Contrasts Ramsey Channing- 3455 Boca Raton High School- Us 818 ART and DESIGN Paper1- 9704/01
Opposites
Beliefs/Want s
Contrasts Foods
Day/Night Good and Evil
Black and White
Colors
Emotions
Environments
Fruits Bell Peppers
Selective Color
Apples
Value
Topic My topic is Contrasts. I chose this topic because I felt as though it gave me more creative freedom to play around with. In my photo the contrasting elements are the environments. I have an empty, upside-down house and an underwater pool shot together. My concept is the feeling of being trapped and lost in everyday life and how sometimes we get lost deep in thought. I used an empty house to symbolize isolation and turned it upside-down to give a feeling of disorientation and I felt as though it gave the image a more surreal appearance. In my photo my model looks as if she fell in the water and or looks as if she is drowning. This represents the feeling of being trapped and lost. I put the quote “I get lost in my mind.” To represent being lost in deep thought. I made the quote dark and of to the side because I didn’t want it to compete for attention with the model. I wanted it to be an accessory to the photo and add a bit of mystery to the overall image. I include a vignette to resemble to blur and darkness of our thoughts. That they’re not always clear and defined.
Photo Journey
In my rough drafts I experimented with different layer settings. In the drafts I was manipulating the empty room layer by using Multiply and Overlay. In my final photo however, I changed the water layer to Hard Light which I thought looked more appealing. In my final photo I also decided to flip my room upside-down and add a quote. I didn’t use any tutorials during my editing process instead I used the Photoshop skills I’ve gain over this past year to achieve my final product. I ordered these images from most favorite to least favorite.
Photo 1 - This is my final photo under the topic of contrasts. The concept of this photo is the same as my other rough drafts. In this photo I flipped the room upside own and added a quote which I didn’t do in my other photos. I also changed the water layer to Hard Light.
Photo 2 – In this photo the model has a different skirt on and it is in a different room. Another thing that I did differently was I set the empty room layer to Multiply. I didn’t like how you can see the curtains through her body. I also thought the image was too dark
Photo 3 –This is the only photo out of all my rough drafts that the model is spinning. I really like how her motion is portrayed in the image. I didn’t like how her hand got cut off and how out can see through her skin.
Photo 4 – In this photo I rotated the water layer o make it look like she just went over a wave. I really liked how you can see her reflection on the surface. However I thought the room didn’t match the photo.
Inspirational Photos My inspirational photos impacted my final photo significantly because I took something from each photo and incorporated it into my own. As I discovered more photos I was constantly changing the mental vision of my final image and I am pleasantly surprised with the outcome. Without these inspirational photos my image would look nothing like it does now. This picture is untitled “Life is About…” by Blue-A. Some elements/principles of art I see are Texture (In the clouds and cliff) Emphasis (On the figure) and Space. One compositional technique used is Depth. This photo inspired me to incorporate a sort of falling motion in one of my photos.
This photos name and photographer are unknown. The elements/principles of art I see are Emphasis and Shape/Form. One compositional technique used in this photo is negative space. This photo inspired me to have a person falling into water.
This image is called “Underwater” by Zena Holloway. The elements/principles of art I see are Texture, Emphasis, and Shape/Form. The two compositional techniques I see are Framing and Rule of Thirds. This picture inspired me to make my image darker and give it a mysterious feel.
This photo is called “Sink or Swim” by techn04life. The elements/principles of art I see are Texture (Water) and Rhythm. One compositional technique used is Rule of Thirds. This photo inspired me to use contrasting environments in my photo.
This picture is untitled and was created by Kelianne. The elements/principles of art I see are Balance, Color and Texture. One compositional technique used is Viewpoint. This photo inspired me to have my model look like she’s downing rather than swimming and to have her wear white.
This quote is by Jodi Picoult. The elements/principles of art I see are Texture, Space and Emphasis. One compositional technique used is depth. This image inspired me to incorporate a quote into my final photo.
This photo was taken by Nicholas Routzen and does not have a title. The elements/principles of art I see are Color, Emphasis, and Balance. One compositional technique used is framing. This photo inspired me to shoot my model in an empty pool.
This photos name and photographer are unknown nor could I find who said this quote. The elements/principles of art I see are Line and Texture. One compositional technique used is centering. This photo inspired me to use this quote in my final photo.
This photo is Untitled by Johan Marklund. The elements/principles of art I see are Texture, Variety and Color. One compositional technique used is Cropping. This photo inspired me to possibly shoot the image in a room with a lot of furniture and to shoot my model from different angles.
This photos name and photographer is unknown. Some elements/principles of art I see are Color, Balance and Unity. This photo inspired me to have an upside-down element in my photograph.
Research
While trying to find inspirational photos for this project I came across a photographer named Nicholas Routzen. Although he didn’t have many underwater shots I was captivated by the uniqueness of his work. His photos are mostly high fashion. He inspired me greatly to experiment with different outfits and poses. Another photographer that had an impact on my final photo was Adam Opris. His work is simply stunning I’ve never seen anything like it. He specializes in underwater, weddings and portrait photography. His underwater shots are very vibrant and detailed. They give off a happy care-free vibe. I wanted my photo to showcase an opposite reaction by creating a darker more mysterious image.
Photographic Process I took my water photos in my pool with my mom as my model. The pool was quite cold that day so it was a challenge getting her to cooperate. I had her wear 3 different outfits to see what would photograph best. Since I was using a GoPro, I could not see what my photos were looking like nor could I look through I lens before I took a photo. I just held the camera in front of my face and hoped for the best. I had my model do a variety of poses and I took A LOT of photos so I could have many options when it came to editing. I took the photos in the afternoon. It was very cloudy that day and sunshine came out for only a few seconds every so often. I was really annoyed by that at first but when I looked at my photos on the computer I was actually pleasantly surprised. I liked having the variety of lighting. For my empty room shots I used two different locations. The first was my dining room. I just moved all the furniture out of the way and began taking pictures. I used those pictures in my rough drafts. My other empty room pictures were from a completely empty house which I had just moved out of. I shot the pictures just after noon and used natural lighting. I experimented with different rooms, shooting from different angles and shot with the curtains closed and opened. I also experimented with compositional techniques like putting the windows on the rule of thirds and using leading lines.
Camera Data for Final Photo: EMPTY ROOM Camera Mode- Manual Aperture- f/3.5 (I used this f/stop because I wanted to allow more light in) Shutter Speed- 1/500 sec. (I used this setting because I wanted to balance out the small aperture and create proper exposure) ISO- 1600 (I set it to 1600 so my picture would be properly exposed with my shutter speed and aperture settings) Focal Length- 18mm (I used this because I wanted to get as much of the room in my fame as possible)
UNDERWATER (Because I used A GoPro I couldn’t manually pick my settings) Aperture- f/2.8 (This setting was used to allow more light in) Shutter Speed- 1/1258 (This setting was use because I had it on continuous shooting mode) ISO- 100 (This setting was used to properly expose the image without it being too grainy) Focal Length- 3mm (This was used in order to get as much in the frame as possible)
Contact Sheets
Photo 1
Photo 2
Photo 3
Photo 4
Support Photos
Experimentation
In this photo I tried flipping my model instead of the room. I didn’t like it because I thought it looked messy. It didn’t look as realistic as I wanted it to.
In this screenshot I tried using a different color. I used #b21b42 instead of #370b56. I didn’t use it because I wanted my image to be darker and more purple.
In this photo I created a white vignette instead of a dark one. I like how it brightened the image but I wanted a dark vignette because it brought more attention to the model.
In this edit I used the Clone Stamp Tool to get rid of the background pool space. I did not use this in my final photograph because it did not turn out the way I wanted it to and it looks better with the extra pool background.
In this photo I tried a brownish color (#474103) to make the water look murky. I did not use this because I thought I was too brown and made the water look gross.
Screenshots In my editing process I did not use any tutorials because I simply could not find one that accomplished what I wanted to accomplish. So I had to rely solely on the Photoshop skills I gained over this past year. The editing process became slowly easier as I experimented more. I mostly used the Clone Stamp Tool and auto corrected my images to help my photo seem more realistic.
The first thing I did after I opened my photo in Photoshop was copy the background and by using the Clone Stamp Tool I started to edit away the edge of the pool and any other flaws I saw.
Next I went to Image> Auto Tone> Auto Contrast to correct my photo.
I opened my empty room photo and by using the Quick Selection Tool I selected to contents of the window, went to Image> Adjustments> Brightness/Contrast and brought the brightness down to -150.
Then I created a new layer, filled it with black by using the Paint Bucket Tool and dropped the Opacity down to 70%. I layer masked m background copy to fix the edges of the black.
Using the Clone Stamp Tool I got rid of the outlet and any an undesired marks on the carpet and merged Layer 1 with the Background Copy. Next I went to Image> Auto Tone> Auto Contrast to adjust the image.
Using the Rectangular Marquee Tool I copied and pasted my other photo, changed the layer to Hard Light and pressed Ctrl+T to transform it.
I hid my water layer, flipped Layer 1 vertically and by using the Clone Stamp Tool I fixed my window and curtains.
Next I went to Layer> New Fill Layer> Solid Color and filled it with color #370b56 to cancel out some of the green of the pool and to enhance the some small details.
I then went to Filter> Lens Correction and added a dark vignette to my water layer.
Next I added a textbox on the window and wrote the quote “I get lost inside my mind.� Using Ctrl+T I transformed the text to cover the whole window.
Finally I flattened the image, cropped it to 2x3 and saved it as a JPG.