Weisensel+G+-+Texture

=**__ Grace Weisensel's Texture Project __**=

Final Piece:


When you think about it, photography is a very difficult thing to do. Some may say it’s just “point and shoot”, those people clearly are not very successful photographers. There are many things to think about before, during and after taking a photo. Before a photo is taken, settings in the camera must be adjusted and you have to think about composition, focus and lighting. While taking a photo, you have to keep the camera still, not blurring the image. Lastly, after a picture is taken, editing and adjusting is done.

While taking the pictures that make up my final piece, I was sure to capture the texture. I really tried to emphasize the different textures of things we see in everyday life. For example, I captured the smooth feel that flowers have on their petals and the rough feel that rocks obtain. Another element I feel I used successfully was the art element of color. I thought color was a very important aspect to add to the piece as the person is wearing a plain white tee shirt. Adding color to her skin made the piece overall more colorful and interesting.

To create my final piece, I had to make a few changes to my 7 original photos in photoshop. The first thing I did was adjust the brightness. Some of my photos were too dark for my liking and some were darker than others. The next thing I adjusted was the contrast. As all of my photos were taken in the sun, the contrast was too much in some photos. Next I used the quick selection tool to select the main parts of the photo that I wanted to have for my final piece. Once I selected everything I wanted, I copied what was selected and then pasted it onto the photo of the person taking a photo. I then rotated the photo so it fit onto her body. After I rotated the image to where I wanted it, I thought that the object looked like it was just in front of her arm, so I adjusted the opacity. This make the picture look like it was meant to be on her arm. Next I used the eraser tool to clean up the excess that wasn’t on her skin. I repeated these steps for all of the nature photos. After I had finished, I thought that the rocks on her face didn’t look like they were apart of her face; to fix this problem, I used the blend tool to blend the outer rocks to her hair. I then used the eraser to clean up the parts of the rocks that blended too far into her hair. And lastly, I decided that my piece looked boring when the girl was in the center; I decided to use the crop tool to crop the extra space to the left of her to apply the rule of thirds.

My final piece uses two compositional techniques, leading lines and rule of thirds. As you can see, the graves are in a line that leads your eye to the main focus, the person. The rule of thirds was used as the person isn’t placed directly in the center, she’s off to the left, making the piece more interesting.

Man vs. Nature. There was once a lot of debate on whether man was in fact greater than nature or vice versa. For example, the citizens of Han China believed that nature was in fact greater than man, while Athenians believed that man was greater than nature. From this debate--which I learned about in a class recently--I created my concept. Man vs. Nature. In my piece, man and nature can no longer be compared, they are one. I represented this by putting natural things where the person’s skin was.

For my first time using a DSLR and photoshop, I feel as though I did well. I’m happy with how my photos turned out and how I incorporated the element of texture. If I were to do this again, I would blend all of the natural objects, making them look more like they actually belonged on her skin. I would also make sure that the edges weren’t too sharp or unnatural. The last thing that I would change is the lighting for the picture of the girl. As you can see, there is a shadow on her shoulder and I feel that the photo would be better overall if that wasn't there.