Before and After - The Final.

Photoshopping.

On my own face, As well as changing the colour tones in the images, I made my eye colour brown and removed any blemishes, moles or piercings. I had most trouble changing the under eye area, It was hard to look natural but i lowered the opacity on the clone tool to make it less harsh.




I did mostly the same things with Vickys face as I did with mine. Only I made her eyes green, and changed the colout tones in a different was to emphasise her skin tones and hair colour. I also created some freckles when i first started post production on her face but they were so hard to make look natural that I left it as it was. I also struggled to remove a small double chin problem (sorry!) but I used the heal tool and it I ended up pleased with the results I got.

Before Images

I wanted to use some really considered High key, high production images for my before images. I think this will look much better than simple shooting someone in a day to day envo=ironment, and much more like the big rocket before and after images I was first inspired by. I took these images in the studio using two lights and a white backdrop.

Blondes.

Although not all of the Gods exhibited the trait, blonde hair was seen as a sign of divinity in Ancient Greece. Blondes were seen as exotic and otherwordly.
Blonde hair was also commonly ascribed to the hoeroes and heroines of European fairytales. Only Snow White has adrk hair because of her Mothers wish for a child, 'as red as blood, as white as snow, as black as ebony.'

It is often stereotyped that men find blonde women more attractive than women with other hair colours. Alfred Hitchcock preferred to cast blonde women for major roles inhis films as he believed the audience would suspect them the least, hence the term, 'Hitchcock Blonde'. In the medis and in culture, blonde women are often portrayed as 'promiscuous', bacause of this, many believe that blondes, 'have more fun'.
Blonde jokes are a class of derogatory jokes based on a 'dumb blonde' stereotype of blonde woemn (or men) being unintelligent, sexually promiscuous, or both.

Redheads.

Red hair is the rarest type of natural hair colour in humans. Since the reign of Queen Elizabeth 1, red hair has been seen more of a symbol of wealth and power. It was seen as a great sign of beauty back then, along with the pale skin we associate red heads with.

Many painters have exhibited a facisnation with red hair. The colour 'titian' takes its name from the painter Titian, who often painted women with red hair. Renaissance artist Botticelli's famous painting, 'The birth of Venus' depicts the mythological goddess Venus as a redhead. Who is supposed to depict the very essence of beauty. Other painters notable for their redheads include the pre-Raphaelites, Edmund Leighton, Modigliani and Gustav Klimt.

Rees in 2004 suggested that the vividness and rarity of red hair may lead to it becoming desirable in a partner and therefore it might become more common through sexual selection.
Sometimes red hair darkens as people get older, becoming a browner color and losing its vividness - this leads to some associating red hair with youthfulness, a quality that is generally considered desirable. In Countries like India, Iran and Pakistan, henna is used by women to give a bright red appearence.

Brunettes.

I have decided to look at the three hair colours and how they rae represented in historical culture and the media today. I will use these stereotypes in my final images. By showing, a before and after image and how I can emphsise their qualities using post production. Or possibly the qualities we think someone should pocess because of their hair colour.

Brunettes (like me) are often seen as the dowdy 'girl next door' in films and the media. Or if not that then they are vampy, gothic men stealers with red lipstick and big cuvacious hips! We are never the starring role!
Anita Loos who wrote the novel and screenplay 'Gentlemen Prefer Blondes' also went on the write a sequal called, 'But gentlemen marry brunettes'. This title suggests a wholesomeness and reliable character people expect in brunettes. Is this in the past or still around in todays society?

Brown hair is culturally identified as the colour of dependability. Brwon hair is, perhaps, most famous for being the colour of mystery and seduction.

In the film "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes' Jane Russel (brunette) plays Marilyn Monroes sidekick, her trusty friend, who albeit, seems more intelligent with buckets more common sense. At the same time she lacks the charm Marilyn has in the film and she gets much less attention from the men in the film.

More representations of beauty...

...Relating to hair. In Western society there seems to be a popular image of beautiful women as having a fair complexion, light eye colour, and blonde hair. In contrast an ideal man would have darker features. We have traditions like the 'fair haired maiden' and 'tall, dark and handsome' to remind us of this (if us brunettes ever dare forget!)
Cultural definitions of feminine beauty vary with regard to body size, skin complexion, hair length and colour.

Historically, the length or removal of hair has been a sign of status, age, appropriateness, and gender distinctiveness. Hair colour has been a symbol in mythology and literature. In 'Paradise lost', Milton's Eve, the original symbol of feminine sexuality, possessed, 'Golden Tresses'.
The innocent princesses often have long, golden hair, whilst the evil witches are shown with dark hair. Blondes are also overly represented in the 'good characters' of angels, saints, goddesses and fairy godmothers. Greek actors who portrayed villians, wore black wigs, heroes wore blonde wigs and clowns wore red wigs.
Do these stereotypes still exist today?

Representations of beauty...

...In History.
In Elizabethans times the style of Queen Elizabeth was very influencial on women. The queen had red hair, so this colour became a real vogue. Women emulated this colour using a mixture of saffron, cumin seed, celandine and oil, seeing this as an ideal of beauty. Another tendancy was to to shave or pluck the hair from the forehead, the idea of a high forehead was considered very attractive.
Pale skin, sought after by many, was a sign of nobility, wealth and delicacy. This pale skin was achieved by a number of means, many of them poisonous. The most popular was 'ceruse', a mixture of white lead and vinegar applied to the face, neck and bosom. This poison shows the extend women, even then would go to to achieve the 'ideal' beauty.

One of Shakespear's most popular sonnets pokes fun at the common metaphors used to describe the ideal beauty of those days:
' My Mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun
Coral is far more fair than her lips fair
If snow be white, why then her breast is dun,
If her hair be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses demasked red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks...'

This re-emphasises the time and effort put into a beauty regime even back then. It seems interesting the changes in fashion, even in make up and beauty products. In Elizabethan times women strived to be as white and as pale as possible. Yet now, many of us try to be as dark as we can! Using products like bronzer, oodles of fake tan and inventions like the sunbed we can take this new trend to the very extreme.

Final Images and Representations of beauty in the media..

I have decided to use the studio for my final images. I feel that really high production well lit photographs will work well with my ideas.
I also will research into much more classical traditions of beauty. For example the idea that the princess is always a fair haired maiden and the brunette is often the witch or equally as sinister a character. I will also explore trends and representations of beauty in different eras.

I have looked at some images from magazines and newspapers, everyday life for many people. We are given an image of celebrities representing such perfection and beauty. However if you look a little closer this is a big misrepresentation, although, sure, they are very very beautiful people. They are not perfect! I have found some before and after photographs of some perfect celebrities.

Some experiments

Here I have used some photos I took of people and changed something on their face. I used the clone tool and the smudge tool amongst others. This was really to see how easily something could be changed in photoshop and still look real. I need all my 'after' images to look really natural. Which isn't very easy!

Research for final images

I found this article in the Metro Newspaper, it explains that by changing something simple on a persons face. For example the size of their lips, it will change them much more than we think. It can make girls much sexier or by making eyes smaller can give someone a sinister look to them. I intend to explore this much more in my work. By changing something very subtley yoou can make a total difference to their whole look.

Merging an Image

Scanning an image

Scanning an image

Cropping an image

Cropping an image

Cropping

Cropped down, this image looks to me like a low-quality, grainy image from a cctv system capturing a gang of youths kicking some poor victim to death.
Reveal the full picture and you get: Unemployed people on the streets of Derry Northern Ireland, December 1955.

Original Publication:Picture Post- One man in five is out of work. Photo: Bert Hardy/Picture Post/Getty Images

'Snap' Big Rocket

Although these images are not digitally manipulated, I want to achieve this 'before and after' effect in my work. By changing something very subtle between the two images.

'Snap' Big Rocket

'Stand Here Please' Big Rocket

David Hockney

Photographing Annie Leibovitz While She's Photographing Me, 1983
Photographic Collage edition 4
25x61 in

David Hockney

In the Eighties, Hockney turned to photo collage. Using a polaroid camera, Hockney would assemble collages of photos that he would take as quickly as possible. Hockney was fascinated with the idea of seeing things through a window frame.

This medium allowed him to see things in a whole new fashion. He took a drive in the SouthWest United States taking thousands of photos and fitting them altogether into various collages such as, You make the picture, Zion canyon, Utah. His artwork also began to take on a psycological dimension.

David Hockney

Prehistoric Museum Near Palm Springs
1982
Photographic Collage
84.5x61 in

David Hockney

Merced River, Yosemite Valley 1982
Photographic Collage edition 20
52x61 in

Tim Macpherson, Stop Teenage Pregnancy Campaign

Tim Macpherson, Stop Teenage Pregnancy Campaign

Tim Macpherson

'Tim has been exploring some interesting avenues in the world of compilation photography. Choosing the particularly contemporary theme of children and (un)healthy eating, he has shot a range of pictures which juxtapose a clean innocent and attractive background, with a potentially troubling foreground. Could weathered off days be a thing of the past?!'

Here is a photographer where digital post production is crucial in many of his images. In this series of photographs showing children indulging in bad food, he has placed the children onto different backgrounds, for a greater effect on the viewer.
To me, this project could be seen not only as a shock to all how the children of today are eating, but possibly as starting the debate of body issues and size zero even younger. I wish to focus more on self image and body issues as i research more into the project.

Tim Macpherson

Tim Macpherson

Tim Macpherson

Richard Kalvar

Richard Kalvar
USA New York City, 1969
Woman looking at herself in store window

I particularly feel this image shows what i like about Kalvar's style. The woman's reflection looks so perfect and the timing of the image feels almost too right. As if the image could have been digitally manipulated.
I like the way the reflection is the focus of this image, and the slight narcissicm here from the woman, by looking in a shop window to look at your own image.

Richard Kalvar

Richard Kalvar is a photographer for Magnum Photos.

'Kalvar's photographs are marked by a strong homogeneity and aesthetic and theme. His images frequently play on a discrepancy between the banality of a real situation and a felling of strangeness that emerges from a particular choice of timing and framing. The result is a state of tension between two levels of interpretation, alternated by a touch of humour.'

Again I have looked at a photographer who, rather than manipulating their images, gives this feeling and look by the way the shot is taken and composed. Also, Kalvar looks at people in his photography, which is something i would like to look at in mine.

Richard Kulvar