Adrenaline
So by now, everyone should know my underlying concept behind this particular choice of topic. For those who do not, I will try to summarise it here. For those who do, just skip this intro paragraph. I wanted to choose a subject that is intangible and after brainstorming for 1-2 weeks, I chanced upon a photo that inspired me while researching on “Adventure”. That is how my choice of topic came about. Upon further research on adrenaline, one article mentioned how adrenaline causes our senses to be escalated and makes us feel more than what we actually are. And hence, this entire project of “Point of View”, is based on that and specifically, how I interpret my subjects, as a photographer present at the scene, to be feeling at the moment I snapped the photograph of them.
So, without further ado, I will be introducing my final six panels and giving a short description on why I chose each of the particular manipulations for the original photos. The high resolution photos of each panels will be uploaded at the end of the post. Zoom in on their expressions if you all want. heh.
Disclaimer: No offence was intended for any of the manipulations. Please do not take any.
First and foremost, it is a photograph that I took during NTU CAC’s ball event. It was the moment when the pageant queen was crowned and her extremely elated expression made her look way more happy than I had expected her to be. Hence, my photo manipulation for this particular panel below, which will be explained in detail below the video.
For this panel, I banked on the level of happiness I think she was feeling at that point in time when the audiences passed her bouquets of flowers to congratulate her. Her expression is one of the happiest I have seen and this prompted me to exaggerate the scenario to show my interpretation of how I saw it. For this, I gave my subject a bigger crowd (which is represented by silhouettes of hands – cut off by the video here), a bigger crown (Miss Universe 2015’s crown) and a grander stage flooded with confetti. With these manipulations, I hoped to bring out the level of happiness I think she was feeling because of her adrenaline of being crowned.
The difficulty I faced with this panel was finding a suitable background and also, adjusting the color balance and lighting of both the pictures.
The original photo of my second panel was taken during an overseas trip to a kelong with my friends. It was the moment when one of my friend decided to jump into the sea from a platform, ONE metre off the sea level. Despite the fact that it was only one metre, her fear for the unknown sea gave her an adrenaline rush from fear and gave her a much more exaggerated expression.
For her exaggerated expression and body posture, I thought it was more fitting for her to be jumping off something way more significant and hence, I superimposed her jumping off a cliff that is super super high from the sea. Think the video speaks for itself.
The difficulties I faced for this manipulation was getting the lighting on my friend right to make it seem like it actually fits perfectly. Also, finding a photo with the scale of the background that fits the perspective of the original photo was quite a feat too. Glad this worked out rather well.
For my third panel, it was taken during a trip with my friends to another kelong. The subject, however, is not my friend but I sought her permission to photograph her (was working on my ADM Portfolio then). She was jumping off a 10 metre and her expression was totally epic. Look at it for yourself.
With an expression of such intensity and fear, I had to give her a much more exaggerated background to do her expression justice (hehe). And hence, I decided to superimpose her jumping off a stunt plane without any safety gears at all.
This panel was relatively easy to create as both of the shots were taken outdoors. The only thing I had to adjust was the warmth of the photos.
Moving on to my fourth panel, it is a shot that was taken during my client’s birthday shoot. It was a moment where a kid was chasing a man with a water balloon in her hands and the man played along and pretended (or actually was because he did not want to get wet) to be afraid and ran away from her. This is the only panel that has no expression shown but I thought his actions were exaggerated enough from the adrenaline he was experiencing. Hence, it was chosen.
I super imposed this shot on a situation like that of a fugitive who escaped via his vehicle but crashed and was forced to flee on foot. However, he was rounded up by the army and was forced to surrender.
For this shot, I had to edit three different photos in. Apart from cropping out the photos, I had to ensure that the colors and lightings/shadows fit the background. To make it more real, I added a cast shadow for the man running away and the soldier’s side shadows.
For my second last panel, the original photo was taken on yet another birthday party shoot. For this shot, my lady subject was afraid of getting wet from the water balloon her nephew mischievously placed on her head. Her expression showed so much fear that I felt bad for her.
With that level of fear on her face, I thought it was quite apt for me to superimpose this shot as a hostage situation. The lady’s nephew smile made him look slightly sinister and sadistic and hence, that inspired me to make him a super villainous man, holding the subject and threatening her with a parang.
I faced quite a few difficulties with this particular manipulation. Firstly, it was the choice of background. I wanted to choose a typical desert background which terrorist groups’ usually film their execution videos in but it looked a little too empty. And hence, after my first consultation, I chose a warehouse background instead. The other difficulty that I faced was to get the parang, my subjects and the warehouse to look like they are one photo. The lightings and temperature of each individual photos were too distinct and it took me quite a lot of time to get it right. Lastly, this was the first photo that I had my subject’s expression edited. I made the man look more vicious by editing his face to be more like an evil grin. His eyebrows were edited to converge more into the middle and his smile was made longer. I am quite pleased this turned out relatively well too.
Last but not least, for my last panel, the original photo was taken when my friends were having a balloon fight during a birthday surprise. My subject’s fear for balloons gave her an adrenaline rush rising from her fear for it and gave her a much more intensified expression.
With her squinted eyes and body posture that looks as though something big was coming towards her, I decided to superimpose her as shown above. It is a typical exaggerated movie scene with all kinds of different weaponry aimed and targetted at one single target.
The difficulty with this was getting the lighting right, really. Because of the background which is smoked and have a relatively well balanced outdoor lighting, it was really hard for me to edit my subject to get the same effect. I tried my best and the results was still not perfect. Still looks decent, i hope.
But yeah, I am really glad this project made me explore photoshop and photo manipulations in particular more. I am pretty sure these will be really useful for me in future, as a photographer and a videographer. Hope everyone had a good laugh looking at my presentation and photo manipulations.
Here are the high resolution photos!
Thank you
