Wednesday, 4 May 2011

Lets play a game

Eventhough I have been able to get quite a lot out of the postcard that was given to me, I still feel that I can 'milk' more from it.
While searching for experiments that I could include within this body of work I came across a technique that makes your photos appear as though they are little model's, as though they are a child's game and the people and objects have suddenly been transformed into little plastic subjects. This really intrigued me as I found a link within the work and painting's of Grant Wood and how he painted his picture ' ' so that it was like a memory from a dream that he had had when he was a small child.
After finding this link between Grant Wood and the photographic technique I decided to have a go at changing my photographs of my homes into a model.








"My old house - 12 Mallard Close"

Here is the method behind 'Tilt-shift':




First you open up your photograph within photoshop





Then add another layer and call it 'Mask'





Now right-click on the 'mask' layer and then >add layer mask and click >white (full opacity) > ok



Then use the blend tool and drag the point from the section you want to be in focus to the point in which you want to be blurred. This should form a line. Then right-click on the 'mask' layer and click >mask to selection



From this, click onto the 'background' layer. Then >Filter >Blur >Gaussian Blur. Then make sure that the 'Blur radius' is 15.0 in both the 'Horizontal' and 'Vertical' box. then click 'Ok'



This should then blur the section that you have selected.



Repeat the last two instructions/screenshots for all of the other areas that you want to be blurred.



After you have finished this you can then change the 'Saturation' > colours > Hue/saturation, if wanted. If not then 'flatten the image' by right-clicking on the 'background' layer >flatten.



This is the finished image:



"My new house - 43 Jewell Road"

continuing from my postcard task...

Now that I have completed my family portraits and self portrait in the style of Grant Wood, I decided that I wanted to go back to my roots, my origins, how Grant Wood did when he went back to Iowa to paint.
I am going to complete another series of photographs but this time with a set of photos from the home I once lived in when I was born with the other set showing my home now and how I have adapted to the different environments and atmospheres.
My old house;













Mallard Close, Situated opposite a woods.



My second home;