FANTASTIC & STRANGE
ANALYSES
Tatiana Parcero uses very low key lighting, where the subject is well exposed meaning the ISO is very low. This helps keep detail in the picture and avoid a grainy appearance. Another aspect of the image taking is double exposure meaning she needs to use similar angles of the first and second photo's. Tatiana Parcero also uses story telling in her photos through her use of maps and art being overlayered over her photo's which refer to her background. In her photos it is clear that she uses portrait and birds eye view aspect's in her photo's to achieve a pitch black background that is not brightly exposed. Tatiana parcero uses multiple technical technique's to achieve her photo's. it is clear that she use a digital camera to capture her photos as a majority of the technical aspect's are edited in photoshop. The use of B&W in her photos is able to contrast the colours and the use of high contrast removes shadows from the black background. the tones of her photos are less diverse as there is a clear use of fade/gamma lighting over her photos as this removes more clear grain in the foreground of her photos. Further more, her photos use shadow over the overlay, which corresponds with the actual lighting, making it seem realistic. This is shown by the use of white text being shaded over as grey and losing opacity. The lense is able to capture a high amount of detail, which isn't ruined by a high ISO as the exposure is under exposed so that the high use of contrast when edited would not over expose the subject.
Overall, I find her photos very likeable as she uses a mix of under-editing and over-editing her photos, which correspond well together. Additionally, she achieves a very high quality in her photos, which isn't ruined by grain. The photos have are also not filled with lots of objects but have small details, which helps the aspects not be over or under filled.
Tatiana Parcero is an artist who uses themes of identity and heritage in her work. She is a Mexican photographer born in 1967 and uses digital photography to edit her photos. A popular theme of her photos is double exposure. She has several galleries around the world, which are displayed to hundreds.
Tatiana Parcero is an artist that constantly conveys a story behind her images through her use of origin in her photo´s. She aims to show her cultural background and her ancestry through maps, symbols, ad tatoo like images that she double exposes to look as if tattooed onto the body. In her photo´s she shows forms of hispanic ancestry some specifically from Mexico and central America (also where she´s from.
For this artist I would like to explore hands in the photos I take. the images above are both ideas for poses and combined with her usual more 'tatto and art' ideas could be edited to appear in her style, or drawn on the body. the aspects I most like are the maps that she uses and her exploring with where she is from and using that to add multiple small details that all make up one large image. there are many different ideas and forms that could be used and explored for a final outcome.
I liked the technical aspects of this photographer. Especially the quality she is able to achieve in each of her photos and how she is able to have such a high contrast between the subject being bright and very well focused on and the background being dark and out of focus. Additionally, she is able to have each of her images in complete darkness, none being slightly grey or showing a grain of focus. She is also able to size and proportion her images, with not to much black/dark space around the hand, however not having the images cropped over or to close to the subject of that image.
CONTACT SHEET
For the photoshop I aimed to capture all B&W images as this would fit the theme more and would expose less light due to the lense type. The raw photos are very well lighted however due to motion blur some lighting is over exposed. In the angled pictures the aspects were very well captured, however the iso was very high and some of the colour was less saturated, due to it. Another unsuccessful aspect was that no images were able to capture both hands, which I would aim to capture in the redraft photoshoot. A successful aspect I would use in the redraft photoshoot, would be the use of bird’s eye view and multiple different hand gestures.
Developments
In these developments I used the photoshop to edit the photos and double exposed the images. A successful aspect was how dark the background was able to appear in the images by decreasing the exposure and using multiple curve point in the lighting on photoshop. For the developments I double exposed the images by using the lighting technique and cutting the map images over the hands. I additionally, converted them to the shape of the hands as this would make them appear tattooed over the hand. A successful aspect of the developments was that I was able to lower the exposure correctly to wear the hand was still viewable, however a unsuccessful aspect was the blur in the images as this meant some of the hands were very greyish and had less detail and a very similar tone, even when the lighting was contrasted. Overall, I would use most of the editing techniques when I edit the redraft photoshoot as they were successful in the first developments.
REDRAFT
Contact Sheet
For the re-draft photoshoot I focused on what failed in the first photoshoot. A success was how low the exposure was and the detail in the images. Furthermore, it shows the correct light point and the highlights and shadows are well contrasted.
What I would change is how bright the background is in the high-key images, as they are not well exposed and will have to e edited brighter, which will ruin the quality. Moreover, I would aim to zoom more out in some photo's to capture space better.
RE-DRAFT PHOTOSHOOT
For the redraft photos I used photoshop to edit and double expose the developments. I used double exposure and added maps from my previous photoshoot. Another aspect I changed was the use of graphs in the map, which meant I could move the maps to fit with the hands which improved the realism of the photo.
( Maps are found on Google Chrome and are not owned by me )
Highlighting Success
This photo was successful due to hw it was captured and edited. The photo shows the map successfully double exposed as if it were a tattoo. Additionally, the lighting is low key and is exposed to the point where the background is fully black. Moreover the double exposure does not show outside of the hand shape.
The photo is well cropped to where there is the correct amount of space around it and the hand sign is not copied. Another success of the spacing is that the light is correctly lit over the back of the hand and slowly fade out to the front of it.
Further Developments
Mirror Developments
For this set of photos I focused on using multiple layers of photos together in the style of Tatiana Parcero. Some were mirrored and some were duplicated. I used the same aspects as the last images, however I darkened the images to make it appear more realistic using a lower exposure and decreasing the light level´s. I found these developments were not as successful as they are overall less realistic and I found the original images had a too high black point to be edited back into the original hand. If I were to take this idea for a photoshoot I would use raw images rather than the edited to avoid a too low exposure\brightness.
Further Developments
Borders
For these further developments I added borders on photoshop. there were not many (if no) other aspects I changed for these developments. I added the maps first and then added the images over the borders so that they appeared framed. Then I returned to the border layer and sometimes changed the contrast, fade or brightness to appear more framed.
( Maps are found on Google Chrome and are not owned by me )
THIRD PHOTOSHOOT
CONTACT SHEET
I took these images of another's hands instead of capturing images of my own hand's. I also used a yellow tinted light for this photoshoot instead of a white tinted light, to experiment with if the hands would then appear clearly in the edited images, still with a pitch black background. I took 23 images for the photoshoot and used multiple different poses/shapes for the hands in the images. I took more images for this photoshoot than I usually do for my previous photoshoots, so that my developments would not have to use every image I had taken for my photoshoot, therefore I can cut out images, such as the images in this photoshoot where the light source was too low ,the image was out of focus ,the ISO was to low or it was under-exposed. another aspect I changed for this photoshoot was taking the images with no natural light and capturing the images once it was ark outside so that I could change and move the only light-source that was visible in these images.
DEVELOPMENTS
I edited these images with Adobe Photoshop. I used the map images from my previous photoshoots to layer over the images for this photoshoot. For these images I used a darker background and took images of another's hands so that I could capture more successful images. I was also happy that the background was darker and appears pitch black in these images. When editing the images the first three aspects Inedited was making the curve lower on lighter areas and keeping it the same on neutral areas so that it also created a contrast. Due to the background not being fully black I added more contrast however also increased the brightness slightly so that most of the hand was still visible. I then made the image B&W as the hand appeared extremely over saturated and this aspect would appear more similar to her theme. Further more, making the hand fully B&W made the maps (with colour) that I layered over stood out more. I was happy with these images much more than previous developments due the consistency in the successful developments, whereas my first two photoshoots had few successful developments. The aspect that changed this photoshoot was that I did not have to 'sacrifice' the dark background for the hand to also then appear darker or the hand appearing but the background being grey and appearing as paper and not a pitch black darkness. Overall I found this to be the most successful developments for Tatiana Parcero.
( Maps are found on Google Chrome and are not owned by me )
PROCESS LOG :
Experimenting with symmetry
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First I extended the image crop to around / approximately double the image width. Then I added a fully black picture for the upcoming background.
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I then duplicated the image (hand image) as the top layer on Photoshop.
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I then extended the black layer across the whole image length to fill the image width as a black background.
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I then lightened the image so that the white side and the black background of that image would not be visible.
I then moved the original image a layer up after unlocking it and locking the black layer as a background. Then I flattened the image and cropped it so that it was fully symmetrical.
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FURTHER DEVELOPMENTS
I edited these images with Adobe photoshop. I mirrored these images, experimenting with symmetry. I found the images were very dark and were some of the most successful images I had taken for a re-draft, therefore I chose to do further developments, experimenting with exposure. The aspects of these images such as a fully black background and clear images (one where the light appears) made it easier and helped the final outcome of these images appear successful. For the process of making the images (shown above) I found that small aspects of every image that I wanted to improve was easier as I considered these images as raw images and not the edited images, so that I also used more contrast and brightness to improve the final image outcomes.
( Maps are found on Google Chrome and are not owned by me )
HIGHLIGHTING SUCCESS
I wanted to highlight this image as one of the most successful developments from this Tatiana Parcero page as I found this image shows the most development from my very first developments on this page to the last further developments I made. What I liked most about this image compared to the others was that it had a fully black background and this image was edited the most successful as in my opinion this image ahs the best mixture between it looking real, however still having the aspects that make the mirroring look morphed. I liked the images lighting and the first developments colour and how their is still saturated areas, however from this mirrored image their are not as many aspects that have been edited other than the mirroring from the first development to the further development. As this was the most successful development I wouldlike to edit a frame behind it to show some sort of a final piece for my Tatian parcero page showing development from the start to the end.
FINAL DEVELOPMENT
( Maps are found on Google Chrome and are not owned by me )