My chosen theme for this project is ' hidden messages ' and I chose this theme because I would like to take images with meaning because I believe that it would refine and revamp my website. I aim to produce high quality images and writing to excel my website. At the end of my project I will choose my best photographs and present them in a separate gallery to show off my work, and with my final images I will develop them with Photoshop. To this day people still discriminate and I would like to show people what the media doesn't show. The ugly truth of it all.
For my initial research I am I will start to be looking into photographers who take images with meaning. At the moment I have four photographers in mind. These are Sheila Pree Bright, Jana Curcio, Gordon Parks and Patience Zalanga. These four photographers take a lot of images on the discrimination issue. I chose to look at Gordan Parks because he was a photographer during the 1940s and he took a lot of images of racial discrimination, civil rights and poverty. He fantastically captures beautiful images with deeper meanings and a message behind them. Another photographer that I chose to look and research about is Sheila Pree Bright. She is famous for her plastic doll photography that show ethnic women digitally merged with Barbie dolls, she took images like this to show society's complex relationship with cultural beauty and standards and to show the fine line that is often drawn between reality and fabrication in American culture. Another photographer that I chose to look at is Jana Curcio, Jana is famous for her interconnected nature of skin color, she edits her photos like this to explore issues of interpersonal relationships and the complex struggle around one's identity. And one last photographer that I am going to look at is Patience Zalanga, I chose to look at and research this photographer because she takes pictures of the reality of riots especially the Black Lives Matter protest, which the media seems to fabricate. She also takes images of police brutality and any other social movement and uprising. The images she took really speaks to people and shows them the veracity of issues like this.
My initial thought on the theme 'messages' sounded quite bland to me but I realized that I can delve into the theme and turn it into something meaningful which will develop my work and get me the top grade which is what I am aiming for. I wanted to explore the subject discrimination because It's a challenge to take photographs on the issue and I wanted to signify my website to make it more purposeful and worthwhile. I also wanted to explore things that were more personal to me, my race and gender. I also wanted to take pictures of something that is often fabricated in the media. I wanted to show the reality and truth of all types of discrimination. I realize that this is a difficult subject to discuss but I feel like we should get past our discomfort and talk about issues like this, and the way I would like to do this is to take photographs of messages that are based on the topic. I will take images that has physical messages and have photographs that have a photograph that has a deeper message such as images taken of discrimination in action.
To show progression through my work, I will start to take photographs of the subject around my home to make my website more personal and distinctive. I will also take high quality photographs that show my own twist on the topic of discrimination. I don't want to take photographs that look like someone else's, I believe that it's better to take photographs that's unique and individualized to one's self, so I am going to explore my own ideas and not somebody else's . This will help to develop my website and to make it more professional. I will start of by taking photographs of the words 'injustice', 'discrimination', 'racism' etc. I think that this will really develop my website because it will show the start of my progression and then later on I will take photographs of images in the finest state. When I am not in school I will carry on my task and take photographs at home, I will take images of things that can be used to discriminate people with for example, Islamic culture, gender, and race/ethnic background. I think that this will give me a highly developed website because then people will be able to understand what people use to discriminate other people with.
For the equipment I will use a manual DSLR camera which is what I will take all of my photographs on, sometimes I will use a microscopic lens to get that in depth photography. I will most likely use this lens for when I'm taking photographs of words and skin color. I will do this because I would like to to take photographs with different depths of field, I believe that this will definitely get my the highest grade because it shows my capability to use a variety of different tools that I can use to get me a developed outcome. When I am at home I will use my phone camera which will also show my capability to use different tools. After I've finished taking photographs of these I will transport them into Photoshop and edit them which will evolve my image into something different and unique. I will use Photoshop to turn these photographs into edits such as double exposure. duo tone, or the dispersion effect which is something I'm confident and comfortable with. I will also go up and beyond with the Photoshop effect and use more complicated tool such as the glow effect, the surreal glass effect, and Photo manipulation. I am confident in to thinking that this will get me the highest grade because it will show my ability to try out different Photoshop techniques.
I have until the end to develop my third project. I aim to complete my statement of intent by the first week so I can have a lot of time to take photographs and to edit as many as I can, I also aim to complete my mood board and mind map in a lesson which will also hopefully give me time to complete my 4cs for four photographers, the time that I'll hopefully have will increase my chances for a better outcome and a developed research to get me that top grade. After I complete my 4cs I will move on to my shoot plan which should only take a lesson, this will give me enough time to take photographs the nest time I have a lesson. Taking and uploading the photographs should take two lessons which will get me a really advanced set of images. After that I will upload them into galleries and do my best and worst with detailed annotations, which will also take a lesson to do. Following that I will start to edit them in photoshop this might take a week or two depending on the type of edit I will do, I will hopefully produce 8-10 developed outcomes with step by step journey of how I got to that outcome, the end result will go into my final gallery. Depending on the time I have I will probably do another shoot plan and repeat the process I did with the other shoot plan, I will put my final outcomes from that shoot plan from photoshop into my final gallery. Then I will produce a final evaluation to talk about the project in it's entirety and also talk about my next steps into moving forward.
As my project progresses I will annotate everything to show the step by step process of my work, I will mostly annotate my best and worst and my photoshop, I will do this to get the highest grade and this will get me the highest grade because it will show my ability to talk about my work in a critical manner, this will hopefully show that I am serious about my third project and I will do anything to make it the best I can possibly do. I will seek advice from my peers and tutors about how to make my work better and I will also work on my weaknesses to get the best outcome. I will also watch tutorials for photoshop to also get a better understanding of the edit and to produce my work as highly as I can. Then I will write up a final evaluation on the project as a whole, to reflect on what went well and what didn't go well and what I will do differently next time to get the best outcome I can possibly give.
Mood Board
Research
My First Shoot
For my first shoot I looked at different types of hidden messages like symbols such as sticker or road signs and many more. I went out on location around my local area and captured messages in windows, gates, and within my home. I am going to develop these further in photoshop.
PART 2
Message in a bottle in a black box
In a yellow lightbox
On a wooden fence
Buried in the sand
MOCK EDIT>
Original Image
Developing my image on photoshop
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Final Image
This picture needed improving because messages in bottles don't really happen nowadays as technology is more advanced and when messages were sent across in bottles it was a long time ago which meant the bottle and paper must look old . I decided to enhance my photograph by changing the brightness/contrast , Vibrance and levels. the reason why I used brightness/ contrast is because the brightness make the white colors stand out which gives a beautiful effect and the contrast makes the colors other than white very deep and dark. the Vibrance adjustment doesn't just focus on one color but makes the entire image either darker or lighter, in this case I made it lighter. I then switched to the levels adjustment which brings out one of the most important part of this image which is the coffee stains. i adjusted the levels to make the image seem old and also to make the bottle seem old.
Original Image
Developing my image on photoshop
Final Image
First of all, I started by changing the brightness/contrast of my photo. I then used the selection tool and put a path around each of the letters in the bottle. I then right clicked on the image and selected the option stroke path. By doing this it outlined all of my letters , I then used the brush tool and changed the brush from normal to linear dodge (add). I then colored the letters in which gave it a sort of glow effect.
Images with Justin
Developing my image in photoshop
Final image
Developing my image in photoshop
Final Gallery
I chose to explore the theme hidden messages for this chosen project. I loved this chosen theme because I felt I would be able to express my true emotions towards certain topics in this area. I thought the theme was good because I was able to take images of very powerful things which has inspired me for my third project. I chose this theme to express the emotions and deaths caused throughout the pandemic and chose to send messages through my photographs. In photography I found the use of photoshop the most interesting because I enjoyed manipulating because I enjoyed manipulating my work and improving the images I took. This allowed me to expand my skills.