Tuesday, January 26, 2010

How to Create Images with multiple instances of a subject

In an earlier post, I wrote how much I like the work of Kelli Connell. I have assigned the students in my Digital Photography class at the University of Toledo an assignment inspired by her work. They are creating a series of three images on the theme of Ambiguous Relationship. That is to say, looking at the photos it shouldn't be clear that both roles in each image are portrayed by the same person.

If you are interested in creating work such as this, there are a number of technical/logistical things to be aware of when shooting. Here is a list that I gave to my students:

Must shoot RAW.
Must set exposure once, use same exact setting for each of the two (or more) shots.
Must focus once, don't refocus between shots. This will require you to leave your camera on manual focus after initial focus. Think through where you need to focus at. Consider depth of field issues.
If you have a more compact camera that doesn't offer manual focus, see if you can set your focus by at predetermined distance.
White balance can be synced in Camera Raw, but must be the same for each image.
Must use a tripod. Take care not to bump the camera between exposures. Use a remote release if you have one.

Between shots, you need to change the appearance of your model as much as possible. Consider the following:
clothes
hair
jewelry including ear rings, piercings, watches, bracelets, etc.
glasses
facial hair?
make up - some then none, do it differently, etc.
shoes, you can change someones apparent height by changing their shoes...
tight fitting and then baggy clothes?
general style of clothing.. street than dress clothes?

Remember, you want to create a series of three in which the relationship of the people is ambiguous. All the rules of design still apply. Avoid flat looking images in whcih he subject is in the same plane each time.
Domestic scenes may work well?

Then you need to edit the RAW images exactly the same. Then you need to combine them.
Here is a link to an tutorial on how to  Combine multiple images into a group portrait.

 Although the intent of the tutorial is different, it is exactly the same thing. Here is a link to a video on Aligning Layers by Content


Avoid the obvious things like a person playing cards with themselves. 

You may want to take three images or more to bring back down to two. Here is Ohio we get a fair amount of snow. I was thinking of an image where the person is walking through the snow with one another. Of course you would create footprints as you leave the scene to go change. If you took a photo before you had your model walk into the scene, then you would have a photo to mask back the snow from. You could do it with just two shots, but it seems like the third one would come in handy.

Mobile Blogging!


Mobile Blogging!, originally uploaded by Seder Burns.

This is a photo i I just took on my phone. I am compsing this message on my phone as well. Nice. Computers are so yesterday...

Flickr

This is a test post from flickr, a fancy photo sharing thing.

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Scanners as a creative tool - or - Scanner Art -or- I LOVE ME SOME SCANNERS!

Scanners just don't get the love they deserve. They are really incredible. Sure, digital cameras are all the rage, but scanners have been doing their job much longer than digital cameras have been around. In fact, the first digital cameras were modeled after scanners. Some still are. Take a look at my images for example.
Sure, scanners perform many mundane tasks every day. Maybe you even used on earlier today to copy your taxes or scan a photo of you as a kid for Facebook. But have you made art with your scanner today? Art made using scanners, often referred to simply as Scanner Art (or the unfortunate moniker Scannography) has been around since scanners came on the scene.

Caitlin Harrison series of self portraits are great!

Scannography.org has some tutorials and a directory of people making art with scanners. Be sure to check out the work that the listed artists are making. Some really great stuff!

Tim Fleming is representative of a number of folks who create floral/botanical imagery. Not my cup of tea, but maybe you will like it and it does show the potential uses.

Flickr Scanner Art Group has a variety of images. Like the rest of Flickr, the quality varies greatly.

Katrin Eismann used to create a lot of work using scanners. It's her work that I like best.

Scanner Magic is a site devoted to mostly botanical scanner art. Includes a directory of people creating scanner art.

Monday, January 18, 2010

Online Photo Editing...the future?

If you don't have a copy of Photoshop, fear not, you can likely do everything you need to do with/to an image using a free online photo/image editing application. I have been watching online image editing programs develop for awhile now. I have utilized them a number of times for classes and person use. I am truly amazed at their capabilities.By the way, these programs are particularly sweet if you are using a netbook with limited memory and processing power.

Aviary

Picnik


Pixlr

flauntR

Photoshop Express 

FotoFlexer

Some of them such as Aviairy have a number of tutorials available. Give them a try, you will be amazed at how well the work!

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Kelli Connell's work with multiples

Fantastic body of work combining multiple images creating ambiguous, fictionalized scenes
http://kelliconnell.com/

Digital Photography Tampering

Phototampering through History:
http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/farid/research/digitaltampering/
&
http://ethicsinediting.wordpress.com/2009/04/01/photo-manipulation-through-history-a-timeline/

Great blog about bad photo editing

http://photoshopdisasters.blogspot.com/

Links to the crazy Ralph Lauren model retouching fiasco:

http://boingboing.net/2009/10/06/the-criticism-that-r.html
&
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1221675/Ralph-Lauren-new-photoshop-row-SECOND-image-model-airbrushed-make-head-larger-waist-emerges.html