Further Photo Shoots

I am also planning on taking inspiration from this shot of Erik Johanssons:

I thought that this could be quite a simple but interesting image technique to duplicate. I also thought that once I had mastered the technique that this project required, I could be able to do many more different image experiments as it is the base of many manipulations. 

My chosen image

The first thing that I had to do was to capture an image of my model. I took a few pictures of him 'punching' himself, and chose this one as my favourite. This picture was taken with the flash on and quite low lighting to create the effect desired. The first editing technique that I used was to smudge the facial features all together to create a 'blank canvas' for the models face. I did this by using the 'Smudge' tool, and simply blurring everything together. To create a high quality image I ensured that I zoomed in fully so I didn't include any hair or fingers in smudging. Once I had finished this, due to the eyes and lips the skin was slightly oddly coloured so I edited this using the 'Brightness and Contrast' and the 'Hue and Saturation' options to make sure the skin looked real.

Texture shot

My next step was to get an image which I could transfer to behind the skin to create the texture of the skin. I think that in his image Erik Johansson used an air bag, possibly from a car, however as I didn't have one of these handy I decided to use something a bit more simple for my practice shots. I decided with my teacher that I would try to see how to effect worked if I were to punch a pillow and then transfer that across. The picture on the right is the final one which I have chosen. I opened this image as a layer on top of the previous layer, and then turned the opacity down to about 20%. This is only to make the editing easier at this stage and we will fine tune it later. I then had to position the top layer in the desired position over the face if my subject, and then erase any of the image which wasn't needed. This was a very tricky job because, for example, there isn't really a solid line between the hair and skin, so on the edges I used the 'Blur' tool which smoothened out the edges and made it a smoother transition. I then clicked on the top layer, and selected the 'Change colour to Alpha' opition, which basically removes any colour from the layer and leaves only the texture. I then finally fine tune the opacity to make sure there aren't any hard edges and I have my finished project: