Both of my midterm Photoshop images were inspired by a music video for the song “Gone with the Sin”, written and performed by my favorite band H.I.M. The video features the band’s lead singer, Ville Valo, walking through a cemetery that has been edited with neon colors. I was also inspired by a beautiful old cemetery I sometimes visit when I go home. Over spring break, I took photographs in this cemetery while thinking of the “Gone with the Sin” video. If you go on Youtube and search this video, you can clearly see its correlation to my midterm images.
My first image, a mausoleum with a rainbow, was partially a tribute to St. Patrick’s Day as well as the music video. I brainstormed images that typically put me in the Irish spirit: rainbows, pot of gold, leprechaun, four leaf clovers, and lots of greenery. As I looked through my photographs from the cemetery, this shot of the mausoleum caught my attention. I started changing the color effects in Photoshop, turning dull colors into vibrant, neon greens, blues, and purples. I probably spent a total of 2 hours doing this until I was satisfied with the total picture. Then, I searched an image of a rainbow on Google and used the lasso tool to select it and paste it in front of the mausoleum. I had to use the eraser tool on low opacity to make the rainbow seem see-through.
My second image, a close-up of a headstone with a ghostly figure in the background, is a clear reference to the H.I.M. video. In fact, that ghostly figure is Ville Valo, the band’s lead singer. This image took me a long time to complete because I could not find an image of Valo that showed his whole body standing. I actually had to edit two photos together, an upper body and a lower body shot, to get the look I wanted. Then I inserted the image of the flowers into his hands to tie in Valo with the image of the headstone and the roses in front of it. Again with this photo, I spent a lot of time adjusting the colors to get the neon look I wanted.

This is a "rough draft" of the first image for the midterm assignment.

These are 3 images I am considering working with for the composite project. I might use these actual images or I may just use them as ideas when taking more photographs.

This is my second composite assignment. I used 3 original photos: the image of the tree and 2 pictures of each of my friends.

Comments about Crewsdon, Hocks, Wall, and Sherman

I enjoyed the works of all four artists, and I can't say I have a favorite. I enjoyed Sherman's simple black and white photos, but I also appreciated the complexity of Wall's works. Both of these artists, however, had more realistic photographs, whereas I saw a more surreal aspect to both Crewsdon and Hock's pieces. Crewsdon's photographs had a mysterious quality to them. They were so beautiful and well done, yet they left me wondering and asking many questions about the events surrounding the single moment he captured. Many of Hock's photographs, on the other hand, reminded me of surrealist pieces by Dali, one of my favorite artists.

The chair, table, and railing are from a photo taken in the Bahamas outside an ice-cream store. The view in the background is from a photo I took in Wildwood, NJ.