I have decided to use this picture of me blindfolded as I'm trying to hit the piniata. I chose this photo because I think the setting and the audience in the picture aids in the manipulation process. The audience in the background provides a sense of humor and the location is virtually in an open area so I have decided on a funny piece with a variety of possibilities. The challenge is basically finding a situation that is far from normal and finding the right "fit" so the subject, myself is this case, will connect. I first wanted to insert a picture of a professional boxer getting knocked down but I couldn't find the right combination. Also, I figure by adding a boxer would be too common. Finally, I stumbled upon a picture of a horse and the thinking process began. With trial and error, I was able to situate the horse in a position that would complement the subject. Furthermore, I decided on adding a cameraman to add value to the subject by emphasizing on the matter. With adobe photoshop I was able to cut and edit the added pieces effectively thus creating a whole new concept.
For my next image, I have decided to take pictures of the swimming pool area of my apartment. As you can see, 14 individual photos were used and merged into one big photo. These photos consist of different parts, pieces or accents found in the room. Personally, photo merging is new to me therefore I had a lot of fun merging these images. Not only did it make the pool look bigger, at first glance it also gives an illusion of making it somewhat look like an actual pentagon pool. Not until you look closely and notice the overlaps of the transparencies. I purposely changed the brightness and contrast of some of the photos compared to their original thumbnails so they can be more noticeable. The reason why I took a picture of this swimming pool area is because I always swim here after I go to the gym and when I do, the colourful walls tend to always get my attention, maybe because it's the only character in my old, boring and brown apartment. That same day I went upstairs to get my camera and immediately took photos of everything in the room. Thankfully I was by myself because I don't think I'd be able to properly get the illusion that I wanted of the pool with people in it. As you can see, the original pictures are the thumbnails and I used Photoshop to crop the pieces and merged them together. I wasn't trying to get them perfectly blended in because I wanted the photos to be distinguishable and didn't want them to be perfectly aligned. Several layers were used and overlapped one another, and I was also able to change the opacities and rotated a couple of pieces. I like the idea of merging because it doesn't necessarily limit us to just putting images side by side like a collage, it allows to be more flexible and complex with our pictures. For instance, some of the thumbnails I still had to crop and edit, while the rest were immediately put in and merged on their own.
