Photography Research - Will Pearson

Will Pearson is a professional photographer who lives in London. He specialises in taking panorama pictures and has a wide array of them on his website. (http://www.willpearson.co.uk/)

The Shard View, Night

The Birds

These pictures illustrate how shutter speed can be used to create an interesting picture. 

Photography Research - Ed Jacobs

After spending a few sessions in class learning about camera settings and what they can achieve we have finally begun the main project: creating our own panorama. I will need to use a series of images I taken and then seamlessly stitch them together in Photoshop. 

For inspiration and ideas I have and will continue to research photographers.

Below is a link to a photographer's blog. His name is Ed Jacobs and has been regularly updating his blog since early 2008.

http://qjphotos.wordpress.com/2010/11/23/wavy-tokyo/

I thought the wavy technique he's used in his set of panoramas was particularly interesting because it created an unusual, rare effect. 

Research from The Photography Book

The Photography Book

I've now been set the main project brief which is to create my own panorama on anything I like, focusing on either depth or motion. I have decided that the best place to probably start is by researching other photographers so that I can gain some inspirations for ideas myself. 

I have been looking through a book thats been recommended a lot on the course: The Photography Book. Below is a list of some of the photographs that I thought stood out.

Dmitri Baltermants - Kerch, Crimea (Grief) - 1942

Pg 34

Gabriele Basilica - Le Treport - 1985

Pg 40

John Davies - Allotments Overlooking Easington - 1983

Pg 110

Paul Fusco - Finca El Encanto, Mexico - 1994

Pg 164

Harry Gruyaert - Ouarzazate, Morocco - 1985

Pg 187 

John Hilliard - X - 1982

Pg 202

David Hockney - My Mother, Bolton Abbey, Yorkshire - 1982

Pg 204

Frank Hurley - The Endurance By Night - 1915

Pg 220

Nick Knight - Susie Smoking - 1988

Pg 248

Jacques-Henrie Lartigue - Gerard Willemetz and Dani - 1926

Pg 262

Gustave Le Gray - Sea and Sky - 1856

Pg 265

Source: The Photography Book

Phaidon Press Limited, 1997. The Photobook. 1st ed. London: Phaidon.

First Task - Face Merge

Our first task was based on Photoshop. The aim was to merge two different people's faces together to create a believable person. 

We each took a picture of ourselves in a passport style. Once everyone in the class had done this we partnered up and began merging.

Below is my picture

My first partner was James.

I began by uploading both pictures into Photoshop. I set James's face as the top layer and lowered the opacity to 50% so I could see my picture beneath. I resized and rotated them so they were both the same (using both our left eyes as an anchor reference point.) I then used a vector mask and began to rub away at the top layer to reveal parts of my face underneath. 

As I was doing this I was quite shocked at how much our skin tone actually differed. It was clear I needed to adjust the colour balance to make them mould better. I had to redo this a couple of times because parts were getting coloured that I didn't want to (such as the eyes and background.) 

Below is my final edit

("He" reminds me of an American trucker)

After completing one and enjoying it I was keen to practise more and so did another one.

This time I partnered up with Bessam.

On this edit I used myself as the main picture and rubbed away to use Bessam's eyes, eyebrows and mouth.

What issues does this raise technically?

I found the key to making the photographs believable was to get the two skin tones right. I had to adjust the picture's levels, hue, saturation and colour levels to get a realistic look. 

I used the pen tool to create selections as not to rub out certain things. For example: I couldn't rub out too far from the jawline as the person's ears underneath would appear.

What issues does this raise philosophically and ethically?

There is a lot of debate about the use of Photoshop in magazines and online etc. Many argue that it objectifies humans and creates damaging images (such as the size 0 models for example) that encourage unhealthy lifestyles and a chase for the unobtainable "perfect" image. 

What do you need to consider when planning a photo shoot of this type?

One thing I noticed was the difference in shadows on the face, particularly in mine and James's merge. He has a shadow on the right side of his face whereas I have one on the left. I couldn't really fix this problem in Photoshop so if I were to re-do it I would make sure we were both in the same lighting conditions.

Me and James used different cameras. Although this didn't affect our picture to drastically I noticed in some of my classmate's it was much more obvious.

Introduction

Introduction

Over the duration of the module I will use this blog as my learning journal. By the end of the course it will be full of the tasks and processes I have gone through to meet the learning outcomes.