Zimmermann+H.+-+Texture



To get my project to look the way it does now, I make twelve changes to the original three photos I used. The first thing that I did was adjust the colors of all three photos using levels in Photoshop. Next, I replaced parts of the sides of the gravestone with a part of the wooden head photograph that was from the art room. Thirdly, I cropped out the background of the gravestone photograph, leaving just the gravestone with a white background. I cropped out the background to begin with, because I still needed to add one more photograph to meet the requirements of the project. For the background, I used a picture of a yellow flower and cropped out the background of that photograph. To create the background of the final photo, I used the yellow flower and pasted it a bunch of times and moved each copy in a different direction to create a interesting texture. After seeing the photo with the new background, I decided to move the gravestone so it wasn’t in the middle of the final photograph. After I moved it, I noticed that I needed to lighten some parts of the gravestone, so I used the dodge tool lighten certain parts of the gravestone. I also used the burn tool to darken other areas so the lighting looked more natural. Also, I used the burn tool to darken parts of the flower background to help make the gravestone stand out a little more. Another tool that I used to change my final photograph was the sharpen tool. I used that tool to sharpen parts of the gravestone to give it a different texture. Again, I used the dodge, sharpen, and blur tools to change the texture of the parts of the wooden head. One of the last changed I made was changing the color of the wooden head pieces by using the curves tool. This tool gave the wooden head texture more color. Finally, I used the eraser tool lightly around the edges of the gravestone to soften them and to give the gravestone a ghostly feel to it.

I used two compositional techniques in the main final photograph. The first one I used was the rule of thirds. I used the rule of thirds when placing the gravestone. I purposely put the gravestone off to the side because where it is placed is one of the lines for the rule of thirds. The second compositional technique I used was leading lines. To me, I feel like the lines of the gravestone are the leading lines. They lead you up the picture and then back down to the bottom.

The texture that I used in my final piece were three different photographs: a gravestone from the graveyard, yellow flowers from the prairie, and a wooden head from the art room. One other element that I used was color. The color of yellow flowers brings more color to the photograph.

I feel that for my first time using photoshop, that this first project was very successful. I learned what all of the tools were fast and that make the creating process fast and easy. If I were to do this project again, I would try to make the gravestone to look like it really belonged in the photograph. Maybe if I added something that would look more like ground, the gravestone would fit in better.