I quite like how these images turned out, I have yet to photoshop them and include pictures of smoke and some woody material. We (Mackenzie and I) had a few difficulties since we were in the studio alone and had no lighting equipment, we made do by plugging in a lamp and having it at an angle so it provided enough lighting for me to photograph my models. Even with the problems I faced, I managed to successfully make it work and got these images that are exactly what I had in mind.
For the above image, I used adobe photoshop and mixed images of burnt paper and the model. I turned the opacity down, added some texture, and turned up the noise on drop shadow to add more dimension on the burnt paper borders on either side of the smoke. For the model, I blended smoke into the background using the blur tool and added a brown saturation to add a darker colour while also maintaining the light in the background.
For the second image, I got some transparent smoke images and edited them using the opacity on photoshop. I used the selection tool and cropped the model and added a ghostly smoke figure on his back while also blending in the background smoke to add a spooky affect. This image isn’t part of my exhibition work but it is part of my final project and also as a partial experiment of photoshop and to test my knowledge of the blending tools. I feel as though by doing this I have mastered the blending techniques needed.
I think for this image I was very successful and that it looks real when it is infact not, it isn’t what I originally had in mind but it looks great and I’m proud of the outcome.
I interpreted the dreams project into this work by making my idea of real but not real. To most people the smoke curtain does look real as if its there physically however it isn’t at all and has in-fact been edited. The project didn’t exactly go how I planned but it turned out just as well and I’m quite happy with it. I was inspired by Florence Henri (in Research) whose work looks real but not real using reflections and smoke and other equipment. I also took Luke Gram as a bit of an inspiration for his use of humans of different cultures. I used those inspirations and developed my work into something thats inspired but also my own. I faced a few problems with no lighting in the studio and relying on a regular lamp, but I overcame it and successfully captured images that worked perfectly for me. From this project and the difficulties i faced, I’ve learnt that sometimes your ideas don’t go the way you plan for it to, but there’s always ways to make it better and overcome what happens. I experimented a bit with some of the darkroom work and I enjoyed it a lot so it’s a possibility I may use it in my work again in the near future. Next time I do something like this project, I’d try to make sure my work comes out the way I’d like and is perfect in my final outcome. To me, this project has gone successfully even if it’s not what I planned in my proposal, but it works and still looks great so I’m not entirely downhearted, I think it’ll look great at the exhibition.