1

Experimental Photography

Nicola Kilgallon

Double Exposure

1. 2.

3. 4.

Use this slide to annotate your final image

This picture is a picture of the river in Stamford Bridge. It is on a high opacity so it is viewable and it is the layer behind the other two pictures. The river is mainly at the top of the image as it stood out there as there was a lot more space for it.

This picture is of some plants at college with trees behind them. The trees have an effect on them, called linear light, which made it a bit lighter and brighter. It has not full, but the most opacity on it as I used it as the main image.

This is an image of someone’s face. The opacity is on 43 so the image is viewable but doesn’t stand out too much.

This part of the image is focused on the river, with a light ripple effect to show that there is a river in the background.

Faint facial features creating a mysterious look.

Tree creating the discovery theme of the image.

4

My favourite image was made up of 3 different images, a person, a river and some trees. My idea was to have it just as a face, but I thought it worked and looked better when you could see more of the different images around the face. My first idea was to have just two images both a faded face and faded trees. When it came to making my image, I decided to add a third picture in which worked really well. The results I got reflect the research I did on other double exposure photographers. I am happy with the results, especially as I managed to get the detail in on the trees as well as the facial features. On my photograph no.3 there are very little to no facial features. I think it is effective but not as effective as my final image. I like that there is more detail in my final image however I find the colours in no.3 more interesting and bright. Image 1 contrasts this image the most. It has an image of a path way which I put another image of a river behind it to make it look like a river, with trees on top of it to make it look like a reflection of the trees at the top. It has a person in where you can see the head shoulders and arms, a lot more of them which you can’t see in my final image. Image 2 and my final image have the same picture in of the person, but have a very different effect due to the other images I used. Image 2 is a lot more simple and laid back where as my final image stands out a lot more.In my final image, I would of liked more coverage of the trees, but as I made the image bigger, it lost the effect of the river at the top of the image. I would also like the colours to be more like image 3, bright and lots of dark blues. One of the main influences of double exposure photography is Andre De Freitas. His images have a lot of woodland in it, within a person, I thought it was very effective when I was researching it so I thought I would try it. The image below that Freitas did inspired me to try it with a person and some trees. In this image, I like that the tree is very faded on the outside of the woman and I would like to go back and try something similar.

I think that my final image looks good and I like the fact that it id three images, rather than just two. I like the small detail of the river at the top as I thought that the top looked a bit plain so it added more detail and made it more interesting. I think that the strongest element is my final image is the picture of the trees. I am glad that I took it on a sunny day so the colours are their own and natural and the blue sky in the background adds more colour. I am also glad it was autumn when it was taken so it has brown and red leafs. I think that the weakest element is the top of the image, I like that I got the river in there but on the image of the person, it isn’t very cleat that it is a river as the effect isn’t very strong. I like that all of the colours are tones down and match, giving it a vintage look. None of the colours are too bright or too bold, they are all the same saturation.

Andre De Freitas image

5

In my work, the technical qualities were all very similar. I think that they are well done, but could be improved. My strongest elements are the cropping of the person, I managed to use different tools like the magnetic lasso tool, polygonal lasso tool and the magic wand. Using all three tools I managed to get a good and neat edge on the image. I also put a light feather on the edge so it wasn’t too sharp. The places my images were put could be improved, some of the images I would liked to have been filled more, but wasn’t able to do it as the image blurred and other images lost effect. On my images, I changed the opacity so all three images were viewable. Some more than others and I also changed the ‘full’ to make it image how I wanted it. I changed the images to some effects like linear light and multiply and darken until I got all of the images together how I wanted it. The post production I did was I took the images out in Stamford Bridge of the trees, plants, river and the viaduct. I also attempted to make two double exposure images, which were off Google, to get a taster and experience of what I had to do and what to expect.

I could improve my work by adding more images to try and give the image a different look and effect. I could try and merge my images so that I had two people in one image with the same effect in the background. I could improve the colours in the images, as I tried too but it made the layers beneath this image fade out. I could develop my already made images further by changing the effects and making them from a bright image to a very dark one to make it have a mysterious look to it. If I was to make further experiments, it would be to have more that one person in my images so it is more of a challenge and different. I think I did the positioning's of my images well, with the person being in the centre and the background images covered the places where I wanted them too. There is a constant theme through out my selection of images which is trees, making them unique and similar yet different. The patterns from the trees make the image look adventurous and out-doors like. It has a positive vibe of summer.

I think that my images do match the theme of discovery as I took images of outdoors, trees, viaducts, rivers, walkways, puddles and the sky. All of these things match the theme of discovery and could be discovered more. They are experimental as they have three images mixed into one. I have managed to manipulate images to make them look like something that isn’t real. Image 1 that I created matches the theme to discovery well as it has the path way down the viaduct central in the image. This part of the image leaves a theme if discovery as people can think for them selves about where it leads or where it is, as long as its just a photograph, it is yet to be discovered. This is similar to my image number 2, the background is the sky and nobody knows where that leads. Overall, I think that my images fit the brief and theme of discovery and I have extended my creative and technical skills in photography and Photoshop.