Mockumentary Task

This task is was a development on the Bruce Gilden street photography pictures. Also the project linked with our Documentary task as these pictures obviously were manipulated by the photographer rather than just taking pictures of every occurrence in the documentary task. The task was to take some unique pictures that are completely contrived ourselves but look as though they are just snapped from real life occurrences.This project was to also link in with our fairy tales final piece project as the images could be of some inspiration for a modern day fairytale. Some ideas were; Hansel and Gretal, with bread crumbs in a trail on the floor, or red riding hood, someone with a red coat on or red clothes, and so on. I did find this task difficult because I wanted to think of the best possible idea. After some thinking I think I found the idea. I recently visited the Saatchi Gallery in London and I was watching the people walking around the gallery and decided that this would be the perfect place for my pictures. I wanted to show different peoples perception to art and the painting and pictures so instead of photographing the art pieces I photographed the visitors. Most of these visitors being my friends as we were there on a photography trip. I asked friends to pose accordingly and they were happy to do so. Hopefully the pictures are okay and dont look too manipulated by me.

Manipulation Task

These are the two pictures I used for my task.

For this task we were asked to take a picture of ourselves or someone else and manipulate it into an old person or something different which would change the view of that person. I choose to photograph myself and I wanted to have the end result of an old woman. To do this I found a picture of an old woman and took out her features and put them on me. Obviously this was not as easy as it sounds and it took me quite a long time on photoshop to master the skills. I first found a corresponding picture with the one I took of myself, this was quite difficult as everyone has different face structures etc. I found a picture of an old lady with lots of wrinkles so I could edit them into my picture. I used the opacity tool on photoshop to make the layers see through so I could line up my pictures, after this I started to rub through the layer to show the pieces I needed, I took a nose and cheeks and wrinkles from the old lady face and rubbed them through to my face and then distorted my face slightly to enable them to fit in correctly. I also used the blend tool to make sure the colours blended together. Also I used the contrast and brightness tool to change the tone of my skin to fir the darker skin of the old ladies.

Here is one screen shot of how I edited my face to look like the old ladies. I used the masking tool to enable me to change bits and then I needed to change the contrast and colour of the face to make it darker.

This screen shot shows the way I did the hair. This was quite difficult as I wanted to keep my own hair and style but change the colour to grey but it still look natural. I did this by lassoing my hair and editing it in a separate layer, I then rubbed through and added some highlights of grey to get the end result.

My final outcome for this task was the picture. I am very happy with the way it has turned out and I think that I have improved my photoshop skills vastly from September when I began the course.

Continued prep work for final coursework piece

I created a piece of prep work from the original design and thought of what I was going to do. Here is my final piece of prep work before the creation of the final piece.

This work was made by using wood and images stuck onto the wood. I have the picture of the dog and of Old mother Hubbard which I edited in photoshop and also the cupboard and the text in the left hand corner.

My final piece if going to be slightly different. I am going to make a cupboard, again with wood, that opens up to tell show Old Mother Hubbard looking in her cupboard but on either side of the flaps I will have Anne Boleyn and Katherine of Arogan as they were part of the Tudor story of this rhyme. I think by doing this it will show an emphasis on where the rhyme originates from and it will be a stronger final piece.

In photoshop these ideas have been put together to make a prototype of what I intend to create.

This is one idea for the inside of the cupboard. The two sides will be on either side and the old woman and her kitchen would be in the middle. This would enable the person viewing my final piece to see the main focus point of Old Mother Hubbard as well as the story behind the nursery rhyme.


This is my second idea for my final piece, I have changed the layout slightly and I have kept the image quite bright instead of dark and gloomy. I think this piece is good because the wallpaper behind the ladies stands out and the text along the top and bottom makes it seem like its from the Tudor era.

The Christmas Feel

These pictures were taken on the really cold snowy days in December. They are just snaps that I found quite complemented one another as they both show the snow and cold in a quirky way.

These pictures are taken of the decorations on my Christmas tree. The decorations were Disney characters and really added to the fun of Christmas. As well as this the decorations gave me some ideas for my fairy tales piece. With the quirky decorations I got some ideas for a starting point of my final coursework piece. The bright colours and attention to detail really shows in these figurines.

New project: Fairytales

Our latest project is to create an image from a fairytale or nursery rhyme using photoshop skills of a more complex standard to show new skills learnt. My initial idea was to take an obvious story like Cinderella or little red riding hood but after some thought and planning I thought it would be much more intriguing to do a nursery rhyme. One reason being because of the fact that nursery rhymes have a story behind them and I was interested to know how nursery rhymes came about. After having a browse around I found 'Old Mother Hubbard' an old fashioned nursery rhyme that is still used in nursery's and primary schools today to tell the story of the old lady and her dog. I found many facts about the rhyme and one of the main facts being that it relates to Henry VIII and two of his many wives; Katherine of Aarogan and Anne Boleyn. According tohttp://www.famousquotes.me.uk/nursery_rhymes/old_mother_hubbard.htm it is said that Old Mother Hubbard relates to Cardinal Wolsey the most important politician and churchman of the Tudor history, The Doggie relates to Henry VIII, the Bone relates to the divorce from Katherine to remarry Anne and finally the Cupboard relates to the Catholic Church.

All this information helped me to contrive my image. I firstly decided to have a backdrop of Henry VIII with his six wives but later decided that as the nursery rhyme has been made to tell the story that maybe by keeping the story to its normal setting in a kitchen that it would look as it should. I then had other ideas such as making the picture 3D and created an image with the aid of an Internet tutorial however I also decided that this was not the best idea.

This is the 3Dpicture I created.

My final idea was to make a real 3D image, out of wood and other materials. This idea will show each character on different layers; The kitchen is the background on layer 1, Old Mother Hubbard and her Dog on layer 2 and finally the Cupboard and the poem on layer 3 to emphasize what the poem is about and relating this back to Henry VIII as the Cupboard is the Catholic Church and this was Henry VIII opposition.

After finally deciding on my idea I got to work and I am currently working on building up my characters. I have taken head shots of different people and made them into my charaters. I am using photoshop to manipulate the people into an old woman and a dog. The old woman is a lot easier to create as the features are the same however the dog is proving difficult.

These are my two pictures I am using for my task.