Using this technique digitally creates more options and provides us with the ability to create images that do not show what was really there at the time the photograph was taken, a technique often employed to create hoax images.
Layering images digitally not only allows us to create deceptively real looking images and hoaxes but can also help us to create fantastical images that do not attempt to convince the viewer they are authentic.
With this image, I have combined a photograph I have taken of some electricity cables running alongside a road at the edge of a rapeseed field with another image of a man walking down a road. To create this other worldly looking image I created four layers, the sky, the road, the field and the cables and I applied the torn edges filter to all of the layers but altered the colours differently on each. The blue and the yellow combination work well as they are close to the yellow of the rapeseed and the blue of the sky. I then selected the man and his shadow from a separate photograph using the magnetic lasso tool and added him to this image as another layer. Using the free transform tool I then resized the man and placed him on the road to make it look as though is walking down the road. I kept the man looking real whilst heavily editing his surroundings in order to create an Alice in Wonderland type feel to the photograph. I was inspired to try and create this fantastical atmosphere by the potential for the road to resemble The Wizard of Oz’s yellow brick road, and Annie Leibovitz’s photographs for Disney also influenced me, shown below.
Experimentation in to layering figures onto another image inspired me to try a technique called cloning. Cloning or multiplicity images are where the same figure appears more than once in the same photograph.
These images are by a young photographer who calls her self Miss Aniela, She bases most of her photography on Multiplicity shots and they are all self-portraits. These are just two of about 100 images she has upload to flickr and her home page, http://missaniela.com/ .The photograph in which she is climbing on the kitchen work surfaces is what most closely influenced my cloning attempt below.
This is one of my first attempts into cloning. For this image I tried to stick to the technique that most closely resembles double exposure. Using a tripod I photographed the module in two places with in the shot and then layered them upon each other in Photoshop and changed the opacity of the two layers. I used only the available light here and I struggled to create the bold image I wanted to.
Below, at the back of the photograph, a big open textbook is visible on the desk whilst Microsoft Word is open on the computer, with this photograph I was trying to portray procrastination from work. The model is looking at a book and doing her make up.
One of the figures is transparent, I decided to do this to show the passage of time, a technique sometimes used in films. I am not entirely pleased with this photograph, after editing the photograph a number of times and in different ways, I still find the colours bland and uninteresting. With such a limiting space and with only the room’s lighting available the photograph has come out looking unprofessional. I have photographed this idea 3 times and for the rest of the digital post-production module I would like to photograph it again, experimenting with having more than two figures and using a ranger kit and possibly a wide-angle lens as well.
These two photographs were quick experimentations into joining two landscape photographs together. The sky in both images is a photograph I took of a sunset from my halls’ window, and the two buildings are from around Leeds. Both buildings were photographed on a bright sunny day, so I had difficulty trying to merge the two layers without the buildings looking obviously out of place. At first I tried rubbing out the blue sky at different opacities but my hand is not steady enough and I found this very tedious.
Instead, using the selection tools, I cut out the sky and then reselected the very edge of the building along with a small amount of the sky in the layer behind it, and then used the Gaussian blur tool to blend the sky with the building. This worked well on the Holborn towers picture; however, in the image with the church (halo nightclub) the blue from the sky it was photographed with is still visible.
To create the effect of the sun setting behind the buildings, I placed a lens flare on the background just behind the buildings’ peak so that it shined over it. I then also added a lighting effect to create the shadows at the bottom of the building.
The church image is far less successful than the towers image. Both the sky and the church have been edited and squashed so much that now they look wrong. I also experimented with turning the church layer transparent to display connotations of ghosts and gothic horror stories often paired with churches and graveyards. The towers image is much stronger because it stands well in the middle of the photograph with a bit of sky either side it. The sky behind it is also much less manipulated.
These are two photographs I took for my studio lighting module and combined using Photoshop. For the silhouette of the models head, I placed the model standing in front of a large soft box that we were using for our shoot having backcombed her hair to stand out and give a detailed outline of the head. I then got the second photograph and cut around the figure so as to remove the unneeded background. I then copied the figure over into the other image and created a new layer.
Using the free transform tool I then resized the image and placed the figure inside what would be the face of the other image. Once together and in the right place I then flattened the image so as to be able to edit the colours of the two photographs together. I am pleased with this image and enjoy the fact that it takes a few seconds to figure it out, the brain automatically trying to see the eyes, nose and mouth that aren’t there.
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