Project 3: Final Project I

Final Project I: Streets of Taiwan

Artist Statement: 

During recess week I went to Taiwan for 10 days to travel around the island and get to know country and people. Taiwan really fascinated me and I took a lot of photos of places and people that I found interesting. Besides the fascination the second strong feeling I had was that I was really foreign and alien in this country, everything was so different to the culture I normally live in. I decided to use these two feelings and the photos I took to combine them for my final project. So I tried to use expressive images and edit them in a way that a mood of fascination and also foreignness emerges.

Technical decisions:

I took the photo with my own camera, a Nikon D3400 and my lens Nikon DX 18-105mm, because I am used to take a lot of photos with this camera and I love the lens.

First Image: Man in the crowd

Before:

After:

Technical Decisions:

First I started with a Lens Correction. Then I used differen Masks for the man in the foreground, the Lights on the left side and also the Lanters. The inverted masks of the man and the lights I used as background masks. I applied different adjustments until I was happy with the results. I also used a green channel mask for the background and a red channel mask for the man in the foreground to create highlight and shadow masks.

Artist Statement:

My aim was to put the focus of this image on the man in the foreground. He looks sad and apathetic in the crowd and I wanted to express these feelings by adjusting his surroundings in colour, saturation and brightness.

Second Image: Woman on the Wall

Before:

After:

Technical Decisions:

I started with some general adjustments to this image, by using a gradient mask and a green channel masks to emphazise shadows and highlights. Then I created a mask for the woman on the wall and the inverted one as background. Again I used a gradient mask and red channel masks to create highlight and shadow masks for the background. I worked with a colour range mask to change to colour of the bright wall a bit and masked the lights of the boards in the shop to lower the brightness here as well. Then I created some adjustment masks on the different  levels.

Artist Statement:

I really liked this picture of the woman on the wall, but she looked to faded out and I wanted to change it. I decided to put her in focus of this image arranged the surroundings accordung to that. I also liked, how she looks a bit longing from the dark side towards the light side of the street and this image.

Third Image: Scooter

Before:

After:

Technical Decisions:

I started by cleaning the image. Then I worked on some general adjustments by using gradient masks for the sky and an inverted one for the steet. I used green channel maks to create highlight and shadow masks. I created a mask for the scooter in the foreground and inverted it for the background. Then I applied different adjustment layers and masks.

Artist Statement:

It was one of the rainy, cold days, when I walked along this street. I really liked this scenery and took a picture of it. I wanted to emphazise the feeling of a dismal rainy day and therefore darkened the image a bit and lowered the saturation, except for the scooter in the foreground.

Fourth Image: Woman with Bike

Before:

After:

Technical Decisions:

I started with some cleaning again, then I worked on some general adjustments. I decided to put the focus on the woman with the bike by masking her and create an invertef mask for the background. Then I used the red channel to work on her skin colour and applied further adjustments on the background mask.

Artist Statement:

This was the first image I decided to use for this project. I really liked the radiance she had with her modern bike and her old fashioned had. So I wanted to put the focus on her and tried to fade out the backround so that she shines out even more.