Images:
These are 4 different locations I decided to photograph around my local area. All of these shots have a certain emptiness to them which I figured would allow me to add a lot of different structures in the back and fore grounds. I have also managed to keep the lighting fairly simple in all of them, as to not give myself to much initial work. I will use these images throughout my experimentation process to figure out the steps I will eventually follow with my finals.
I have also managed to keep my theme of utopia and dystopia in mind while taking these photographs. A town is a pretty standard setting, while I have taken a little more creative liberty with photographing outside of a junkyard a graffitied bridge.
Experimentation:
Initial sketches:
The sketch below is in a more traditional format and is inspired by Ian McQue's way of working. He tends to make really rough sketches as a way of laying out compositions and brainstorming and I decided to copy this approach. Knowing what you want in an eventual piece is very important for when you eventually dive into making it as it usually dictates what order you do things in, especially in terms of what layers are on top and which are underneath. As you can see, I focused on 3 separate parts of this image: the foreground, the middle-ground and the background. For the background and middle ground I focused on adding very sci-fi elements, trying to best incorporate the theme of "utopia" into this image as the original is what I would call quite a traditional town. The sky in the original picture is quite empty so I've worked on adding points of interest. I would image a utopia to be busy but beautiful in nature and these small flashes of natural beauty are very important to keep, especially in contrast with a dystopia that usually looks abandoned and desolate. Luckily this image is one of my most effective as it is both detailed whilst also keeping to a good angle of perspective. Working in lines is very common in this field of work and you can definitely see where I have tried to find the central point and work outwards on the buildings, to keep them in a similar caliber to the foreground.
Regardless of me adding quite a lot to this image, I've tried to keep the foreground aspects relatively similar to the town as I want my eventual pieces to still hold some of the original elements of the photo. The cars are going to be a very fun addition as I can really work on modernising their appearance nearer to the end of the process. As you can see in the sketch I've made it so they are hovering, their wheels are present but are askew, a little but effective detail. The only thing this sketch cannot convey very well is the lighting. The unedited image is very bright and colourful, which is something I want to keep, however the addition of certain structures will impact on how visible some things are and where the light hits. I'm hoping my knowledge as a photographer and working with light in that format will help me edit this effectively when the time comes.
Image collection:
Firstly I looked for an image that would fill the predominant areas of my sketch. Very simple structural parts like the outlines of buildings were the first point of contention. This is where studying someone like Thomas Demand came in handy as his work relies a lot on perspective and very clean cut shapes.
The images above are ones I picked to try and add more depth and/or detail into my image. The original cut is just simple shapes and layering more images on top will naturally give them more structure.
I'm not thinking to much about color at this stage and simply trying to manipulate images as I want. The main tools I used in this part of my experimentation are the lasso tool and layer mask. These two tools are crucial in the making process and I need to take my time in order to truly master them, which is why I have decided to leave other things like color balancing and post-production sketching.
Result:
As you can see a lot of the structures have a very different appearance and this is in part due to:
1. incorrect color correction
2. different blending modes
Blending modes are very important in integrating images into a piece. Different modes work for different images and sometimes they all appear different depending on what modes work best with them.
These edits are very simple at this stage but I am eventually building up to highly detailed pieces so I need to learn the basics before I can confidently go into them.
The background buildings where more of a test than anything because they don't line up with my sketch at all but I just wanted to try it out. Experimenting is very important at this stage and I want to explore all possibilities available to me.
My next step after this will be to try and add the colour correction and add more elements into this image to try and get somewhat of a final product. This will also include using drawing techniques on a drawing tablet to mould and shape the final details. I will then go on to print this image and perhaps another to see how they will eventually look on a page. Even though these images are not my final ones, it is still important to me to present them how I want my finals to look as outcomes are very important for being able to visualise your product effectively. As of right now I am still on track for working on making for the entirety of April, hopefully with multiple outcomes after easter and time to edit them for May.
Apocalypse scene:
This is the first time I have ever played around with colour correction. I needed to in this photo as apocalypse/dystopia like places are usually very gloomy and for this one I went with a more yellow overtone. This made the sky look less blue and more faded which was perfect and the overall photo was a lot easier to work with.
I decided not to sketch for this one and just place as I went so I could truly immerse myself in the process.
This is the first pitstop I made to capture my progress. The first thing I tried was working with textures to a create a more rough and broken path as the first lacked a lot of interest considering it is in the foreground. This involved taking an picture of a path from google and colour correcting it to match the original image, manipulating it, like I did with the buildings in the first and going over any parts that were a bit off or out of place with a textured brush. The path you see above it the result of that process...
The next thing I wanted to do was change the atmosphere of the image as the sky was very one dimensional so I added a cloud overlay with the multiply blending mode to add more drama to the scene. I again had to color correct the image as the original clouds were more of a grey and I needed that yellowness to them to match the rest of the composition.
Lastly I added some duller overlays to the sides of the bridge as before they were present those parts looked very bright compared to the rest of the image so they needed to be darker without taking the graffiti away.
The main thing I struggled with here was the colour green. I have found that it is very hard, particularly in this scene to make the grass look a little less vibrant. Anything I overlayed didn't look right as the perspective of the grass is very specific. This is a very similar story to the second path that runs under the bridge. They are very fiddly to change and I am not yet confident enough in my digital painting skills to simply go over them so as you will see in my next stop, they stay the same.
Result:
This is what I finally came out with. As you can see the footpath I made is gone, as in the end it appeared out of place in the overall composition so I ended up removing it, much to my dismay as it was the first thing I did.
However This was my first time playing around with my drawing ability and that is how I created the two figures in the scene, as well as the burning rubbish. After the first pitstop I felt my image was still to bright for a 'dystopia' so I created even more shadow with a big airbrush, especially under the bridge and in the background. The two figured were something the image needed. Before hand it had no central focus or point of interest and I needed to create that. I didn't capture my experience with it, however I had originally put a car hanging off the bridge but the I couldn't get the proportions correct so I went for people instead.
This process began with my just jotting down their shadows (which are still half present around them) and the shadow of the bin. I then took to google to find images of people standing in the same positions and pasted them in where the shadows were. I then used an incredibly fine brush to go over details and color corrected them to match the lighting of the fire, giving it that painted look. I then went back in and extended the fire upwards and created a bigger glow to accurately depict how the fire would light up the underside of the bridge. I added rim lighting and deepened the shadows around them and what you see above is the result. Quite a simple process for how good it came out.
The only things I am not fond of in this piece are:
1. The fact that at this stage I'm not taking note of the quality and size of images I pull from the internet so sometimes I end up not using things because they are to low quality
and
2. The fact I haven't been able to use many drawing techniques to make the image appear painted.
My first improvement will just require mindfulness, however the second I may need to respond to in my research.
