Digital Portait Project

 Photo 1 - Before: This picture is of my cousin Chelsea with her birthday cake. For whatever reason in this photo she was not smiling, and I thought that she had a great expression of sadness on her face.

After: Originally, I wanted to keep Chelsea and my Grandma in the photo together but they were expressing different emotions so instead, since I wanted to portray a feeling of sadness, I decided to remove my family and the background completely, and put in a group of children behind Chelsea. In the background photo (children bullying background) there were four children. I had to take one out so I could put Chelsea in. The child I took out was a girl who had pigtails in her hair so that is why the boy's back looks slightly misshapen. I wanted to convert this whole photo into black and white, or just Chelsea, but I chose to convert only the bullies into black and white because the various colours of their clothing were very distracting, and with Chelsea being coloured, there is a greater focus on her.

Photo 2: This picture is of Katie, and was taken in a hallway upstairs against some lockers. To make this photo look interesting, I cropped it using the rule of thirds, with Katie off to the right side. I really like the expression of happiness on her face (it was a real laugh not posed). To improve this photo's emotion, I made a gradient background. I used the blue and yellow colours from Katie's shirt, mostly because they looked nice together, and the yellow in the background seems to act like a bright light/sun that brings a happy glow to the picture. Also I used the "poster edges" effect on Katie so that the gradient background wouldn't look as fake with her in front of it.  

Photo 3:
This is a photo of Kara looking out the window in one of the hallways upstairs. In the original photo, there were many lockers behind Kara's back, so I cropped them out, also using rule of thirds, so they wouldn't be so distracting. Also in the original photo, there were vents on the roof outside of the window, so I took them out using a clone stamp of the snow that was around them. After I finished that, I converted the picture to black and white to give it a more dramatic feeling.

Overlay Technique Photos - The Carissa Zoo

 This is the original photo I used, a picture that Mrs. Reidel took of me in class on Wednesday.

 In this photo, I used a cheetah face, and my own eyes. For my neck, I copied the cheetah face, made another layer, erased everything except for the forehead, and fit it to my neck. I cropped this photo so I would be off to the right instead of being centered. I like how this one turned out because the gradient background and my hair colour match the cheetah fur colour well. 

 For this photo, I used the face of a gorilla, and my own eyes. I cropped this picture, similarly to the cheetah photo above, except I also cropped it so there wouldn't be as much background above my head. A challenge with this photo was getting the animal's face to fit mine, and it did not end up working so, I copied the face twice, and made two new layers, one for my neck, and one for my forehead. From the copied face layers, I erased everything except for the forehead, and used that on my forehead and neck. I don't like how the forehead looks in this picture because the forehead layer is overlapping with the face layer. On the neckline, it also overlaps, but I like how it looks there because it simply looks like collar bones, not a poorly done neck.

Andy Warhol Silk Screen Technique Photos

 This is the original photo I used, my school photo. I decided to use complementary colours for my photos because I like the contrast that they have together.

 

P.S.  Sorry that the purple & yellow explanation is not beside the pictures like the other photos, I could not get that one to work.       



 Red & Green - For this picture, I like how the colour of red on my face highlights the black outlines of features on my face, especially my dimples, eyebrows and how my eyes "pop". I found it hard to find a red that was not a very pink colour for the highlights in my hair, and also finding a green that looked like a lighter version of the background green was difficult.

 

 Blue & Orange - In this photo, I like the contrast of the blue on my face with the orange in the background. To improve this photo, I would put the lighter colour of blue in the hair instead of on my face because the dark blue is kind of hard to see against the black hair.

 

 

Purple & Yellow- I really like how this photo turned out because I think it looks the most like me. I did a good job on drawing my eyes, it looks realistic, unlike how my right eye looks in the blue and orange photo. One challenge I found with this photo was finding a lighter colour of yellow for the highlights, because yellow is already such a light colour.

Photojournalism - D10 Wrestling

"Pure Joy"

I chose this photo because I loved the emotion shown in the wrestler's, and referee's faces. Both look very happy to be there. I cropped this photo and changed it to black and white because it focuses in more on the two people (wrestler and referee) than the spectators in the background.

 

"Going Down"

 For this photo, I only chose to crop because there was a lot of people in the background, which are distracting. I chose to not convert this picture to black and white because one of the wrestlers has darker features so putting it into black and white made the whole photo harder to see in general.

 

"Game Faces"

 I cropped this photo, and also changed it to black and white. I did this because it really focuses in on the two wrestlers, and captures the emotion and determination of both boys to win the match.











Photojournalism Ethics

1. Staging Scenes
        I think that staging scenes is not right. Yes, I do think that it is okay to move an object to get a better view if something is in the way, but it is not okay to remove or add something to the photo because that makes the photo become untruthful. Altering the scene becomes unacceptable when a photographer adds or removes something in the picture, someone else has already taken a similar, and real photo, like in the "It All Began With a Mouse" scenario. Many photographers took photos of a destroyed town with a toy that they added into the photo themselves, and this is not right because, those photographers only staged their photos because of how popular they saw the real photo become, and wanted to get money, have their photo also become famous, an take credit for a photo that was not real.

2. Manipulation of Digital Images
        I believe that the manipulation of digital images is wrong. I think that it is unfair to manipulate digital images because it tricks people into believing something that did not actually happen. For example, the "Sharks invade New Jersey" photos are edited, and could have possibly set a scare to the people in and around the area.

 Edited sharks invade New Jersey photos.

3. Intrusion into Privacy

         I both agree and disagree with taking photos of people in private. It is legitimate to take photos of people in private moments when a devastating event has taken place, but is not when a celebrities, politicians, or other public figures are in private spaces. I think this because, celebrities, politicians, and other public figures are constantly having photos taken of them and deserve to have some privacy when they are in private areas or with their families. On the other hand I think that it is okay to take photos of victims of tragedy because those photos send a message to the public, and could bring an affect of sympathy and action to the public and government so that next time, a tragic event such as a shooting can be prevented or more preventable.

 Sandy hook school shooting.

 

New Kid in School Assignment

         Meet Teachzie, she is the "new kid" that I created. This student is made from Caschzmiera, Teagan, and Jamie. I used Caz's face as the base because she has a nice face shape and her smile crease lines are not too promenent. I chose to use Teagan's eyes because her eyes are brown (Caz's are blue) and she has glasses with which I wanted to take on the challenge of fitting them perfectly to Caz's face. I picked Jamie's mouth because it has a good shape to it, and fit in Caz's mouth space very well.

          I think that I did well with cutting Caschzmiera's hair because it doesn't look like it was cut straight across. I also think that I did well fitting Jamie's mouth onto Caz's face because the sizing and slight rotation of it worked well inside of Caschzmiera's smile creases. Something I should work on improving for next time is matching skin colours better, because Teagan's skin in the glasses is slightly darker than Caz's skin. So next time instead, I could take a paint drop of Caschzmiera's skin and colour in where Teagan's skin is left in her glasses. I had lots of fun doing this project, and I hope you like my new kid.

First post

I decided to take this course because I am very interested in photography, and want to learn about ways to edit pictures, and use computer programs I am not familiar with. I love taking photos, and looking at /making art. I don't know much about digital manipulation, but I am up for the challenges. I look forward to this class every morning! :)