My Photostory

Here's my collection of manipulated photographs. I'm not sure why the slides are off-centered, I can't seem to change it even though my file that's saved doesn't view that way. The last slide's text is cut off, it reads "let yourself rest"

tools used starting with the first picture: crop, smudge, burn, patch 2nd: smudge, burn tool 3rd: airbrush, dodge tool 4th: burn tool, darkened brightness 5th: burn tool and used a filter 6th: airbrush, burn tool, text 7th: dodge and burn tool 8th: airbrush 9th: adjusted colors to bring out more red and blue, dodge tool 10th: airbrush and burn tool 11th: colorized, dodge, text 12th: increased red and magenta in sky, paintbrush

Portrait

 

Here are the portrait shots I got. I didn't want them all to be of the face, which you typically think of for a portrait shot. I really wanted to focus on the things my brother does with his time and that I think of when I think of him. The first is him with one of his birdhouses- he probably has 20+ that he's all hand painted. The second is of my brother in the front yard- one challenge I had was getting him to act normal- as soon as he knows he's in front of a camera it's instant awkward, so I just kept talking to him and pretended I wasn't taking any shots yet. The third is him holding (kind of framing) a sunflower. When I went outside he was actually watering these flowers, so it was perfect. A challenge was giving directions and capturing at the perfect moment to get a natural looking shot rather than a forced still shot.  

Text, Clone, Patch and Paint

 I cloned the peony, taking it away from the original photo and adding it to the empty vase.

added a quote about time to a picture of a clock!

Changed the sky in this picture to show a different texture

Photostory

 

Here's my rough photostory!

Fun with Filters

The first picture I worked on you can't really tell what I did with the smudge- it's weird because when I was doing it, it looked really drastic. I also applied the waves filter under animation. I did a lot with the dodge and burn filter as well. It was too dark after I worked on it so had to lighten the entire flower area. I really LOVE the smudge tool though- very neat.

 

 

For this second photo, I didn't want to change too much; gave it some texture using the newsprint option under the distort filter. Again, changed the lighting a bit with the hue-saturation option. I'm not sure how I feel about this photo- I like it, but something else needs to be done I just can't figure out what! I kind of wanted it to look more splotchy with the green hue.

Working with these filters really allows you to alter a picture and it was really cool to see how many things you can change. I'm sure there's a filter for every photo! :)

Dodge & Burn

 

I realize this is considered a simple tool, however this took a lot more playing around with than I expected! This time I used GIMP, just to get comfortable using different programs. It was really strange working with this tool because sometimes the dodge or burn strokes would be super noticeable a other times I felt like I was going over the same spot a million times for any change to occur. The end photo isn't perfect, but I learned a lot about this tool, so that was fun.

Before:

After:

Light and Color Photo Adjustments

 

 

(Original)

In this photo I edited the photo filter to bring out a darker purple in the flower. I also selected the mosaic tiles texture and like how it came out looking like a blurry painting- almost a watercolor! I can see myself using this texture for prints on stationary :)

 

(Original)

Here I went under brightness/contrast and selected soft light, then deep red and loved how that came out. I kept playing around with a few more tools/selections, but found it hard to remember what I used- I even tried writing it down, but kept crossing things out when I found it didn't work! But this was fun to see how many things you can do to a photo by changing the light/color/texture.

 

It's kind of funny that once I started playing around with the light and color adjustments, I wondered why I even thought the originals were good photos. It's crazy how these minor adjustments enhance the photo so much and is more aesthetically pleasing! 

Graphic Image Manipulation

I definitely struggled with this and it took many many hours to finally get the hang of this. I really liked the example, so I went ahead and did my own version of that. This is something I'd love to be good at, which I now feel more comfortable with but can't wait to play around with it some more. The first grouping of pictures are the ones I chose to use so I could dissect and add to the background I chose. The second is my final piece!

Landscapes

Before I started taking pictures for this assignment, I knew I wanted to capture a lot of patterns; textures and lines. I started in my yard and ended up driving back roads through Starksboro, Monkton and Charlotte. I think all of my pictures demonstrate what I was going for with these landscapes. I could take landscape pictures all day!

 

Rule of Thirds

I had a hard time finding an object I really wanted to take a picture of. I probably just need to just change up my setting but these were the shots I liked the best. I definitely think the photograph showing the rule of thirds is more "artsy" and interesting, but I like the one straight on better because of the two wood textures being so centered behind the flowers. I can understand why someone would use the rule of thirds and will be giving it another shot ;)

[ F R A M I N G ]

 

I had a lot of fun using this technique and can't wait to use it again in a different setting! It was a little trickier than I thought it would be but was up for the creative challenge! I think the shot of my cat peering through the chair and the chicken coop across the street were the most effective shots I got that demonstrated framing.  Here are some of the shots I got: