Here are my two final photographs for my narrative series. Overall I am very pleased with the finished results of the final images and I will talking in more detail as I go on. As you can see, the first photograph is one that is fully inspired from the photograph that featured in my blog earlier, of Barack Obama doing his oath of office after being elected into power by the American people. For this work I have used a model wearing a suit to represent Obama however have covered his face as I personally think the photographs look stronger with individuals face not being shown. I like how this photograph has turned out after putting it into photoshop where I was able to edit it to look how I wanted it. The environment that the room was taken in I believe works well, I did try other places like the university studio however I wasn’t too keen on just a plained coloured background and wanted to it to look although it was taking place in a more formal environment, therefore I think that the room where the photograph was taken works well. The photograph itself took several attempts before I decided that I was happy with the quality, I mainly changed the lighting and the angles that the photograph was being taken at before I was happy with this final picture. I managed to get this photograph after around 30 minutes of shooting and reviewing the shots, luckily I was in a good relaxed environment where the model was really easy to work with and was patience whilst I figured out exactly what I wanted before I finally got the shot. When putting it into PhotoShop I cropped the photograph as the lighting in the room left a rather annoying shadow on the right side of the picture that I managed to mainly cover however there is still a small mark, I think that this is something I definitely would have ensured to get absolutely right if I was going to redo anything with this project. I also made the choice of cropping the photograph on the left side as the second models face also featured and I decided that the photograph looked better when no-ones faces were in it, also I felt that if I had one face featuring then I may aswell have two, so that was a decision I made once the photograph was reviewed and put into PhotoShop. As you can see from looking at all of my test shots and trail shoots, all of the changes that I made to the trail and error process of getting this image correct have paid off as I am very pleased with the final result. The final edit that was made on this photograph was adding a small tone on it to give it a slightly glowly and shiny look which I prefer to the original; which you can find with the rest of my test shots. As I only have two final photographs I want to ensure that they are both as good as they can possibly be and I think that this one is, it took several shots and lots of smalls changes and edits before I got the photograph just as I wanted it and i’m pleased with the results.
Now onto the second of my final photographs; out of my both of my photographs this one is my personal favourite as I think it represents what my project is standing for completely. I really wanted my project to get a positive point across about Barack Obama and his successful eight year reign in the U.S. As you can see the photograph features my model stood straight with his hands behind his back, with the gay pride flag in the background. Similar to the first photograph, this image took a very long time to prepare for and to master once I had the model. I again decided against featuring the models face in this image as I felt the pictures without his face in looked better than the ones with, and no I’m not saying he’s ugly! I really like how the model is stood up straight in a formal position like you would expect a man of power to. Next I shall move on to talk about the background, with the gay pride flag being the first thing that meets the eye as soon as you look at the photograph. During his time as American president, Obama has been successful in several different events, for example the killing of Bin Laden and removing army troops from war zones all around the world, however what stood out for me the most personally was the change in American laws in legalising same sex marriage, which is now legal due in every state in the U.S. As I explain myself a little more i’m sure it becomes clearer as to why the flag features the gay pride flag. During the trail and error process of taking this photograph, I experimented with lots of different ways to positioning the picture, with the model and the flag, as I had access to a gay pride flag but also considered photoshopping it in the background if I felt it would look stronger. I was able to review the photographs instantly and after lots of small adjusts to the positioning of the photograph, I decided that I wanted the model with hands behind his back stood upright and the gay pride flag behind him. As I mentioned earlier in my research and the development of my ideas, I wanted to feature the American flag in one of my final photographs, so once I had chosen to have the gay pride flag in the background of my model Obama with the stripes going the same way as the American flag, that I wanted to put the stars from the American flag in the top left hand corner of the photograph. At first I wasn’t sure about the stars as they are normally white, so I decided I wanted to remove the white from the stars so that they would feature the colourful colours in the background. This then got me thinking about what this picture really represents, as I want my audience to be able to understand it within me having to explain too much, but I want the message to come across that the reason the flags from the American flag that would normally be white, are the colour of gay pride which represent how the same sex marriage law that now stands in the U.S which all happened whilst the man in the photograph was in power. A bit of a mouthful I know, but I am really pleased with the final produce of this photograph as in my opinion it represents the biggest achievement the Barack Obama has made during this eight year reign of the U.S. One thing I really enjoyed about creating this photograph was taking my work into photoshop to clean the image before adding the American flag to it as that was something I really wanted to feature.
Overall I am really pleased with the quality of my final two photographs and the messages that they bring with them, the first photograph I feel indicates to the audience that the narrative represents Obama and that I want to raise the point of how successful his time in power has been and the second one really showing what in my opinion is the main difference that has been made to America during his time in charge. I will next go on to evaluate my work and talk about how I feel I have performed throughout this whole projects work. One thing I did consider was putting the photographs I took in black and white, however I decided against that when I was sorting through and realised that I wanted the gay pride flag to feature, therefore I needed to leave the colours in the photographs, I did after think about maybe just making one photograph black and white but then I thoughts the two photographs may look really odd when put together so I left them both in colour. Both photographs involved work on PhotoShop which I enjoyed doing as I like the editing process of a project, the second photograph required the most post shoot production as I really wanted it to feature the American stars, representing the American states.
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