Digital Photography & Imaging // Project 2B

18/05/20 - 15/06/20 / Week 6 - Week 10

Ibrahim Fazal Ahmad / 0337423

Digital Photography & Imaging / Bachelor of Design (Hons) in Creative Media / Taylors University / Project 2B

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PHOTO MANIPULATION: TURN YOURSELF INTO A CYBORG:

So if I were to be a cyborg, what would I want to change about myself? To be honest the first thing that came into my mind was my hands. I love drawing and playing games and I use my phone a lot. After doing this my hands can especially my wrists can become so painful and I need to rest. It can slow down my working progress sometimes because I need to rest. So if I had a cybernetic arm, those problems would go away. Next I would get cybernetic eyes, because I wear glasses. The idea of not having to be dependent on some glasses to be able to function sounds great and would add so much convenience into my life. Lastly I would get one cybernetic leg. One of my legs is a lot of weaker than the other, I lose balance easily and fall because of it all the time. A weak joint I'm pretty sure and if I had a cybernetic I would no longer have this problem and it would be amazing. So I did a rough sketch of how I would wake up, and get ready for my day as a cyborg.

Figure 1: Starting my day as a cybernetic being.

Next I took a few reference photos for Mr Martin to view and give feedback on. The picture would be taken from this angle multiple times and I would edit the different arms around my room in Photoshop.

 Figure 1.01: Test Photo 1

Figure 1.02: Test Photo 2

FEEDBACK: Mr Martin said that the design doesn't have much going on, there is no story telling aspect to the picture. Also to change the composition so that the camera is at my eye level rather than extremely high like this. I should also consider the rule of thirds if I'm doing a full body photo. Make the story stronger, there's nothing going on other than me putting my arm on. Maybe make it so I have a robotic leg and I'm about to go for a run, something along those lines.

SKETCH 2: 

Figure 1.03: Sketch 2

In this sketch my idea is that while I was drawing, my bionic eye accidentally shot out a laser into my drawing and ended up burning it. I thought this would be a more funny way of expressing my cyborg themes, since I wanted a new arm and eye. However, I'm also very clumsy and I feel like this is definitely something I would accidentally do if I were a cyborg, thankfully I'm not! 

Figure 1.04: Test Picture 3.

For this Mr Martin said to bring up the camera angle to my eye level so that the drawing would be more visible. Other than that I can begin the editing for the photo. 

Figure 1.05: Test Photo 3

Figure 1.06: Final Chosen Photo for Editing.

I chose figure 1.06 for editing, I liked the lighting more and my expression in comparison to the first photo I had taken for this. It also has a nice view on my drawing, I scattered colour pencils and kept my desk a little messy because this is how I normally work, and I wanted it to feel as though you peeked in on my normal life at the worst possible moment. 

Process: 

Firstly, I duplicated the photo and cut a small portion of my arm out that I will want to be the floating plate of my arm. I also added a drop shadow on that portion so it looks more real.

Figure 1.07: Arm edited

Next I put a picture of a motherboard below the actual photo itself so it wouldn't be overlapping above my arms.

Figure 1.08: Motherboard added below picture

Next I added a glow on my eye, a picture of artificial muscles near my forearms. I also put a contrast adjustment layer and a blue tint using a blending mode onto the muscle so it would match better with my eyes and the motherboard from earlier.

Figure 1.09: Eyes and artificial muscle added

Next I added some brush strokes along my arm to make it look more cybernetic and segmented along with another floating plate near my elbow. 

Figure 1.1: Brush strokes and another plate near elbow added

Lastly, I added the smoke and used the blending modes we learned in class. I used multiply for the dark smoke and screen for the lighter smoke near my eyes.

Figure 1.2: Smoke added

Figure 1.3: Version 1

FEEDBACK: Mr Martin commented that overall it's already good, but it's a little hard to understand that it was my eyes that burned the paper and I should make it a bit more obvious. I personally disagree because I liked the subtlety to it but none the less it is true, and also to make the smoke black instead of white. 

Figure 1.4: Final Photo

REFLECTION:

Experience: I found this assignment very interesting to do, it allowed us all to use the different techniques we learned throughout the previous weeks in one project in anyway we pleased. I found the assignment not so difficult to do, thinking of idea was a little tough because story aspect also mattered for the grading. 

Observation: I notice a that we all tend to have very different opinions on certain things especially art. I thought my first version of the photo was fine because I liked the more subtle idea of my paper being burnt without a super obvious explanation in your face. But I realised after Mr Martin explained, that I would obviously understand what is going on since I made the picture. But to everyone else it might be sending some confusion without the clear indicators.

Findings: I found many cyborg edits are often very cyberpunk inspired. Oftentimes they look very edgy and there were very few subtle edits of the humans. The people were usually edited beyond recognition and also used a lot of harsh and bright lights and colours in other images which is why it was hard to find references for this assignment other than the pictures given by Mr Martin.