Playing with colour and repetition

Experimental Placement....

Now that I have finished my owl, I want to give it a home. I have and will continue to experiment with different backgrounds and finishing techniques to create an interesting image. With this photo, I have duplicated the owl three times and changed the hue and saturation slightly to give them all individual characteristics, then placed them on an image of a tree which I have previously used as part of my photo joiner shoot. I also used a lens flare filter to create the magical look of fireflies around the three owls. I personally feel that this look doesn't look as professional as I want it to so I will continue to experiment with different backgrounds.

Finished Textured Owl

This is the final image of my 'textured' owl. Since my last post, I have individually edited each layer to adds shadows to add more depth to the leaves/feathers. I also added an overlay to change the colours slightly of each layer slightly so that they worked well together. 

Textured Owl

Today I braved the snow - and hurt myself, badly - in order to take some pictures of natural textures, plants and other useful objects which I envisioned would make up part of an owl. Using a Photoshop tutorial which i have posted the link for in a previous post, I manipulated all of the photos I took to create an illustrated owl character. The image below is what the owl looks like currently, but I need to step back one and focus on the colouring, shadows and special effects of each layer to make it look more 3D and realistic rather than a flat image. Once I have done that, I can then flip the half I am working on to create a full owl like the one below. I will then take the owl and create an interesting and effective background for it to feature in - so I may need to go out again next lesson to collect some more resources/pictures for the rest of the final image:

Paint Splash Effect - 1st Trial - A Work In Progress

Best Work - Developmental Shoots

       
         

The Little Things

This is one of my favourite photo's from my second developmental shoot, because I have combined my original idea, with my future idea for my next developmental shoot of turning people into fairies, based on my research into the Cottingley Fairies photographs from 1917. With this image, I have combined two of my best images together to make it look like my friend Jess is holding the fairy-form of herself in her hands. I have also included fairy wings which have been made using special brushes I have downloaded for Photoshop, the link of which I found them on can be seen in the previous post. 

Playing with Bubbles....

Developmental Shoot 2 Best Shots

Developmental Shoot 4 Research - CANCELLED

For one of my future developmental shoots I want to use the studio to photograph a model, rather than myself this time, dressed as a dark fairy/angel. In this shoot I want to particularly look at different parts of the human body, colour and form.

When I was researching about similar styles of photography, I came across the British photographer John 'Rankin' Waddell. After looking at Rankin's portfolio, I was really inspired by some of his work and the styles he uses.

The main inspiration behind this developmental shoot was from a music video; Ed Sheeran's 'Give Me Love'. The video features 'cupid', and you see the different emotions she feels when she makes various people fall in love, but she can't make someone fall in love with her. I really want to use this idea of looking at different emotions through someone dressing up as a a similar sort of character.

After I had developed the main theme for this shoot, I decided to do some more research into 'fairy photography' which I then found out about the Cottingley fairies. The Cottingley fairies appeared in a series of 5 photographs taken by young girls Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths who lived in Cottingley near Bradford, England in 1917. At the time the photographs were taken, the girls were adamant that the photographs were genuine and sparked a lot of interest in similar psychic phenomenas. The girls then admitted in 1980 that the photographs were faked using cardboard cut-outs, but the fifth and final photograph was genuine. Even today, these famous photographs are one of the biggest influences of photography with the supernatural, and even influenced the photographer Rankin, which is what led me to do more research on him. Looking at the Cottingley photographs myself, even though I know that they are fake, there is still that element of realism in them, making them look beautiful and elegant, which I would like to work with in my own developmental shoot.

 


With this research in mind, I have also found some good online tutorials for Photoshop which will allow me to develop my images afterwards:

• Fantasy Photo Manipulation
• Forest Magical Scene
• Fantasy Light Effects
• Reflective Bubbles
• Eye Manipulation
• Fantasy Style Eyes

Photo Joiner

Print Techniques!

Image and Text

Weaving

Movement Photography!

Today I went out shooting for the formal element, 'movement'. Movement photos may be taken of an object or person that is physically moving, or simply moving the camera to make a blurred effect. I also found that altering the camera's shutter speed changed how blurred some of my images came out. For this shoot I went to the local park and used the playground equipment to create the movement for each of my photos. In the end I was really happy with some of my shots because I think they effectively show different speeds of movement, and in different directions too.

Here are some of my favourite photos from today's shoot after I had edited the levels and curves using Photoshop.

A photo of my own feet taken whilst I was swinging on the swings!

A kind woman let us use Oliver the dog for some of our photos. Here you can see the movement in his tail!

This photo was taken whilst I spun the roundabout around. I like how the colours all blur into one.

After waiting ages for the pigeons to come down off of the roof, they took off again! I particularly liked this photo in black and white.

Sunflower...

This is another one of my favourite photos from all of the work I have produced since September. It was originally in the 'pattern' category because of the petals around the outside but it could also be argued that it conforms to the colour formal element because of the bright yellow in the whole of the photo. 

My First Post!

One of my favourite photos from my shoot for the formal element 'tone'.