Final photos – Planning

After researching different artists work and doing test shots this gave me enough time to experiment and find out enough information on what I want to do for my final photos. After looking at the different styles and using them in my own work, I found that the dark editing but not giving the photos a creepy feel worked best for my final location. After doing all my research I finally decided that I was going to take my final photos at the beach building in Norfolk. I’ve come to this conclusion due to the story behind the building and how forgotten it has become. I also feel that the way it completely vanishes when the tide comes in is crazy and more interesting than the other places I came up with. The thought that at least once a day the building cannot be accessed or seen from land makes the building distinctive as not many things get covered by the sea and stay complete. The building is also inaccessible due to it being mostly under the sand and full of pebbles too. The building is also at a slant due to the sea pulling it under on one side just like pebbles being pulled into the sea due to the backwash.

For my photos I would like to keep the focus on the building so I’m going to do this by trying to take close up photos but I also want to give a size representation and show how insignificant it is compared to everything else around it. I would also like to take them when the sea is pretty far out as I don’t want there to be any danger of getting stuck or splashed when taking the photos. I would also like to take them with natural bright light but not necessarily a sunny day. I like the idea of taking them on a stormy day or even just on an overcast day to give the photos a moody feel.

I would overall like to make the viewer see the beauty of this building once again and to give time to think about its history. I also want people to be intrigued by this photo and to want to find out the history of other places and to open their eyes to see things that they wouldn’t normally look at. I want to make people love the history of places again and to make people consider the story of run down locations.

Final photos

 

For my final photos I knew I wanted to use a public swimming pool due to the look which they have and so I could use a massive amount of water which just wouldn’t have been possible anywhere else. I did think about using an inflatable swimming pool in my garden but I didn’t feel it gave the same familiar feeling of a public swimming pool and also felt it could give a childish feel to the serious photos.

So I started my search by looking at different swimming pools and looking for ones with deep ends and that had lots of natural light. I wanted a deep end so that when my model ‘fell’ in he wouldn’t have the danger of hitting the floor. I also wanted lots of natural light as using fast shutting speeds makes the photos very dark if there isn’t a large amount of light. After searching for swimming pools to use I found 2 which seemed suitable for my photo shoot so I sent them both an email explaining what I wanted to do and if it would be possible to use their swimming pool. Straight away I got a response from one saying that they were too busy and a day later I got a response from the other saying that they could possibly help. I rang them and spoke to them about the details and they said that they could do it that day whilst they were setting up for a party, giving me only 15 mins to set up and take the photos. I accepted their offer and arrived with all my gear and my model and they were very helpful and couldn’t wait to see someone fall into the swimming pool fully clothed. I did four takes and each time got my model to put dry clothes on so that it would look like it was the real thing each time. This meant we had to work quickly but I soon got the hang of it and was getting a good selection of strong photos. I did at first have problems with starting the burst too soon and my camera stopping taking photos before he even hit the water but I soon got the timing right and got the complete sequence on the last take. I wanted to have 12 photos as I’d planned that I could take that many and I’d worked my zoetrope out to fit 12 photos perfectly. I think I want to edit them possibly but I’m not sure what would look good for the theme that I’m working in.

Here is my last take which got the whole series of photos:

I’m really pleased with the different stages of the movement that I captured and how it progresses a little bit more from photo to photo. My favourite photo from the take is the photo just before he hits the water and looks like he is balancing on the side above the water level. In some ways it looks like he’s trying to save himself and balance but it also looks like an elegance dance in midair. I also love the way the water reacts to his flat body hitting it and spraying up around him as if it swallows him. The splashes at the end are showing his struggles and him finding it difficult to get out of the water and the splashes slowing down show he’s not swimming any more but instead is drowning.

I feel that the photos turned out really well and that they possibly need editing to make them better and to give them a stronger main subject. I do really like the sign behind on the wall as it’s warning him that the water is there and it’s deep but he didn’t listen and fell in still showing that it’s his fault and he could have prevented it. I think that the angle from straight ahead works really well as it gives a better look at him struggling and his reaction to falling in. I think that all my test shots of things hitting water really helped me to know that the water would splash the correct way and give the look I’d planned. It meant that I could plan how my model would have to fall to get the correct splash and to make it look the most like they aren’t jumping but instead falling. It’s meant to feel like he’s looking over the water and then he falls in, showing that he could have prevented it from happening if he’d just read the signs and not been so close but this also tells the deeper story. He never listens to people warning him not to do things so he does it anyway and this is the last straw and it’s all catching up on him in a way that makes him feel like he’s drowning because he has so much stress.

I really feel that the paintings by Pedro Covo were a big inspiration for the way I wanted the boy to fall and hit the water and then disappear under it just like the people do in Covo’s paintings. I liked the way you could see the splashes go out in response to the way the person hit it and how all the attention is on the person. I also felt that they were very delicate just like dancers so I really tried to capture this. I tried to make all of those things in my photos and capture the feel of the photos. I really feel the elegance when the boy is falling before hitting the water with his arms out and just balancing on one leg just like a ballet dancer.

I would have liked to be more zoomed in so that when it’s in the zoetrope you can clearly see the subject and the small details that change but I wanted to try and capture all of the splashes created by him falling in which meant I had to be zoomed out as the splashes were bigger than expected.

Test shots

After looking at photos and people’s work that inspires me I decided that I would go and try to take photos in ways similar and to see if it was something I felt would work for what I am looking for. I went through the photos/art that I had been inspired by and let them inspire me and change my idea to be like theirs. I didn’t do one for each person as some of them are very similar so some of my test shots cover more than one artists work.

Here are my test shots:

1. Here is my first photo which I made with inspiration from Max Riché, Eadweard Muybridge and Harold Eugene Edgerton. I did this by setting my camera (Canon 5D) onto a tripod and setting up looking at an area which enabled me to have enough space to do a cartwheel. I put the camera onto TV mode and at 1000 which means that I could capture fast movements without them being blurred. I then also set the camera up so that it would take lots of photos in one go. I first took a photo with out me in it. I then got into position and got someone to count down and then hold the button firm down until I had finished doing the cartwheel. After that I opened all the photos onto photoshop and used the eraser tool to go around myself in each photo and then place them all onto the first photo which I’m not in. Once I’d placed all of the different movements onto the background photo I started moving them around so that the individual photos could be seen better. Even though this made it unrealistic I found that it didn’t look too different and it made it easier to see each movement. I think it worked really well but I do think that a longer movement would have worked better. Also someone who could do a fluid movement in an elegant way would look better than my awful cartwheel which is clunky and overlaps a bit too much. I feel that this way of placing photos together so you can see all the individual movements could look really affective with the idea of the boy falling into water.

2. For my second test I took inspiration from Elliot Schultz as he creates movement by making individual images and then playing them fast one after another. I decided to try and make a stop motion with Lego and try and make it detailed and capture lots of realistic movements. I also tried to not make it too long so that it didn’t go on for ages as this would have taken a lot more photos than I already took to create. I used a tripod and placed some cardboard on the floor to make a smooth and plain setting. I then got lighting and directed it towards the cardboard area so that it wasn’t too dark and so the details and small actions could be seen. I then started to move the lego in from the side and took photos one at a time and moving the Lego in little by little. I then continued the movement by getting the guy out and then the dog. This took around half an hour to set up and shoot the photos. I then placed the pictures together on iMovie and made the photos stay on for a split second each so that it was a smooth transition and so it ran smoothly. I think it went well and the outcome looks effective and just like it actually happened without me moving them by hand but I don’t think that stop motion would work for my idea. I think that other methods would work better to capture someone falling and to be able to play the individual movements smoothly.

3. Then for my last three test photos I got inspiration from Martin Waugh, Pedro Covo and Dorothea Lange’s work. I wanted to capture a movement that is really fast and make it clear and as if it isn’t moving just like Martin Waugh’s water photos where they are splashing but they look like they are still and made of something solid. I also wanted to capture something like Pedro Covo’s work where he paints people splashing into water. His paintings make it possible to capture that single movement as a still and something you can keep looking at. I then lastly wanted it to look to Dorothea Lange’s work as she makes her photos capture emotion and that was something I wanted my photos to capture too. I took my photos all the same way which I did by setting my camera onto TV mode and at 1000 which means that I could capture fast movements without them being blurred. I then got my mum to do lots of fast movements such as flicking her hair around and jumping on the bed. I then got her to take a photo of me flicking my hair around as my hair is longer and I wanted to see how it would look. For the photo of her jumping on the bed I got her to look like she was actually doing a handstand on the ceiling as I knew that it would look bazar when captured as a still photo. Then for her hair one I wanted to capture her smiling and being happy and with her hair going up in the air. I felt that this photo captures emotion perfectly and looks really interesting with her hair. Then for the photo of me I found that my hair looked really amazing and went everywhere which looks like I’ve been caught in a strong wind. I think this method of capturing movement is really affective and I want to try and capture someone jumping into water with this method.

 

Overall I found that the photos made me really sure that what I wanted to do was possible and that if I took my photos for the final piece that I would be able to capture all the intricate poses that happen when someone falls and hits water and how the body reacts to falling. I feel that I’ve found out lots about how I can stop movement whilst it’s happening and it not be blurred which is a massive step in the right direction for my idea. I don’t know what I would have done if all my photos were blurry. The only thing is that I’ll need to test this with things falling into water so I can see the impact that happens.

 

Making our face a cartoon – pen tool

For this lesson we used the pen tool to make our faces into cartoons on Photoshop.

>Firstly bring up a raw picture of yourself into Photoshop.

>Use the pipette tool and click on the back ground to set the colour white

>Go new, put in 29.7, leave second box, then last box put 300

>Cmd A on picture of you, cmd c, cmd v onto the blank page

>Crop the photo down to just the face

>Press shift and alt whilst resizing to make it easier

>Go to the pen tool by pressing the P button

>Then go around the face with the tool and go over the hair line

>Hold alt and press the middle circle to make the next line straight

>Once you have gone all the way around double tap the path you just made and rename it face

>Then go back to layers and press cmd shift N and this will allow you to make a new layer. Name it face

>Go onto path, press cmd and on the little box that shows the new one

 >This will make the running ants go around the face path you just made

>Now go to the paint pot by pressing G

>Hold alt and click on your face where it’s closest to your skin colour

>Then click inside the running ants. This will fill it with that colour

>Press cmd D to stop the running ants

>Now do the same to the hair, ears and neck

>Now do the whites of the eyes the same way as before but use white

>Go onto the paintbrush and make it 100% hardness and really small

>Make the colour black

>Go to the path of the white of your eye and right click it

>Choose the stroke path and then the brush selection

>This will make the running ants turn into a black line

>Now do the iris the same way as before but choose the colour you want

>Now do the pupil the same way as the first ones but choose the colour black

>Now do the eyebrows the same way but make them the same as your hair

>This is what yours should look like but this one still has the picture of me on in the background as I’m still working on it

>Add a nose by using the pen tool to make a cartoon nose shape and then use the stroke path to make it black

>Neaten out the colours with the paintbrush (ect: the neck and hair)

>Go onto google and choose a simple picture for your background

>Make sure it’s a large photo and press open image

Drag the photo to your desktop then from there to Photshop

>Drag the photo onto the cartoon of yourself you are making

>Press cmd T to resize it and drag it onto the background so it fits perfectly

>Make the background just like you made the face with the different layers

 >Make sure all the layers are over the background layer

         

 >Get rid of the layer that was of your original face as it’s not needed anymore

 >Change the colours of the skin and lips so that they match everything or can be seen (cmd L)

 >Then turn on the layers needed and make sure they are in the correct order

 >Then save it