Depth Of Field

Camera Techniques: Shallow Depth Of Field

So for shallow depth of field I did various things. At first I just tried focussing on something and blurring the rest. The first image of the candle turned out ok, as you can see the candle is in focus then everything behind it is blurred. I don’t mind this image I think I could’ve improved it by blurring the background a lot more so you couldn’t tell what was behind it but this was hard considering my lighting wasn’t very good because I wanted to get the glow of the candle. For my next picture of the buttons in the lift, this was in Charlie’s lesson and he wanted us to try and get different angles with our pictures instead of just face on. So when we were in the lift I tried to do a high up looking down image of the buttons and keeping the top one in focus and blurring the rest. I really like the turn out of this image I think it looks really good and different and also represents shallow depth of field. For the last image we were outside and I decided I wanted to get a close up on one specific thing and completely blur the rest. I think this image of the plant turned out excellent and really portrays the technique of shallow depth of field.

 

Camera Techniques: Artist Research (Fast Shutter Speed)

Artist: Micheal Pool

Michael pool does a lot of fast shutter speed photography which I find really interesting. I like the fact he combined fashion and aesthetically pleasing photography with the use of paint and motion. This photo really stuck out to me because it is almost as if the girl doesn’t even realize she is being hit with paint. I think that is a good way of showing fast shutter speed, like it happens so quick in the moment the camera didn’t even have time to capture her reaction. Although that isn’t what the photo is doing it is another way of interpreting fast shutter speed and how quickly it captures the action. The next picture is of a footballer frozen in the air kicking what seems to be a ball.

Camera Techniques: Slow Shutter Speed

For my slow shutter speed I wanted to experiment with the fire and the light of the candle. So for my first one I slowly moved the camera to the right to cause it to split into to. I really like the turn out of this photo as if the candle is being merged into two. The second picture was a smaller movement to show how close together the candle was but at the same time show two different parts of it like it is separating. The last picture was experimental, what I did was I zoomed out on the lens as I took it to create some motion blur. I also did the same process with the last picture of the christmas tree which was probably my favourite picture out of all four. The very last photo is one I took while in Charlies lesson of Charley moving around in a circle. As you can see the movement of her body rotating in a circle with her head in different positions. I had to have a high ISO on this picture considering I was inside and it had to pick up the image with a slow shutter speed. I do like this image although I wish you could see more of her body moving, like more clearer.