Electronic Portfolio

Electronic Portfolio from Reece Hack

Composite/Manipulated images - Ethics and Personal Perspectives

There are a number of ethical and personal opinions surrounding composite and manipulated images.

In the fashion industry, for example, it has been argued over whether it is morally right to manipulate images of fashion models. Some people have argued that airbrushing people's bodies to make them look skinnier and removing imperfections creates a bad example for people. People may see these pictures, and aspire to look like them, but because the images are not showing a real representation of a human, they are unable to achieve that look and as a result become unhappy with the way they look as a result. This is why photo manipulation in modelling and fashion photography is widely considered to be unethical.

However, in some industries, image manipulation is considered to be acceptable. For example, in photography not based on portraits or modelling, photo manipulation can be used to create surreal images for dramatic and comedy effects. Also, in advertising, images can be manipulated to create a desired

Final Evaluation

Throughout this unit, I have learned many practical and theoretical skills, as well as techniques and ideas in photography that I learned from the artist research I have completed.

My Artist research has influenced my work in many ways. For example, when I studied the formal element of reflection, my research on Ruut Blees Luxumburg heavily influenced the way I shot and composed my images and what type of reflection I photographed. Like Luxemburg's work, I looked for reflections that were shown on the ground and reflected buildings and people. I also often shot from a high angle and tried to find reflections that had bright lights in them, which is a common feature of Ruut Blees Luxemburg's reflection Street photography.

I also drew influence from Vivian Maier, who is a documentary street photographer, while shooting my photo documentary images. I particularly drew influence from the way she observes her surroundings and tries to capture events as they actually happen, which was a technique I had in mind when shooting most of my Photo documentary images.

In addition to learning from my Artist Research, I feel I have also progressed in my knowledge and application of technical skills in my work. One thing I have learned from this unit is a wide range of Photoshop techniques that I have incorporated into my work frequently. For example, I learned how to use tools such as liquify and spot healing brush, which particularly came into use when taking portraits, as I could edit out any blemishes or marks on my subject's face, and when creating my composite images on the Fourth Plinth, as I could remove the object that was on the plinth already and place the one I wanted on there.

I also learned various studio techniques and about the uses of studio equipment. One thing I learned to use and take advantage of was a snoot. A learned that a snoot can make the beam of a spotlight much smaller and more focused, which was useful when you require low key lighting on the person or object you are photographing. You can see my use of a snoot and low key lighting in the studio shoot for the formal element of tone.

Overall, I would definitely say the way I take my photographs has improved. This is partly because of the rules of composition and framing I learned, as well as the exercises we did that focused on setting the camera manually such as Our work on the subject of movement. I learned the definition of framing in photography, which I now consider every time before taking a photograph. I feel that when framing has been taken into consideration, an image appears much neater and looks much more professional. I feel it can also enhance the formal elements shown in the image.

Another thing I feel I displayed in this unit was my ability to experiment. Although my work lacks in physical experimentation, I think that I have used a wide range of computer experiments throughout my work. I have used a wide range of Photoshop techniques. I learned and implemented techniques such as colour manipulation and duotone.

In general, I would say my work is moving in the direction of Photo documentary and candid Street photography. I would say this because many of my images were taken in an urban environment and depicted the actions and interactions of people, which is similar to the documentary street photography works of Henri Cartier-Bresson.

Overall, I would say that my work was most successful in the areas that incorporated mood and atmosphere as well as capturing urban environments. I feel that the work that incorporated this held a strong message and was the most visually appealing. However, I feel that the more studio based elements of the unit were less successful, as I find studio photography unnatural and difficult for me to transfer my ideas into. I find this image lacked use of multiple formal elements and interesting compositions, which are seen more in my non studio based work.

Duotone - Computer Experiments

Here is an example of duotone that I have created as part of my computer experiments. I set the two colours to black and red. Below is the original image that I used to create this duotone edit.

Joiners - Completed Photo Joiners

Computer Experiments - Selective Colour

Here is a computer Experiment I did in selective colour. I did this by selecting the bin with the quick selection tool, doing select>inverse then converting to black and white, which converts everything but the selected area into black and white, which in my case was the bin. Below is the original image I used to create this computer experiment as a before and after reference.

Computer Experiments - Liquify

For this computer experiment, I have used the liquify tool to remove spots, marks and blemishes on somebody's face. Below is the image before I used the liquify tool, as a reference of what I removed with the tool.

Connecting Essay - Reflection

The image at the top is a reflection based photograph taken by me, and below it is a reflection based photograph by Marie-Claire Montanari. These photographs have both similarities and differences based upon their use of composition and the formal elements.

Based upon composition, I would say that these images are very different. For one, my image was taken using a landscape orientation and captures a wide angle, whereas Montanari's image was taken using a portrait angle, and captures a wide angle vertically. My image shows some symmetry in the reflection, as there are metal pillars which are reflected from one side of the glass to the other, however, the reflection shown in Montanari's image bears no symmetry at all, with view through the window being bookshelves and the outside image that is being reflected onto the window being a tall building. This creates a chaotic and disorganised mood in her photograph, whereas mine has connotations of calmness and order, due to my use of symmetry and straight lines.

These images also vary in the way they use other formal elements. The image by Montanari is in black and white so there is a very wide tonal range. There are some very light tones shown near to the bottom of the image in the books in the window and at the top on the building. It also displays some very dark tones in the middle of the image, which is created by the dark building being displayed in the reflection of the dark building behind the window.

My image, however. doesn't have a very wide range of tones. This is partly because I kept the image in colour rather than shooting in or converting to black and white. Also, the image was taken in a bright and well lit environment of a shopping centre, meaning there is not going to be a range of tones or areas of different brightness that could create a variation of tones.

Connecting Essay - Shape

This is a shot that incorporates the formal element of shape that was taken by me.
Below is a shape based shot that I have found on the internet. I am unsure who took this photo.


These pictures bare similarities in some ways.

For example, they have been shot in similar ways. They have bee taken at a canted angle, and roughly the same angle. They also both use signs to present shape. However, my image was taken using landscape orientation, whereas the other image was taken using portrait orientation. My image has also been taken from a very close up perspective, meaning there is very little background in the image. This is different to the other image I found, which was taken from a far less close up perspective, and has a foreground, mid ground and background.

Although they both feature shape, they each use it in different ways. My image only incorporates one shape in very close up detail. It shows a square with rounded edges, however, some of the corners of the shape have been cropped out, making it an irregular shape. On the other hand, the image I found online to compare to has several uses of shape. Although it uses a road sign to create a rectangular shape, similar to mine, the picture has some shapes featured in the background and mid ground too. There are more four sided shapes shown on the zebra crossing on the floor in the mid ground, and some more displayed as windows on the buildings in the background.

They also both make use of other formal elements. For example, both contain some saturated colours.
My image incorporates lots of blue, with saturated shades of blue on both the sign and in the sky. Overall, I would say the other picture contains much more bright and saturated colours than mine. For example, the sign shown in the image is a saturated shade of green, which is more saturated than the blue on the sign in my image. The blue sky in my image is a muted shade of blue too, whereas the blue of the sky in the other image is very bright and saturated.

Connecting Essay - Pattern

This is an image that uses the Formal element of pattern that I took.

This is an image by Alexander Jacques that also incorporates the formal element of pattern.

These images are very similar, as they both incorporate man made architecture to create a sense of pattern.

Both patterns I would say are very similar; both incorporate very sharp corners and straight lines, and they are both taken from a viewpoint that makes the pattern appear to be arranged diagonally. However, mine has been taken from a much closer perspective, meaning there is less pattern visible in the image. This means Jacques' image creates stronger connotations of repetition, schedule and order than mine does. Also, the pattern featured in Jacques' image is more organised and repetitive than mine, as the pattern I photographed gets smaller at parts, which can be seen in right side of my image, as the tiles start to shrink.

I would say there some differences in the way the pictures have been taken. For example, Jacques' image uses a very wide depth of field; everything in the picture is in focus, meaning he likely took the image using a very high aperture such as F22. On the other hand, my image has a narrow depth of field, as only a fairly small section near the front of the image is in focus. This occurred in my image because I shot it on an aperture of F4.8.

These images both incorporate formal elements other than pattern. For example, my image makes strong use of texture; the concrete used in the pattern has a very rough and bumpy texture, and there are some white blotches on it. However, Jacques' image features very smooth textures, which look so smooth they look like they have been created through a computer.

They also both incorporate colour; my image uses dark shades of grey that create connotations of sadness and depression. Jacques' image, however, is much brighter than mine. His image mostly contains shades of orange, which is a colour that represents joy and sunshine. On the other hand, shade of orange used is very dull and muted, suggesting a hint of sadness.

Composite/manipulated images - Image Bank

This image is an example of a composite image. This is considered composite as the woman in the image is lifting a car up with one hand to let a boy get a football that was under it. The car was imposed into the image through Photoshop, which you can tell as the it is a computer generated image of a car.

This is an example of an image that has been manipulated through software. The image was likely taken with the man laying on the floor over the yellow lines and the yellow tape glued down onto the yellow lines so it appears they come out of the yellow lines on the floor. The person who made this probably used a spot healing or clone brush to turn the yellow lines on the floor into concrete so that it appears that the yellow lines come out of the floor, over his head and back into the floor again.

This image has been heavily manipulated in photoshop. The person who made this image likely took the image in a studio then opened it on photoshop and used the Liquify tool to distort parts of the person's face.

 The image above is almost completely composite. While the image of the road and the cars may be real, The waves we're imposed into the image. The waves look as if they have been entirely created through VFX and were imposed around the image of the road. There is also a figure of moses in the bottom right which has been added into the image.

This image is an image that has been manipulated. The image uses a real pear that has had a section cut out of it. It has then has a light bulb superimposed into the hole and the screw part of the bulb has been imposed onto the top part of the pear so that it appears the whole pear is a lightbulb and the stalk is growing out of the bottom of the bulb.

The fourth Plinth Edits

Depth - Straight Images