Altered States - Altering Photos

Friday's workshop was about altering some of the photos we had already taken during the course of this project, to make them fit more within the theme of Altered States.

We were told to use Adobe Photoshop to do this, or any similar programs that we might feel more comfortable in. I decided to use Procreate rather than Photoshop, since I feel a little more confident with Procreate and prefer using a stylus when editing. I know that a stylus can be used for Photoshop as well, but I did not have access to the correct hardware for that at the time.

I didn't feel particularly inspired during this workshop, since we hadn't been given much guidance and were given a lot of freedom. While I do like creative freedom, I do prefer to at least know if I have a target audience for my work or a context in which my work would be displayed.

I figured that the best way for me to get started would be to pick the least visually busy of my photos as a base for experimentation.

Above: The first photo I used

Due to the experimental nature of the piece, I sadly forgot to take screenshots during my process. (I'm still trying to get into that habit, since I get absorbed in what I'm doing very easily) Because I forgot those screenshots, I decided to include a time-lapse instead, as Procreate automatically records one for you.

I feel that I much prefer explaining my editing and drawing processes using screenshots over time-lapse, since I don't have to rush to keep my explanation in time with the video. However, since this piece was so experimental, I have learnt that the time-lapse has it's benefits- it shows all of the little things that I tried and forgot about, so it's a better representation of my thought processes.

The things that I ended up doing to the image were:

Drawing three coloured shapes, setting their layer modes to multiply so that they would become translucent, adding a glitch effect to the shapes, chromatic abberation to the image itself, and alpha locking the image in order to draw a grainy grey border around the frame.

Above: Time-lapse video showing the process of my first piece

Above: Final First Piece

After this workshop, I finally had a inkling of what Altered States means to me- Altered States of colour. In everything I do, colour is very important, so altering the colour is huge for me.

With this in mind, I did two more pieces after the session.

Below: I chose this image for my second piece and imported it into Procreate.

Below: I turned the saturation of the image all the way down so that it would be black and white.

Below: On the layer above the image, I coloured it in solid with the main colours of the colour wheel, with a white dot in the middle.

Below: I applied gaussian blur to the layer at 100%.

Below: I set the colour layer's layer mode to Overlay, so that the image would show through.

Below: Final Second Piece

I was very happy with this piece, as I feel it shows a very strong alteration of colour.

I decided that I wanted to do one more piece, but without drawing anything above it this time.

Below: I imported one of my favourite shots from the project into Procreate.

Below: On the layer above, I imported another photograph and rotated it to be landscape, with the circle on top of Arren.

Below: I set the second image to Overlay.

Below: On a layer above those, I imported another image.

Below: Using the smudge tool, I blurred the edge of the new image so that there wouldn't be a harsh line.

Below: I set that image to Overlay as well.

Below: Final Third Piece

After making these pieces, I feel I understand the Altered States project a little better, as well as it being a little more personal to me.