Retouching Photos

 Recently I have been working on improving my skills on Photoshop, so on of the first things I worked on was retouching photos. Starting with this old photo (This is not a photo I've taken personally, but it looked rather old and tatter which was perfect for what I needed) there are many ways you can go about with editing a photo and taking things out, it takes a lot of time and patience. The main tools I used were the Spot Healing tool and the clone stamp tool, where you use the data and colour information around you to correct little blemishes. Below left is the image before and to the right of that image is the corrections I made to the photo.

Old But Gold

So I recently found some old photos that I had taken from the first time I used a make-shift studio (they're from back when I did A-Level in Photography). I remember being quite proud of how well the photos had come out considering I had never used a studio before (it's wasn't really much of a studio, just a tiny cramped room with a backdrop and 2 lights). But still, I was excited but new things and trying new techniques.
Here are some of the photos ...

 This was (and still is) one of my favourite photos that I took that day. I just love the composition, the catch light in the model's eyes and how focus the face is peering through the rip in the Japanese paper umbrella.

 This photo reminded me of the elegance of Japanese women. The model's rather pale face sticks out in comparison to the rest of the photo making her the complete and main focus.

 I had a fixed fascination on the umbrella and bird cage throughout this shoot, I was constantly trying to find a way to incorporate both in the photos.

 With the success of having the model peer through the umbrella I considered all angles to photograph.

 This photo didn't excite me as much as the first one, the umbrella slightly covered the eyes and didn't give as much of a mysterious look as the first photo. I felt as though the umbrella was too low, although on a positive note, the catch light in the eyes was brilliant.

 This was one of the experimental photos, I feel like the photo could have looked better if the umbrella was moved slightly more up so you could see the eyes through the rip staring at the bird cage.

This photo was another experiment with the levels, I wanted to get the umbrella, cage and fan in the photo but my model only has two hands.

There's Always That Judging Eye

So for one of my projects I've been looking into the concept of 'The Ideal Woman'. While researching I found a professional photographer; Haley Morris-Cafiero. After taking a self-portrait in public Morris-Cafiero noticed that she had people staring at her, to most people that would upset or put off someone on their body image but for Morris-Cafiero it did the exact opposite. She was more intrigued and interested on the idea that she was quickly judged. So she made a set of photos based solely on the concept of her being judged in public.

I found the results of the images rather shocking, isn't it sad that nowadays it's just become the norm to look and judge other people. I've always found it rather frustrating when I see people snigger and stare at others just because they don't fit into the idea of the 'Ideal or Perfect' person.

Below is the link to Haley's website to check out the photos
http://haley-morriscafiero.squarespace.com

Question for today: What do you think about people looking down on others with a judging eye??