Photo Diptych Project
Name: Nina Chen
Project Name: Through the Perspective of a Camera
Concept:
My final concept for my photo diptych ended up taking the form of a person looking through the camera and the other being what they see in the camera.
The contrast of colors are also there to show the difference since the original picture of the person is very dark and all we get is the neon green color while in the other picture we have a bunch of colors and the one that catches one’s eye is that of the orange fishes.
Process:
Image 1:
For this image, I decided to go to the aquarium with some friends and it was overall very fun. The aquarium had a lot of different type of fish and I had fun looking around. This image was actually taken because we wanted a group picture and there happened to be a mirror and that’s what we did. We took a picture in front of the mirror.
As for the reason why this image was taken, it was purely due to a coincidence. While looking through all the pictures taken that day, I ultimately ended with this picture since the idea of someone looking to the side to see fishes came into my mind. There were some other relatively good pictures but those pictures had some very blurry portions that I didn’t really like. (Also look how cute this jellyfish is!! It’s in a heart shape!!)
Image 2:
The main inspiration for this image was the picture
of the bubbles I took. Since I really wanted to incorporate the bubbles into my project, I just went along with it and ended up with a different types of bubbles to start out with.
As soon I finished with the bubbles I continued to look through the pictures I had taken and went “why not add the fish lanterns too, it’s basically all the pictures I have so far.”
Essentially I looked through the ones with the best clarity of the fish lanterns and cut out the specific ones that I wanted to use in my final photo collage.
I chose these fish because I find their movement to best fit the vision I had: a bunch of fish moving together.
Continuing on the idea of movement, I chose to duplicate these groups of fishes multiple times more and also distort it for more within the moment action.
At the same time I also added different layer effects on the bubbles to make more transparent and reflective of the background.
After all of this, it was time to choose a background for this picture collage, which actually took a while since the trip to the aquarium was after I had gotten most of the edits down.
In the end, I chose one that fits the most and has the least amount of fish in the original background picture. This was because I wanted the fishes to be the main focus instead of what was in the aquarium. I also got the suggestion the add some fishes to the back of the coral in the image and I liked the idea so I also added that in.
After adding the background I realized the bubbles weren’t up to my standards of how reflective it is so I added even more filters to make it fit more.
Conclusion:
To be fair, I’m not as satisfied with my image one and if I had more time, I would want to do something with other animals, like a flock of birds that is flying. I really want to contrast the “birds of the sea,” ie the fishes, with something different and is on land.
All the while I do really like my image two, I do believe that I can make it better since I also do think that the colors doesn’t pop out as much as I would like it to. In a way, it’s a bit too busy to the eye.
Nonetheless, I am proud of whatever I have accomplished.
Image of Diptych + Contact Sheet
