Jason Travis Experiments

I experimented with some works of Travis by photographing my friends, family and people I know, along with the contents of their bags. I started off with my Photography teacher Jess.

This next image is of my dad. I tried to shoot different backgrounds for each portrait like Travis did.

I did the same thing for my mum.

I took quite a while to decide whether to do a dog image in Travis' style. I thought it might look slightly amateur, but I decided to experiment and try it. I think the fact I managed to get his cage in the background is relevant to the way Travis works - with the person's personality shown in the background of their image.

I am not planning to do a self portrait, but it depends on how many people I can photograph, as ideally, I would like as many different people as possible, with all different backgrounds and possessions. I did a self-portrait just to try it out for my mock-up experiments.

I edited these in Photoshop by dragging the two separate images onto a new page. I then changed the sizes to fit, the levels of colour and darkness, and occasionally the hue and saturation.

I make my ideas slightly different to Travis, and not completely copying, I am going to use Rankin's 'Destroy' project as inspiration. I am going to paint and draw onto different elements of the photo to add a different effect and it also stops me from simply copying Travis.

Evaluation

For my Light Painting images, we set the shutter speed on the camera to slow. We then shone different torches and laser pens onto the subject. After this effect worked, we thought it would be interesting to add physical movement to our photos. We started to walk and slide to the other side of the room. The camera was able to show our journey, with our movements being shown behind us. 

Photoshop Experiments

This photo is of a tree in black and white, layered over the top of my view of the sky from a plane.  This looks good as it looks like there is a sunset behind the tree. I did this by opening both images in Photoshop in separate windows then dragging one on top of the other. 

This was originally in colour, but I decided to desaturate (make black and white) to create a more ghostly feel. I also darkened the background and lightened the main image.

I added white lines to the sun beams to make them stand out more and make a brighter tone. I achieved this by using the brush tool with a large brush and drew the lines on 'Screen' mode. After doing this, I added a photo of me looking like a ghostly spirit, by dragging in, which completely changes the whole tone of the picture, and makes it more scary.

I layered a tree on top of the image of the sky, which contrasts because the tree is dark and spiky, whereas the sky is light and wispy. I don't think this photo is the most effective because of the different contrasts, and it doesn't really resemble a real scene, which I think the others do. To achieve this, I simply dragged the tree over the top of the sky, then changed the settings from 'Screen' to 'Overlay'.

The original photo of just the added white lines to the sunbeams. With these lines, I think the sun itself looks brighter and the beams appear longer. I think this photo could have been better if it was in colour, because it makes the photo seem more upbeat, whereas in black and white, it looks solumn and sad. I created this by drawing white lines with the brush tool on 'Screen' mode.

I like this image of a tree layered over a picture of the mountains in South Africa. I changed the colours to make them appear darker to resemble a sunset. The tree branches could look like lightening, which means the photo could have two different moods; a dark storm or a pretty sunset. The clouds could also be used to interpret either of these scenes. This picture was made by dragging the tree on top of the mountain scene from separate windows and making it really dark on 'Vivid light' mode. 

I really like this image of a scene in Cape Town. The foreground includes a Wheel, palm trees and cars. The background is a photo of the mountains, which makes it seem that they are lingering behind. The photo of the scene was taken in black and white, and the mountains in colour. I think this adds effect because the palm trees are dark and you can only see there outline, and the wheel is illuminated by the sun in the mountains photo. I made this picture by simply dragging the wheel photo on top of the mountain image. Before doing this, I darkened the palm trees and the cars using 'Desaturate', then lightened it from complete black and white. I then changed the settings from 'Screen' to 'Overlay'.

I edited these images using Adobe Photoshop. They are mostly photos layered on top of each other to create an effect of different background scenery.

The photographs of the mountains and the wheel were taken in South Africa, with background images of my view of the sky from an aeroplane and a tree in my garden. I think these work effectively because they show more depth with the background than without, and makes the pictures more interesting to look at. 

The image of the sun beams streaming through the window was taken in my hall way. I added more white tones to the sun beams to create a brighter tone. 

I also edited a picture of me and put it in the same photo to create the idea that there was a ghost and the added blurred lines make this effective.

Experimenting with Photoshop

Original image.

I think all these different edits show different moods and tones. This one is quite abstract and looks sketchy.

This edit looks quite similar to the original, but is slightly darker. The commuters look gloomy and dark, the stereotypical view of commuting in London.  Everyone looks to be in a hurry and with their heads down.

This image looks similar to the one above, but with the illusion that its raining.