DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY 1

Thematic Project Work Diary

By Jackie Perris, Student # 21485934

18/10/2013 WEEK 1

It’s the first week and I am super keen about this subject. I work

in marketing so deal with advertising and imagery every day.

However as a manager I only oversee all the creative and do not

do the creative work. In addition, photography is a passion of

mine and I have purchased a Nikon D90 camera a few years back

but never actually learnt any of its functions. I have absolutely no

experience in Photoshop, so I hope this subject will give me the

confidence and skills to diverse into this area that I am truly

passionate about.

25/10/2013 WEEK 2

Learning Photoshop this week. Whilst completing Task 2, I

was extremely daunted about this program. How am I

supposed to understand all the functions it has to offer.

Thank goodness for Photoshop help and the tutorials the

lecturer has provided. The link below with Photoshop basics

tutorials was extremely helpful particularly learning about

the layer / masks / panels and CS6 Interface.

http://www.photoshopessentials.com/basics/

01/11/2013 WEEK 3

Time to start thinking about Option B the Thematic Project. What to do,

what to do, what to do? I need a theme that will not cost too much and

will work in my local vicinity as I work full time, study part time and have

a 14 month old son. It would be so much easier if my husband was home

however he works away out on the gas fields so is only home 1 week a

month

With a minor melt down given work and study workload I was seriously

considering just doing Part A only. But I don’t want just a pass and I am

really enjoying learning my camera skills and Photoshop, so thinking cap

has been on and two themes I have in mind is doing images around

‘Motion’ or creating images from a certain view. For example my 14

month old son is starting to reach up on tables and trying to peek to see

what is on there. I often wonder what it would be like to theme the

pictures from the view in his world! Hmm considerations.

W H AT S H O U L D M Y T H E M E B E ? O N E T H O U G H T I S T O TA I L O R T H E I M A G E S F R O M “ T H E E Y E S O F M Y 1 4 M O N T H

O L D ” .

15/11/2013 WEEK 5

Light Bulb Moment!!!!!

I was in a conversation at work about ‘Twerking’ and the Miley Cirus

performance at the VMA awards back in August. The girls to put it politely

thought it was distasteful. The topic then twisted to nudity in many music clips

and why do they do it. Is the concept of sex sells wrong? Are the females that

do it a disgrace or does it portray confidence. After all, these celebrities all

have the figures to flaunt so why not and why criticise them for doing it?

This definitely had me thinking.. And I soon decided my opinion on the subject

and what I want to do for my thematic project. ‘Provocative’ has to be my

theme. All the opinions or attitudes around this subject is what I would like to

portray in my set of images. This is something I believe in and am interested in

as I work with advertising each day, so it is completely suitable for my

personality. Yay now that’s decided it’s time to get researching into it.

15/11/2013 WEEK 5

To start it all the link to the controversial performance which sparked my

project theme is below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E94UetOx7bg

In the lecture this week we viewed a few different photographers works.

One that stood out for me was Erwin Olaf. His pictures from the Royal

Blood Series 2005, are amazing. I love the bold red against the cream and

white backgrounds. The clarity of the pictures and the silky smooth

Porcelain skins. These are all elements that I could try and implement in

my thematic project shoot. Gestures are also an important feature I need

to consider with the use of props.

ERWIN OLAF = INSPIRATIONH T T P : / / W W W . B L O O D Y L O U D . C O M / R O Y A L - B L O O D - E R W I N - O L A F -

P H O T O G R A P H E R /

MAGAZINES – VOGUE AUSTRALIA

I L O V E T H I S M A G A Z I N E . T H E A D V E R T S C E R T A I N L Y S A Y S E X S E L L S A N D I S A M A J O R I N F L U E N C E F O R M Y

S H O O T.

MAGAZINES – VOGUE AUSTRALIA

I L O V E T H I S M A G A Z I N E . T H E A D V E R T S C E R T A I N L Y S A Y S E X S E L L S A N D I S A M A J O R I N F L U E N C E F O R M Y

S H O O T.

MAGAZINES – VOGUE AUSTRALIA

I L O V E T H I S M A G A Z I N E . T H E A D V E R T S C E R T A I N L Y S A Y S E X S E L L S A N D I S A M A J O R I N F L U E N C E F O R M Y

S H O O T.

6/12/2013 WEEK 8

It’s been a few weeks since focusing on my project

again and I had another realisation today. I have

been doing all this research into the images or

gestures I want to capture but I don’t actually have a

model! I asked my close friends that lived near by

and they instantly declined! Oh no my project seems

to be falling apart. Maybe provocative is not the

theme to do

13/12/2013 WEEK 9

Still panicking about my project this week. No photos have

been started only ideas in my head from magazine

advertisements I have been looking at.

A resolution to my model dilemma happened late this week.

Talking to my lovely sister she volunteered to be my model.

The only thing is she lives in Sydney and I am in the Gold

Coast. However she will be up for a week during Christmas.

Our holiday together will involve doing a shoot for a few days

B A C K T O R E S E A R C H I N G A N D S O M E M O R E I N S P I R I N G P E O P L E T H A T A R E I N F LU E N C I N G M Y

T H E M E !L A D Y G A G A = W E I R D B U T C O N F I D E N T

Lady Gaga’s song “Do What You

Want” (featuring R. Kelly) I think

would be a good song to play

during the shoot to get the model

into the groove of things!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=

A3jzMyYgPQs

Image from:

http://www.digitalspy.com.au/sho

wbiz/i435466-8/lady-gagas-madd

est-moments-so-far-lady-gaga-vog

ue-hommes-

japan.html

S O M E M O R E I N S P I R I N G P E O P L E T H AT A R E I N F LU E N C I N G M Y T H E M E !

M A R I L Y N M O N R O E = M A J O R S E X S Y M B O L

Love all images of Marilyn.

There are so many photos when

you do a search in Google

Images on her. A couple I love

are from photographer Andre De

Dienes (1949) from the below

link.

http

://www.vintag.es/2013/06/beautif

ul-photographs-of-marilyn-

monroe.html

S O M E M O R E I N S P I R I N G P E O P L E T H AT A R E I N F LU E N C I N G M Y T H E M E !

M A R I L Y N M O N R O E = M A J O R S E X S Y M B O L

20/12/2013 WEEK 10

My model arrives in 3 days. Today it was discussing clothing or

lack of that she needed to bring. All the adverts I had been looking

at I had sent her and instruction was to bring bikini’s, nice

underwear, and her bubbly confident personality.

I also had arranged this week some back drops. I got paper rolls

in white, black red and green. I couldn’t afford the stands, but my

dear handyman husband managed to rustle up a stand for me out

of ladders and broom sticks taped together. It will do the job.

Getting a bit excited that my theme is coming together

27/12/2013 WEEK 11

It’s shoot time!

Thankfully we have had bright sunny days which is what we

need to get the light into our patio. Although in saying this

we did have wind which was hard to shoot with as hair was

blowing around and it also made our make shift back drop

blow down once, whoops! Thankfully no one was injured.

All up 1st day of shoot went well. Time to download the

pictures.

Oh no! my images don’t look like they do

on the camera. On the big screen they

look so much darker and under exposed

In addition inequalities are coming out

for my model. She had a spray tan done

before the shoot and my camera is

picking up all the patchiness of the tan.

Opposite is an example of a disgraceful

picture. I don’t have additional light

sources so I will need to relook at my

camera settings and re shoot some shots

tomorrow.

27/12/2013 WEEK 11

27/12/2013 WEEK 11

The second shoot went a little better than the first, although after downloading the

images some are still under exposed. They are by far not perfect and with lots of

experimenting with settings I still haven’t mastered the camera. Maybe I shouldn’t of

relied on the cameras light meter and purchased a light meter to experiment with. I

wish I had more lighting or direct lighting. Maybe I should have spent money and

hired a studio. All these ‘maybe I should have’, but in reality unfortunately there’s no

time or truthfully money to do these what if’s. So with 178 images to go through I am

sure with Photoshop I can get at least 10-12 images to be decent to submit!

On a positive I am happy with the ideas and compositions that came together. From

the research I did and my lovely model also provided her input into gestures, I think I

have captured what I was planning to portray

03/01/2014 WEEK 12

Happy New Year. My New Year has been all about

Photoshop. Tutorials and editing, editing and editing

I have watched numerous tutorials on Photoshop to

help me edit these images. In particular focus has

been on, enhancing eyes, creating silky smooth skin,

colour balance, spot colour, black and whites. All the

links to the tutorials I have watched are next

03/01/2014 WEEK 12P H O T O S H O P T U T O R I A L S I W A T C H E D

http://www.photoshopessentials.com/basics/selections/color-range/

http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/photoshop-photo-effects-part-iii/

http://www.creativebloq.com/computer-arts/video-tutorial-control-tonality-p

hotoshops-black-white-filter-

12118370

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmfSKYQKk4o

http://www.webdesign.org/photoshop/photoshop-cs6-tutorials/how-to-creat

e-a-porcelain-skin-effect-in-adobe-photshop-cs6.21908.

html

http://www.creativebloq.com/tutorial/high-pass-skin-smoothing-photoshop-

812591

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijwV3XunkMw

Editing, Editing, Editing.

My work is now coming together. I have

learnt a lesson! I have noticed that when

using coloured back drops the model

picks up the colour of the back drop in

the skin, obviously from light reflection.

This was evident when I looked at the

images with the green and red back

drops – example opposite, notice green

in the skin around the belly.

Examples of my work are about to

follow, with the likes and dislikes.

10/01/2014 WEEK 13

Notice green tinge reflection around mid section

IMAGES THAT DIDN’T MAKE THE CUT!

As much as I love

Marilyn Monroe, my

take of her photo just did

nothing to compare. So

it was left out of

selection.

IMAGES THAT DIDN’T MAKE THE CUT!

So this was a bit of an experiment.

Lets just say, water and paper do not

go well together, light fading so

using flash does nothing and well,

what’s sexy about a blue bucket…

nothing. The idea was there, I just

have not yet mastered the technique

and maybe needed to consider the

props a bit more. Maybe a

champagne bottle would have been

nicer.

IMAGES THAT DIDN’T MAKE THE CUT!

Love the eyes in this

shot, but I wanted to make

it about the bright red lips.

So the focus is on the

wrong spot and sorry sis

but you just don’t have the

lips that pucker well, so

this didn’t make the cut.

PROGRESS OF IMAGEF R O M I N C E P T I O N T O F I N I S H

My idea with this shot was to

have the sign in focus and the

rest of the body really out of

focus. However with many

photos taken it just wasn’t

coming out the way I imagined it

to be. So I re-evaluated the shot

and by the end came out with

the images on the next screen.

PROGRESS OF IMAGEF R O M I N C E P T I O N T O F I N I S H

PROGRESS OF IMAGEF R O M I N C E P T I O N T O F I N I S H

So many new skills in Photoshop have been learnt from this project.

19/01/2014 THE END

It’s been such a great course and learning experience that was

extremely fun. Whilst I review my final 10 images, ready to submit,

I know they are not the professional quality like all my research

images. I wish I was as talented as that and I have hope that with

more practice I will improve. However, given my limited resources,

no studio or lighting, I am proud of what I am submitting. They

portray the gestures I intended to take and I have moved beyond

my expectations with my Photoshop skills.

I hope that you have enjoyed the images and this project.