SchlenderJ-Texture



In my final image, I used the photos of a prickly plant, the stature of Mary, and an assortment of flowers. I started off with the background which was the plant. After I set in the background image of the prickly plant, I then had to use the lasso tool in Photoshop to crop out the stone of Mary in the other photo. I traced around the statue and copied and pasted it into the prickly plant image. I then took the flower image. Using the magic wand tool, I selected the colors of blue and yellow in the flowers because they are colors of calm and of beauty. I hit copy and paste to paste the flowers into the image that contained the Mary and the plant. I moved the statue of Mary onto one side of the plant which hangs approximately in the middle of the photo. Then I moved the flowers of blue and yellow into the right hand corner. I wanted to represent the beauty coming down into the photo but also this scary thorn striking through. Then I went back to the photo of the flowers and used the magic wand tool and the lasso to only select the blue flowers. Once I pasted them in the combined photo as well, I went over to the right hand side and duplicated the layer about 5 times to create a mass of flowers. I moved each one and angled them so that they would be a clutter. Using the lighting tool, I brightened some areas of the photos and also used a filter to bring out the color blue. Then I used a filter called texture to give the combined texture product a paper-like look. There were many steps that I took in between these, however these were the main ones to get my final project. One compositional technique that I used was the rule of thirds. I used this technique because each of the three intersections of the photo, if they were split up, are occupied by something interesting. It is either the flowers, the statue, or the thorn. I also used the compositional technique of fill the frame. Although one item does not occupy the entire space, I zoomed in on the photos I included and on the statue of Mary to place emphasis on her. Lastly, I also used the technique of framing. The flowers in the corner, the prickly plant, and the flower path on the bottom bring out a framing look for the photo. It really draws the eye. I think the main texture that I emphasized was of the flowers. Their soft light petals really brought a gentle feel to the picture. I also emphasized texture on Mary as she is zoomed in clearly. There is texture in the stone and around her face and the moss growing on her. Zooming in on her also brings out the shadows on the right side of her. The texture of the prickly plant is brought out in the spikes and because it focuses on one strand of it whereas the rest of that part of the photo is blurred out. I feel as though the colors of the Mary statue and the colors in the photo of the prickly plant really went together with their subtle and basic tones. The flowers are emphasized on their color because of the blues and yellows of peace and harmony and beauty. I feel as though I did well with that color being brought out in the photo. The concept of my project was based on religion. Since Mary is a religious symbol, I wanted to capture a photo of her when I came across it in the cemetery. I included it along with flowers and the prickly plant… that doesn’t sound right does it? I wanted to capture the beauty and pain of religion. The flowers show the beautiful walk of following a religion and they are also scattered at the bottom next to Mary. The flowers coming out of the corner also represent the good and beauty pouring down. Then there is the prickly plant. These are known as being sharp and hurting you. It shows that there are hard times when you follow a religion. Concepts such as doubt, other people questioning you, getting made fun of, getting angry with what you believe in, etc. come up for almost everybody when you are committed to a religion. The prickly plant goes right through the flowers and the symbol of religion because sometimes there are roadblocks. Sometimes hard things stand in your way. However, there are flowers and an emphasis on the blue to show the overall beauty and peace that comes from how thought out different religions are. This assignment was a very difficult one for me to do. This is because it was hard to think of a concept with the photos that we took after we saw the examples of what the project should look like. I think I could have done a lot better with the lighting of the flowers compared to those of the background and of the statue. I also could have improved with the flowers at the bottom. Using Photoshop for the first time was definitely challenging. The problem that I ran into twice was making a change that I couldn’t undo because I either merged layers or saved something and later could not go back to and change. One of the times I originally had dandelions on the bottom which I later cropped out and that’s why I included flowers, to cover it up. Initially I was going to have a path of flowers going over the dandelions to represent the path of religion but I did not like how the dandelions were looking. Another time, I put a filter on the photo (the one that is there right now) and if I could change it I would take it off. Unfortunately I saved it and could not undo it. However, I do think I did a great job with the concept of my photo and what meaning it has.