Best Edit

This is my best edit for shoot 3, it is of a female model who has squashed her face up against a window in order to distort the facial features to make them flawed as this is not a representation of what typical beauty is or what you would see in magazines. This shows my artist influence of Jenny Saville as in her paintings she paints them as if her models are pushed against glass which in turn deforms them. I edited this image by decreasing the brightness to -10, then increasing the contrast by 10 to make the colours more bold and intense, I increased the vibrance by 20, increased the saturation on the tones of reds and greens and finally I decreased the blue to -100 which made the towel in the background appear more white as it did have a blue tint to it. There is only a subtle difference between this edited image and the original one as I feel it did not need much editing to try and make the model look more flawed but at the same time to help the image look more flawed which is helping it to look better and more perfect.

For my next shoot I plan to incorporate both my artists by doing a studio shoot of portraiture to show the influence of Annie Leibovitz but also by experimenting with a different type of material in order to create flaws in the face to show the influence of Jenny Saville. I will be doing this this by wrapping cello tape around peoples faces trying to move the facial features again like how the photographer Wes Nawman does in his images however Jenny Saville will still be my influence as I am just experimenting with a different way to achieve similar results to her work in order to develop my work.

Edits

Before and After: In this edit I increased the vibrance and saturation in order to make the colours more intense in the image. Then I increased the contrast to help make the colours bolder which they both helped to make the image stand out more. I was going to use this image as my best edit however this edit and my best edit are very similar and I feel that the light rays shining through on the image has ruined it too have it as my best edit.

Before and After: In this edit increased the contrast to make the skin look worse and unappealing and increased the shades of skin colour in the image to make it look more red trying to represent more of a skin condition, then I decreased the brightness to -26 as the background was too overexposed. Overall I think the image looks over edited and very harsh but it is a good edit for what I am trying to do. In the next image I tried two different ways to make the image black and white, one was to use the black and white tool and the next was to decrease the saturation to -100 however I feel

decreasing the satiation didn't capture the variety of tones as well so the image looks more plain. I could have played around with the levels to create the effect I wanted with the right balance of tones of white black and greys. In the final image I cropped it too see what effect the image had on the audience when it was very close up and in my opinion it has made the model look worse because it is right in your face and you don't have any kind of background to distract you from the models face as much.

Shoot 3

Shoot 3 was similar to shoot 2 and went well there are a couple of things I could have done to improve upon it. In this shoot I have used my second artist influence of Jenny Saville in my images again, you can see the influence in the same way as in shoot 3 where the model is being pushed up against glass which in this case is a window and the glass in a door, exaggerating the models features that are being squashed making them larger than they actually are, deforming them and flawing the normal image because what we see is not actually what the model really looks like and that is how this shoot links to the previous one just without using a scanner. What went well in this shoot is I was able to get a variety of different types of faces coming out when the model pushed her face against the wall, they all had their own character too them and where I was able to see what she was doing I was able to control what I wanted my model to do in order to get different types of images. What didn't go so well was at the beginning photos of the shoot you can see the reflections of the houses and tress e.g. 1089 and in image 1093 you can even see me and the cameras reflections from taking the image. I was hoping to prevent this from the white background of the curtains, I could crop these images to remove the problem but then I would loose too much of the image. To try and eliminate this more me and the model swapped places and she went outside and held a white towel behind her and this seemed to help the problem such as in image 1095 however the light rays were still shining through in some of the images e.g. 1097. If I was to re-do this shoot I would make sure I had a large piece of white card to use as a plain white backdrop to help eliminate this problem further. In the last few images I used the door with the glass in it as it had a lined and pattern on it which I thought would make the image more flawed as ideally you wouldn't want it to be there. 

Best Edit

Before and After

This is my best edit for shoot 2, it is of a male model who has pushed his face against a scanner while its being scanned to create the theme of flaws I am trying to show to contrast against perfection. The model has been made to look larger then he actually is due to glass, ugly and discoloured and I like this image as I feel it really shows my artist influence of Jenny Saville. I edited this image by increasing the contrast and then playing around with curves which has made the models hair look very thin and like straw compared to the original image where it looks soft and thick. It has also made the lips and face look a lot more red, in pain and blotchy which has made his lips look more plump too. You can also see blemishes and imperfections more on the face. The last thing I did to the image was crop it slightly from the left hand side so that you can't see the transparent paper underneath. 

For my next shoot I plan to further my experimentation by using glass again but from somewhere different which will be the glass from my bedroom window and my classroom door in order to squash my models face up against to develop my work. This time I will be able to see how the model is morphing their face and I can give them guidance as to how I want it too look whereas I couldn't in the scanner.

Edits

Before                                                                                               After

In this image I played around with the tool hue and satiation tools in order to make the image look more 'cold'. I increased the hue by 36 and the saturation by 20 which helped make the image look more 'cold' and has also made the models hair green which could be considered a flaw. It has also made the skin appear more white and in distress from being squashed. What I like in this image is that it looks as if the model is underwater, which I think the editing has helped achieve this effect but also the transparent paper we put underneath the models face. 

In this edit I decreased the brightness to make the background look darker, then I increased the contrast to highlight the face more as it added more colour to the face. Compared to the original image it doesn't look I have decreased the brightness and increased the contrast and this is due to me then experimenting with the blacks, greys and whites using levels and from doing so I have managed to edit it so that you can see all the dirty fingerprint marks on the scanner from other people using it which has made the image flawed. In both images the model is using here hands to help aid in distorting the face. 

Shoot 2

Shoot 2 went well and was fun and interesting to do as part of my experimentation. In this shoot I took different members from my class and asked them to push up their faces against the glass on the scanner to use an object completely different to try to morph their faces. I have used my artist influence of Jenny Saville and you can see this in my images trying to make the models look fatter and ugly even though this is not what they actually look like and they are against glass like in some of Saville's paintings however I have created the images digitally. What went well is that I feel I really captured the influence of my artist really well and that the images worked out well as I wasn't too sure how they would turn out in the scanner. I was trying to create flaws within the photos as the models cheeks and noses were squished so I could compare them against my photos where I am trying to create perfection which is how they link into my shoot before. What didn't go so well in the shoot is that in scan 5 the models hair got in the way of the rest of the image so you cant really see where here face has been distorted, also the transparent paper underneath the models faces moved when the models were on the scanner being scanned which has created the colourful lines in scan 2 and scan 4 however this can follow along the themes of flaws and perfection as it has flawed the image by being there. This then gave me the idea of what things I could do post-production wise in order to flaw a photograph, some ideas I had included burning an image, sandpapering an image and seeing what effect it had, following the artist Maurizio Anzeri and sewing into an image, smudging the images in Photoshop and using glitch art.

Photo Analysis

Title: Unkown
Artist: Jenny Saville
Date: 1995/1996
Oil on canvas

Title: Fulcrum
Artist: Jenny Saville
Date: 1999
Oil on canvas

I like these images as the nudes are very exaggerated, I think the images show how women
perceive their bodies as they feel they are a lot bigger than they actually are but once again it has been exaggerated but Saville is trying to make expectation of what is perfect more appropriate compared to a skinny women. The image on the right is actually a painting of what I can see of 3 women squashed up against and laying on each other. The image on the right is a painting where the models face has been pushed up against glass, how the face is deformed and flawed as the models face would not look like this usually but due to the glass it has been altered. There are many different tones of colours in the paintings that have been layered and are overlapping with the marks of paintbrushes which have been dragged and twisted around in different motions on the canvas but the tones are bland and pastel coloured based. The actual paintings of the skin its-self is quite violent, harsh and bruised.

Title: Plan
Artist: Jenny Saville
Date: 1993
Oil on canvas

This painting is a nude portrait of Saville herself and has been intentionally made to look large, even with large breasts which have to be held up in order to see the rest of the body. The lines drawn on her body remind me of the marks surgeons make on you before you are about to have liposuction done or the targets on during archery. It brings out the idea that the the skin needs to be cut away because model is flawed where she is fat and not perfect and skinnier, like a males or the media's typical fantasy of the perfect body, which shows the artist concerns on the matter. I also can see a sense of vulnerability as she is naked and using her arm to cover herself however in contrast to this at the same time you can see the strength and power in the painting being able to bare all.