Shoot 7 - Lost Identity - Work Record

Date: 11/04/16

Plans for shoot:
In this shoot for 'Lost Identity', I will shoot a friend of mine specifically looking into mirrors. I will focus on the liquify filter on photoshop to blur and distort the reflection of her to represent my idea and theme of this shoot.

What I wish to achieve:
I wish to portray the emotional and mental issue that anxiety and depression causes of the sufferer feeling lost and detached from themselves. I will try and do this, by blurring and masking their face in photoshop, to create the connotation that when they look at themselves in the mirror, they don't see themselves anymore. This idea was inspired by my Edward Honaker research.

What I actually achieved:
I managed to take various pictures of someone looking into mirrors at different angles, then in photoshop I used the blur and patch tool to make her facial features blend with her skin tone to have the appearance that they aren't there.

 The denotations of this picture is a girl sitting on her bed, looking down into a mirror, and I have completely for rid go her facial features. I liked how it looks very casual in a sense that she is wearing normal clothes and just sitting on her bed, I think this makes the scenario look natural rather than very set up. This could show the connotations of how it's in everyday life and situations where they feel lost from themselves, even when everything around them is normal, they're mentality is affecting who they are. I found it quite difficult to photoshop her reflection in a way that looked like natural skin tone that all fades together nicely. But I used the patch tool continuously until I was happy with the result. I also like the focus of the picture and how it is shifted to the mirror so her hair is out of focus.

I liked this picture because of how she is looking into the camera through the mirror. I think this adds a lot of personality because to the person looking at the picture it looks like she is looking into us. I blurred out her nose and mouth but left her eyes to add the powerful, personal aspect. I also like how she is touching the mirror. I think this has the connotation of her reaching out to herself in an attempt to try and find herself again. I also like this mirror the most out of the three mirrors I used because of the frame it has and the rustic and old fashioned look this gives to the picture.


What I am going to do next:
Next I am going to try representing the same idea of lost identity but through a different way. I will take multiple, plain portrait pictures in front of a plain background and manipulate them in photoshop to liquify their face to make it unrecognisable as them and very abstract. This idea was inspired by Edward Honaker, I also touched on this idea in a previous shoot and I think it worked really well so now I will develop that idea and try and improve on it.