Conclusion

I am extremely pleased with the way my project has turned out. Although there were things I could have planned a little better, and I could have used my time a bit wiser, perhaps by moving the shoot date forward, to give me more time for post production, or if needed a re-shoot. 

I think that the concept of my shoot although slightly bazaar, has worked well and developed into a set of strong finals. I especially like the contrast between the intense white of the skin and back ground against the colours of the features. The shadow images, was a bit of a hot and miss idea, but I followed the concept and personally think the images work well along side the normal images.

I think that given the project again I would have perhaps experimented with lavish make up, but I think for the concept I had, using makeup would have just been too much for the frames.

I believe I have worked extremely hard to complete both the research and finals within the deadline. The research I have produced I believe has been developed well and concluded with a good set of imagery. 

I am happy with the images I have created and think I have greatly developed my photoshop skills throughout this project. I have let my project become experimental and so this has been a technical development within my own work as a photographer. 

This project although quite stressful, has been  enjoyable and challenging to carry out. I like the pressure of having a deadline and creating a proposal even if the proposal changes or varies slightly. 

The final Images.

These are my final images.

Creating the shadow images

In order to create the shadow finals I just inverted my three fully edited images. Then by simply creating a new duplicate layer, I altered the position of the second layer to create a shadow on the original images. 

It is from this idea that the narrative of my project came about, and that is of a woman not only looking at herself for the beauty, but for the negatives. The images run in sequence of looking at the positive beauty then the negative, almost like a personal comparison is emerging. I based this on how women look at them selves..never happy with what they themselves have. There is always something about yourself that you see as a negative. Although the narrative is relatively obscure I think it works well with this idea of the robotic, because it brings the question of falsity and even the idea of plastic surgery and trying to falsify yourself for beauty. There is something cold and detatched about the images and I think that works well within the context. The clean lines and crispness of each image helps enhance this as there is such a harshness to the overall look.

Enlarging The Eyes

In looking at the final images I decided to enlarge the eyes. This is because the detail of the image, is within the eyes and I wanted to enhance this feature, given the fact that my image was so white intense, I also think it will bring the viewers gaze to the contrast between the whiteness of the image and tonal range of the eyes. Also by enlarging the eyes I help to portray this idea of the robot and man made beauty. Here are some experiments I did in relation to using the free transform tool.

Too Big - Bug Eyes!

Too Small
The Right Size!

Post Production

Taking my inspiration from both the work of Chris Cunningham and Vicky Steckel, I am going to be using photoshop to create a pure white intense image besed around the idea of healing and robotics. It does sound like an odd combination, but with the image I have formulated within my own mind, I think that this is most probably the easiest way to explain it. As well as that I plan to play with the colours of arden, not only the reds, blacks and whites, but the terra-cotta/ peach colour of the actual cream.

I am going to use just 1 of my 3 images to show how I constructed my 3 final images as the same process was applied to all, in exactly the same ratios and amounts.

The first thing I need to do is resize the images to A3 so that any cropping can be done at the beginning of post production. The height of an A3 image is 42cm and the width of an A3 image is 29.7cm. 

This then changes the image size to 49.8M. Where it had previously been around 22.9M with a RAW file and 8 Mega Pixel Camera.

The next step was to add a duplicate layer in which to control and adjust the contrast and brightness of the image. The reason for doing this is to change the intensity of the white and create the pure look I was trying to achieve. 

You must vary the opacity in order to create the desired level of contrast between the original image and the new layer. I chose to keep it at 100% because I needed the intensity to be high

Next on the same duplicate layer I changed the curvature of the shadows and highlights in order to create vibrant features that stood out against the white skin and back ground.

Then I enhanced the brightness a little further to make the skin even more sterile in appearance.

The next thing I did was to flatten the image, so that the duplicate layer and original now became one layer. This meant that I could now start cloning out unwanted shadows and the hair line.

This is what I was subsequently left with.

I didn't like the dark shadow around the neck line and so I removed it with the use of the cloning tool.

In looking at each image I then decided where the image would need cropping in order to maximize the potential of the photograph and also use space within the frame most aesthetically.

In this image there was far too much space and so I cropped the image using the A3 limitations.

This is how I cropped the image.

I then noticed there was a dark shadow around the jaw line that I thought should be removed. Again using the cloning tool I persisted with cloning the area to the bright white of the background. 

This is the finished image.

3 Selected Finals

After looking at the contact sheets, I have decided I like these three images the most and think that they work well as a series. I like the different angles of the face and how the features engage with the camera. The reason I have only selected three images is because when I create the shadow images, I will still be using these three images to create the idea of a shadow image. This will consequently give me six final images. As a sequence they look as though the model is turning her head to face the camera. I quite like this overall feel of realising she is the voyeuristic subject.

Final Shoot

The final shoot was scheduled for February the 29th, and thank fully everything went according to plan. Here was the plan of the shoot.

09:30 - Meet Stephanie and Ki at London Bridge tube station.

09:40 - Amy starts setting up the lighting whilst me and Stephanie walk to make shift studio.

09:50 - Arrive at Amy's and help with lighting, test flashes. Ki starts make up.

10:25 - Ki finishes make up.

10:30 - Start photo-shoot.

13:00 - Lunch Break

15:00 - Photo-shoot ends.

The whole shoot went according to plan and everything went well. I am also pleased with the final images and believe they will work well within the concept of post production. I still feel extremely enthusiastic about this project and will start post production within the next day. 

Here are the various components within the shoot:

Aperture Value: 5.6

Shutter Speed: 1/50sec

Flash Heads: 5.6 - 1/50sec

Lens: 20-50mm

Camera: Canon 350D SLR

Files: RAW

Here are the contact sheets from the shoot: