Melissa Morrell

Here are my final Still life photographs that i took from each photo shoot. I took images of several products i.e. lipstick, eye liner,mascara, nail varnish, a glass and a watch. 

These product were photographed in a light tent or on a piece of white paper. 

Final Images

Portrait/ Destroyed Portrait Finals Photographed of my Older sister Kirsty, taken by myself. 

The photoshop techniques that i used throughout the destroyed portrait were: composite layers - which are too use more than one image to create one final image; blending modes, opacity/fill modes, quick selection, mask layers, colour, black and white, levels, brightness&contrast, eraser tool, burn tool, polygonal lasso tool - which is another way to make a selection but more accurate; free transform, warp tool and the smudge tool.   

I am proud of my final two portraits because i think they were successful because i achieved what i set out to aim. 

With my final portrait it was successful because of the lighting, focus and because of how i directed her to shape her face. the lighting was successful because i was one flash light with a white umbrella and placed to the right of her face from a high position - just above her eyes. I used a white umbrella because i wanted my light to become soft and the colour white defuses the light. This made the light spread evenly across her face, which was good. The focus of this image is good because the main focus that draws you in are her eye. I am happy with this because i think the main focus of portrait are the persons eyes and thats what i achieved. What i mean by saying ‘i directed her to shape her face’ is that i told her how to sit in what direction and told her to move or tilt her head a certain way and even to move you chin/ face forward - these movements where to give her a nice jaw line and not a double chin. 

With my final destroyed portrait it was successful because of i achieved what i aim for for my mood and atmosphere, which was to be dramatic, strong and emotional. Having these type of aims made use of colour successful because they were dark, contrasty - which made my image strong and slightly bright. It was also successful because i achieved the emotional full and view in my opinion. I think this was done by my choices of images to composite and her facial expression as she seems calm but then with the fire and a rough textured face she seems to have a crazy inner emotions. All of this was successful because of all the photoshop techniques i used, which shows me that i do have an understanding of how to use photoshop.   

I could improve these images by:

With my portrait image i could improve this image by adding space/ background around her. To zoom out slightly and not make the scale of her face big. 

With my destroyed portrait i could improve this image by add more fire sparks around the frame of the image to make it more dramatic and also to lighten up two layers, which are the tree bark texture and her face. This is to make her face appear more - this is to make the view think for about her and not that its just some random face. 

My research did help me with my practical work for my idea generations and my experimental work. With my mood boards, i saw photographs or over-layed textures, surrealism and fire - all of which i wanted to use and experiment together. looking at these sort of photos influenced my in my experimental decisions and my final outcome. 

Final Images for Brief 3: Days spent at the beach.

Photographer: Melissa Morrell 

Landscapes, Documentary and still life photographers.