Digital Potrait

DIGITAL PORTRAITS: Black and White: "Violence Hurts" Manipulated: "Frustration" and "Opened Blindness"

"VIOLENCE HURTS"

I took the photo from the cafeteria, where there was sunlight shining on one side of her face. I asked Kathy to do different poses for my ideas such as blindness, violence, and sadness. I already used one of her poses for the blindness and I thought this pose looked very interesting and had the most effective lighting.

I did minimal changes to the photo. First, I cropped it and changed the contrast. Finally, I converted it to black and white. Because, there was a distraction in the photo, I had to erase and clone stamp that part to eliminate it from the photo.

I feel that even though very little change was done to the picture, the outcome was good and effective. I do find that sometimes, less is more, and that simple changes can make the photo look interesting. Sometimes, doing too much just ruins the goal you are trying to reach.

"FRUSTRATION"

At first, I was not sure of who my subject was, and what I wanted them to do. I had a lot of trouble with this first step. Ms. Reidel helped me by thinking of some friends that would be interesting to take a picture of. I chose Catherine Subang to be my subject. I took a couple of pictures of her with different emotions. I also took a picture of Steven Nguyen, but decided to use Catherine's pictures instead.

Once I decided which picture of Catherine to use, I cropped it to make it look more interesting.

Then, I played around with the shadow and highlights.

I also changed the mid-tone contrast of the picture to add more effect.

Then, I finally converted the picture to black and white.

Lastly, I played around with the brightness and contrast of the picture to create the final product.

I was satisfied with the overall outcome of "Frustration." I liked how simple it was, and how I did minimal effects to it. By converting the picture to black and white, it created an entirely new image. It added impact to the picture.

"OPENED BLINDNESS"

I had a lot of fun manipulating this photo, but I didn't want to to overdue it. The first thing I did was crop the photo and filled the background with black paint to cover up any blank parts. Next, I converted it to black and white and played around with the brightness, contrast, shadows, and highlights. Then, I used the magnetic lasso to select her eyes. I changed the brightness and contrast. I also added a new layer over each eye and painted it a light blue. Then, I changed the opacity of the blue layer to make it fit with the eye. I also blurred it to make it blend more effectively.

I was very satisfied with the overall outcome. My goal wasn't to make it look creepy or scary, but it turned out that way. Nevertheless, I like the effect and impact the picture has. A quote that inspired me to do this photo was "God closed my eye, and now I can see." In a movie, a blind man said this quote, and I think it had a good message. Even though you may be blind, sometimes you can see more. You can see things in the world that you would not normally pay attention to if you were not blind.