Maki+Maggie-Texture

The most prominent ten changes that I made for my final texture combine piece were what brought my whole concept and composition together. The first changes that I made were on my background photo. I started out by adjusting the levels within my photo; in specific, I lowered the brightness and balance. After that I brought in the photo of the legs against the brick wall. After I placed that layer, I cut out the brick wall and ended up with just the legs. The I placed the legs and lowered the opacity of them to about 87% so that the effect of them over the clouds would be more mysterious. Next, I brought in the photo of Taylor and cut out the background of the brick wall. After placing her on the path, I adjusted the levels of the layer so that she would appear brighter and with a lower saturation. I also shrunk Taylor down by adjusting the sizing of the photo so that it would look as if she was going to be stepped on. After that I brought in the final photo of the flowers. I cut out the flower in focus and adjusted the levels to make it slightly darker. Finally, I duplicated the layer 10 times and placed the flowers around the photo.

In my final combined photograph I utilized the rule of thirds. I did this by placing Taylor in the lower right corner rather than the middle. In the opposite corner diagonally I placed the legs coming from the sky. I feel that using this technique created a sense of depth within the photo. Also, in my final combined piece I used the technique of leading lines to make the image have a three-dimensional effect. I placed Taylor in the middle of the walking path so that the natural grasses and tree lines would guide the viewer's eyes through the photo. In my final combine piece I emphasized the natural textures of the grasses and trees in contrast to the human textures of the hair, skin, and clothes. I also utilized the art element of color by adjusting the tones of the colors to give it an overall natural feel. I emphasized the principle of design, harmony or unity, because the overall piece flows well. For example, the flowers added to the tree look like the could be buds on the tree and they are not just placed somewhere random. Lastly I emphasized proportion and scale within my final combine piece. I played around with the size of the legs to make them appear quite large compared to the trees and Taylor. I did this because my concept is that Man is harming nature and that is not good. While taking photographs on the prairie for the project it dawned on me that there isn’t may areas like a prairie any more. The leg stomping down gives the sense that we as humans are taking over nature, but the expression on Taylor’s face shows that we need to stop because soon there will be none left.

Overall I feel that I did well on this assignment! I feel that my skills on photo shop became much stronger throughout the process which helped me to be able to have a strong final piece. I feel that my craftsmanship was a strength on this piece because all of my cutting lines on the legs, flower, and Taylor are all very clean. Next time I would want to focus on one texture more and add to just that texture rather than the several textures that I had in my final combine piece.