I have finished it! I am overall pretty pleased with how this one came out given all the difficulties with the photography.
Author: umbersuncreations
I’m blue blah ba be blah be bly
I have chosen one of the photographs of the dog and have edited the contrasts, levels, brightness etc. I have then desaturated it and added a gentle blue overlay.
I have added this onto another chosen photograph of myself .
I have sharpened and tidied all the photos and carefully merged them into one photograph including swapping out my face for the mannequins.
I had to add in the remaining skirting board that was missing. I used a gradient overlay for a nicer finish. All that is left is to fix the very top of the photograph with more gradient to reach the top and to smooth out one small piece of cloning near the top.
Small dog big!
Okay, I wont lie. It was NOT any easy task!
I ended up with my poor dog balanced on top of a sideless bench that had a upturned plastic tub on the top somewhat precariously then Indy on top of that!
I fiddled and fiddled with lighting to try and get a realistic large dog silhouette. But as Indy is so small it kept looking more like Santa’s Little Helper from the Simpsons
Than it did a ‘Big’ dog.
However, after quite some time, some changes in angles, many dog biscuits and quite a lot of swearing I managed to get something useable.
Chroma tastic
Today I have been playing in Lightroom again. This is my newest favourite programme. I have never used it until the last few days. I was disappointed with the WB on some of my recent photos. I spoke to my housemate who also happens to be a photographer. He told me that Lightroom has some awesome features to let you adjust WB amongst other settings, to your hearts content.
I came up with 3 possible options for this page.
I went for the 3rd one. I had added a small vignette to them all too which I felt frames them nicely.
Falls-Done.
Happy accident.
I decided to use this image to edit.
As it turns out once I framed it to a portrait…
The shadow on the floor becomes more clear.
I knew I had to desaturate most of my work as I had decided to only use Red, Blue, Black and White as my four colours.
More contrast and altered brightness and exposure help a little more. They really show the details of the bricks in the wall too which I like. I am going to desaturate this then put it through Adobe Lightroom.
Clickety click click.
I went photographing the dummy outside today. I had hoped to shoot it yesterday but the moment I had everything ready, I stepped out the house and there was a massive downpour followed by super gloominess and generally crap weather.
As I ideally want to have my publication portrait orientation, I realised I would have to use a zoomed out image. I don’t currently have a tripod that would allow me to take photos at a decent portrait orientation so I am for the time being stuck with landscape.
Falling into you.
I have decided that I am going to depict falls by having the full mannequin, minus a head, laying down outside like it has stumbled and fallen, in front of a brick wall. I want it to engage the viewer to feel the mannequin is more human like in some ways so they have more of an emotional response the fall, than if it was just an inanimate object.
I have been out photographing some walls as samples.
I went around my local area as I would need somewhere I could physically carry the mannequin to, to photograph. I ended up deciding on my own front wall.
Black Clouds
For the depression one. I had an idea that has stayed the same throughout. I love to use the term ‘The Big Black Dog’ to talk about my own depression. This is something that Winston Churchill used to refer to his depression as also.
I decided that as blue is often the colour and term associated with depression and sadness I would also use this colour as an overlay. But only an overlay of sorts. I wanted the picture devoid of any other colour, much like the world through sufferers of depression when they are having a particularly difficult time of it.
I knew I was going to use my own dog to create a large black shadow. The only problem with this is he is a small skinny long legged Jack Russell. I knew I was going to have my work cut out for me. But thankfully he is also a very patient and amazing model.
I am going to photography Indy’s shadow on an indoor blank wall. i am going to try to make the shadow huge. Then separately I am going to take a photo of myself sitting against the wall with my hood up and with the mannequins hands inside the bottoms of my hoodie. I will then put the photos together, so that the photo of myself is tiny in comparison but it is merged onto the photo of the giant dog.
I will also photograph the Dressmakers dummy head in the same place and swap out my own face for a dummy head.
“I keep on fallin”
My original ideas to depict falls was a page of many items. The central focal item would be a child’s toy you often find in a souvenir shop. They are push up puppet toys. When you push the base of the stand of the toy the horse falls down. It can fall in many ways and I thought if i took many shots of this and overlaid them. It would show falls well.
I was then going to add some things around the outsides in the back ground. Such as another childrens toy from my childhood, called a Weeble. The point of a weeble is that they never fall down. They are shaped lie an egg but always balance. I was going to smash part of it. So it never stays up. Depicting the difficulty of someone with Lewy Body Dementia.
However, now that I have the mannequin’s. I am going to do something depicting falls using them instead.
Umbersun Creations 