The work I've produced during the exam unit is structured around the idea of time. I wanted to explore the idea capturing a segment of time or the aging process which is why I chose to explore candid photography. The artists I used that influenced the way I produced my work are Henri Cartier-Bresson, Vivian Maier, Nick Turpin, Dan Mountford and Andy Warhol. I chose the photographers because they were all involved in refining the craft of candid photography and also produced work I really liked. I used Andy Warhol's pop art style as well because it has always appealed to me and gives a very graphic novel kind of style. I've modified the initial image, taken by Toby Segar, changing the colours, adding motion and applying overlays. The idea was brought about through the psychology of ageing and how as we grow older our innocence is lost and we learn more about the gritty reality of life. The overlay of the skull connotes the gritty personality that lies beneath us. The skull is split down the middle, one side is lighter while the other is darker - this represents the fact that we all have to capacity to be good and also evil however the premise of our moral compass is often misguided by our personalities (the skull ). To produce the piece I used Adobe Photoshop CS6. First I isolated the subject, placing it on a solid black background before overlaying it some colour and random shapes. Then I proceeded to overlay the skull on the face, it was a different size at first however I managed to manipulate the skull to fit the face neatly. I blended the two subjects together using the layer blending options and opacity meter before using the burn tool on the areas that were too light and the dodge tool on the areas that were too dark. I then applied the cutout layer only to the original image of the subject to give the pop art effect, connoting Andy Warhol's style. However I wanted the skull to remain in full detail to give off its gritty connotations. I wanted to add motion to the initial image I developed, however I needed it to be usable on a web format so a video would not be possible. I decided to develop it as a GIF which is a short web format animation. I produced three key frames in Photoshop then transferred them over to Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 - from here I applied a transition between each key frame to get a smooth blend between the frames. The images combined show a slow deterioration phase - the skull has connotations of age and the fact that it slowly moves in represents the ageing process. The fact that GIF develops a more serious tone as it progresses represents that innocence can be lost as age develops, which depicts the psychology behind the ageing process. It also takes on a far more gritty tone which shows how life experience hardens you as a person and the older you get, the wiser you get because you learn that your weaknesses help develop you to be a stronger person.
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