Initial Photographs

The above collection of Photographs are from the compositional idea of me face in the mirror. All of these were shot in the studio. I played around with the lighting so in some of the Photographs the lighting is directly in front of me, behind me or to the side. I wanted to make sure that I had enough spacing either in the mirror or around the mirror so that I can do my illustrations. I found that the mirror was a little small which made it difficult to show the whole of my face in the reflection however I am pleased with how these turned out as it gives me a variety of images to work with and to experiment on.

The next selection of  Photographs that I took were of my upper body. This is for my idea focusing on my over thinking. For this idea I mainly wanted to just make sure the lighting was right and the positioning of my body as I will cut and paste this onto a new blank image for when I do my illustrations. I found it most difficult to position myself correctly as it was only me taking the photograph, therefore I used the self timer on my camera to shoot this. As a composition it is not great, however that is not what I was aiming for as this will not be the same composition once completed.

Above, these are a series of Photographs I took for my idea that focuses on self harming, this includes me photographing my wrist. Again, this was not about the first composition of these initial photographs as I will be cutting and pasting this onto a new composition. I took quite a few of these because I wanted to find the best lighting as I was shooting with natural lighting. I also tried positioning my hands differently to how I first imagined it in my compositional ideas, for example I tried spreading out my fingers instead of having them curled up. 

These two are to show the struggle I had with completing my AS levels. This will also be cut and paste onto a new image for me to illustrate around. This idea is one of the more simple ones that I have chosen to do however I think with the illustration and mixed media effect I will do, it will be more interesting to the eye than just a textbook in the middle of the Photograph.

These 3 Photographs were taken in the studio along with the ones of me in the mirror. These are to show the ongoing issue I have with my weight. I took many Photographs of this however they were all very similar therefore I have decided to just show a couple. With this particular Idea I have decided to try both ways and illustrate directly on to the original Photograph as well as cutting and pasting onto a blank image so that I can make the subject smaller creating more room around it to illustrate.

These Photographs are for my compositional idea to show disconnection from my family. In these I have taken a few close up shots of my mum  to just past her shoulders. For this idea I will need to cut and paste as I need to place her in the bottom right corner of the composition for me to fulfil this idea. 

Once I had worked with and analysed my initial photographs, I realised that even though the photographs were relevant to my idea, they were not technically good as a photograph as a whole. Even though I will cut around the subject to transfer onto a blank background, I decided to take the same idea, yet shoot in the studio with the right lighting to improve the quality with no distractions in the background. Using the studio has improved the quality of the subject therefore if I choose to edit these, the quality will not be changed. 

These selection of photographs above are a development on the idea of failing exams. Originally I experimented with using the closed book in which I took at home. Looking back, using the illustration and a talk with my teacher, we both agreed that the closed book composition did not link creatively and in this case the simplicity of the book did not have a specific meaning and that I could be more creative with the Photograph so that when I draw the illustrations, they blend into each other. I then used the studio instead to portray an open biology book with me as part of the composition. The reasoning behind this Photograph, is to show me supposedly revising and therefore developing this, I would illustrate over and around the book.

I also retook some in the studio of myself showing my neck for the overthinking composition. After experimenting with the initial photographs and easily being able to cut out and use photoshop with these, I tried the same thing, changing it into black and white so that I could compare.  

Below are the edited versions of the new photographs that I took of overthinking and self harm. The overthinking photograph I don't particularly like comparing to how my inital photographs turned out. The shirt I am wearing is very distracting to the composition as I need to look plain and simple to give the maximum effect of the mixed media that I will be using. The arm photograph however is much better quality than the inital photographs that I have experimented with. I now will then use this photograph as the base for my self harm composition to refine this idea further.