Scans

22nd April 2011

I came across an image online, that I am not able to show as I can't remember where it was, of a man's face pressed against glass, which was quite light and smokey looking. I did a project last year, which contained scanned portraits, which was quite sucessful and I really loved it. I decided to play around with scanning again and wanted to scan in bish' face to see what results I'd get. Would they be as good as the other project I had done or not? Also from the image i came across it gave me an idea to get bish to smoke his sheesha pipe to produce smoke out of his mouth , then slowly breath it out as the scanner was scanning, which it would hopefully catch. I wanted to see if the image would look as good as I imagined or not. The results were not as good as I thought they would be. The smoke didnt really show up as good as Iimagined it would and in some cases it is hard to tell if it is there or not. Also, poor bish, has a big nose and it was difficult to get him close enough to the scanner to get a clear enough image of his face, without his nose looking very flat, squished and unflattering, bless.

I think the images of his hands are alot more sucessful than the ones of his face, as there is more focus and detail in the images, from the creases in his hands.

The head on images of his face are my least favourite. His nose is too big and prominent and it definately distracts away from the rest of his face.

I thought that perhaps if the background was darker then the smokle would be easier to see. It did make it more obvious and clear however it was still not exactly how i imagined. Also because the smoke was moving as the scanner was scanning it has created areas that have note scanned in propperly and in focus.

I like the images of his face form the side better than the front as his nose is not as big and prominent anymore, allowing the viewer to focus on other areas of his face and hands.

I decided to get in on the act, to show the interraction and relationship between me, the photographer and Bish, my subject.

Jim Goldberg

Open See
This project shows portraits of illegal immigrants, refugees, displaced people and asylum seekers, trafficked people from war torn, socially and economically devastated areas, who are trying to make a better life for themselves in Europe. Goldberg began the project in Greece 2003 where he photographed and collected stories through a range of formats: Polaroids, video, written text, ephemera and large and medium format photographs. These people are all in search of stability and the promise of a better future. The polaroids have been marked, destroyed and written on by their subjects, which shares experiences and stories of their harsh pasts and new present.

Open See continues Goldberg's Innovative use of imagery and written text. He began this style of story telling in, 1977, with his project Rich and Poor (1977-85) which looked at closely the American class system and contrasted the lives of the wealthy with the poor.

Rich and Poor

I really love this mixture of imagery with written text. I find reading what these people have wrote absolutely fascinating and find that it really makes the images extremely powerful and moving. It gives the portraits a lot more depth and produces more things to consider and think about. I have been debating as to whether or not to put text along with my imagery as there is a lot more to tell about this situation than what I believe I can show. I am still unsure.

Studio

I took bish into the studio to do some better quality images than the one I had been taking of him in his bedroom. I also wanted better lighting and to be able to use the white backdrop, that bish would be able to cast a shadow onto to create similar 3D images that James Dequeker does. The images of his of the models infront of white backdrops with strong shadows cast onto the backgrounds, seem to work the best in 3D and I wanted to try it out for myself

Left eye

Right eye

Both images together to create 3D.

Same image as above, except the 2 images are further apart, so you can see more of the red and blue.

Turned the image into a negative.

This is the image I wanted to create, with the shadow in the bakground to give the image that extra depth. Works well as a 3D image. The one above is the same image only the 2 images are farer apart.

Mixture of creating a 3D image with the Helmo images. Made left eye image red and below, right eye image cyan.

Right eye, cyan.

Both images put together. However when the colours are mixed togethern they aren't strong enough to match the red and cyan lenses on the glases, so the image doesnt really work very well 3D.

Used a red filter over the studio light. I have never used the filters before and i wondered if i could get the red and cyan images without having to do it in post editing. However I didnt really like it with the filter, I felt that it lost alot of detail within the image.

Helmo Testing

I really liked the images from Helmo, of the models mixed with the animals and decided to have a go at creating a few myself. The idea is that when you look at the image through 3D glasses that the two seperate images that are overlapped combine and fuse together. When you close one eye, to leave the eye looking through the red lense, then the image that is red dissapears to reveal only the blue image. When you swap over and are only looking through the blue lense, the bluse image dissapears, leaving you with only the red image. To create the images I got her face and through slelective colour made her all red. I cut her head out of the original image and placed it onto a black background. I then did the same with the image of her paw, however made it blue/cyan. Then I put one image ontop of the other and made the transparency of the top image more so that the bottom image would appear. To make sure the image worked, I put the 3D glasses on while editing, making the colours more or less.

Test of my dog Fizz.The red image is of Fizz's face and the blue image is of her paw. The image works really well looking through 3D glasses, however not as good as the Helmo images. I have no idea how they created theirs, I merely assumed what they may have done to create my own, which havent worked out as well.

This image works less well probably because the red hair isnt outlined within the image but spreads over all of the canvas.  

jbgvfgc

An image I found on deviantart that I thought would work well through 3D glasses because of the 2 colours red and cyan. 

Edmund Clarke (No Place To Go)

The project titled No Place To Go by photographer Edmund Clarke, looks at asylum seekers living in britain. It shows several portraits of the asylum seekers, mainly in their place of stay,   covering their own faces. The idea of this is to convey their loss of identity, showing them as just a figure and also to show the fear they hold towards their circumstance.

I really like the concept of the people within the images covering their faces and their identity. It makes you wonder about who they are and what their situation is, for them to be in this country. I also like them being square portraits, i think it frames the subjects really well. I like the vibrant blocks of colour within some of the portraits, its brings that extra something to the image to make them eye catching.