David LaChappelle

This image is very vibrant in colour. This is a shot of an implied nude female in perhaps a sensual pose, there is use of shadow throughout the image, a sense of seasonal change is given. The skin is shown with little defect, a good colour tone and very enigmatic. The grass is a plush green and the flowers carry a variety of light colours, the background has a deep blue that also has a lighter wash towards the horizon, the landscape in the background is shown to be in shadow. This image shows a model ina USA flag bikini in a promiscuous pose, her hair billowing in artificial wind and her body in a curved position, connoting the flowing lines of the female body. She is placed infront of the USA flag, which is digitally added to the background of the photograph. The colours in the digitally screwed up flag relate to the colours of the model's clothing. The skin colour stays similar all along the body, symbolising the model is not partially tanned, her hair is a darker shade of the colour of her skin which takes away the dismemberment often shown in the representation of women.

This is a digitally enhanced photograph. The model, in her bed clothing looks like she is standing in the foreground of this image. If you look closely you can see that she is actually laying down and what you take to be the back of her coat is actually the bed covers, you can also see the pillow behind her head. The background is added in of a building that is seemingly damaged, there are broken objects throughout the midground. The sky is typical of LaChappelle in that it has a light blue wash.

David LaChappelle is a photographer and a film director who works mostly in fashion, advertising, fine art photography and is noted for his surreal nature and colour in photography.

LaChappelle has directed many music videos and also some television adverts. He is known for many of his surreal photographs of celebrities.

Colour Variations

This is a print screen that shows me using colour variations. To get to this function, you click on Enhance and then Colour in the drop down box, from there you click on colour variations. In this section, you are given two copies of the photograph, the left hand side is the original image before you used colour variations. The right hand side shows the effects of what you are doing. You have the options of Increase/Decrease Red and so on for Green, Blue and Yellow. You can keep clicking on different buttons to get different shades of colours and effects, its not just more red, less red. You can actually go into all sorts of shades of colour by mixing up the different primary colours.

This time I used Enhance, colour, colour variations.

Warming up the shot.

My next task with this image was to warm up the shot. I did this my using the Orange Photo Filter and set it at 80% Brightness. This created an orange wash over the photograph and made it a more appealing image to look at, it increases the depth of the green so that it no longer looks so cold and also in my view makes it look less grainy. The steam from the engine is made marginaly darker with a hint of orange to it which makes it looks like a warm summers day. It also enhances the lettering on the side of the engine.

Colourized Inverted Image

Inverted Image with High Saturation

Here is the original photograph of a steam train running down the line through the woodlands. It was taken very quickly, as I had only a moments warning that it was coming. I ran across to an open area of trees so that I could get to it with as clear a shot as possible. This train was going downhill so it wasn't working hard so I didnt get a shot of lots of steam. The train was coming at approx. 50mph so I was very pleased to get such a clear image.

Here I used the Invert tool to swap the colours around. I then put the saturation levels right up to get this effect. To me it gives the feeling of warmth. The hot engine has darker colours and the steam is given a colour that to me represents heat and power. The colder surroundings are blue which gives the feeling of cold shrubery. If i saw this image in a gallery, I would say it was created to represent a sense of atmosphere and feeling that the train has a purpose steaming through its surroundings.

Monochrome Image

This is my photograph which I used the invert tool in Photoshop to reverse the colours. I also went on hue/saturation and put the saturation to zero to make it black and white. It now looks like a negative, or perhaps a digital photogram.

This image is one that I am very pleased with. I have kept a copy of it at home to keep as something to use in the future. By making it black and white the pictures seems like an older image, which works with the content of the photograph. The invert tool has reversed the light and dark making the train stand out in the image, as it is actually black but stands out as a point of light in the photo. The photograph looks like it has been taken in black and white with the subject area having huge lights beaming down on it. This gives a great digital effect that really improves the photograph.

Last Lesson on Photoshop

Last lesson we used Adobe Photoshop to work with an image of a desert road. During this lesson we cropped the image to the area that we wanted. Then we used contrast to change the colour depth of the sky, the road and the ground.
On a seperate layer, we learnt how to use levels of light to improve the image. The levels tool helps to tell you if your photograph is under or over exposed, you can then use the histogram to move the light and dark levels to optimise the image and make it look better. By making only small changes we could make the image look like it had been taken better and it was not obvious that it had been edited in Photoshop.