Assignment # 3- Photo Manipulation

It is very hard to have an original photo of someone when today’s technology allows us to change anything we don’t like about it. It is not enough that we take so many pictures to only choose few for the album; we have the opportunity to make them look even better. We can also cut and paste and be very creative making the photo into a piece of art. As we know from our readings, even in the early days of the photography, retouching was very popular. “Nadar, who was himself a journalist, sketch artist and caricaturist, sought to combine business with his artistic aspirations and on that account refused to resort to retouching, a practice that was extremely common at the time among photographers with more commercial preoccupations. In contrast, Louis and Ernest Mayer, who set up their joint company of Mayer Freres in 1850, specialised in the tinted portrait.” (Jean-Claude Lemagny) These kinds of companies are today replaced by Photoshop and other digital photography tools.

The first photo was taken in the park. I saw this tree which reminded me of some great beast standing over me. I took a photo and continued my journey. When we got this assignment, I started searching through my photos knowing that I could create something new. Since this photograph reminded me of an animal, I decided to make it into a Gorilla.For this photo I used the simplest program called Paint.  I cut and paste the head of the gorilla from another photo and I put it on the tree. I painted the empty space choosing the gorilla colour and then over that I sprayed some black. I used green spray to cover the background and make it seem more like a jungle. We can see how I was able to  be creative in two different ways. First way was creativity and imagination with a photo camera and second one was creativity with photo tools which alowed me to make it into unique piece of art.

Original Photo                                                               Edited Photo

In the other photo I used more simple approach and I changed it to look like a photo from 60’s. We can clearly see how something would look through the lens of the old cameras. Retouching of the photo is not always used with good intentions. People can be creative but send a negative message to the society. This is why we have to step up and spread the positive influence to the future generations who will be affected the most with the coming technology.  By using the simplest program for my first photo I proved  how in today’s technology any person who has the most basic computer skills can be creative and change the photo to their liking.

Works Cited

Jean-Claude Lemagny, Andre Rouille. The History of Photography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press , October 30, 1987.

Photos:

Gorilla Photo: http://www.ecotourismblog.com/entry/gorilla-safaris-earn-70-revenue-for-uganda/