A portrait of Heather done by taking several pictures of her (often just small sections of her face) and overlapped at different transparency levels. It was an interesting process to photograph her knowing that this is what I wanted to do with it. Often, when taking pictures of someone I am looking at them as a whole person to better understand them. How strange that in photographing sections of her face, it also shed some light into the person as well. It was one of the most dynamic ways of photographing somebody, in that as I kept taking pictures and tilting this way and that way, Heather changes a little bit with each frame.
12 comments in “Pieces of Heather”
February 3rd, 2007 at 6:52
Ohhhhhhhh Nooooooooooooo! It’s … it’s … Frankenheather!!!
Aghhhhhhhhhh!
February 3rd, 2007 at 21:04
“i’m curious, andrew… did you use each of the photos at the same transparency to start with? or were these varied (as much as the results that you achieved with the overlapping layers)?
i like the effect! (and your model, as always, and even in duchamp/picasso cubism mode, is beautiful!)
i’d like to see portraits that have been created this way but then cropped to fit a rectangular frame. i think the image might be stronger w/out the uneven border.”
February 3rd, 2007 at 21:18
Hey Kris. I imported the pictures as is from my camera and basically put all the pieces into Photoshop and working on a large white canvas started to move these different pieces on it. When I had done that I changed the opacity of each frame enough so that I could see the other layers behind and above each one. This helped me visualize how the images lined up and what I wanted to do with it.
After getting the layers to where I thought I liked them I started to mess around with the opacity of each layer segment until I liked it. Some areas are more dense than others, and as a result resolve darker, because of the number of layers above and below it. Other areas resolve darker because I made them more opaque than others.
I like your idea of cropping to take away the irregular edges. I will try that.
I also like the cubistic feel to the images.
Andrew
February 4th, 2007 at 11:35
you can see that most people who so this kind of panography dont make portraits with it, so I’m glad you are trying it out on a human face!
http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=panography&w=all
most people eaves the edges irregular, but i’d like to see more experiemnting with that. I think because David Hockney popularized doing this with pictures, people naturally stick with his conventions. but there is lots of possibility! Nice job andybones.
February 4th, 2007 at 11:46
you know, like this
http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=379519780&size=o
or whatever
February 4th, 2007 at 12:10
Hockney and panography… thanks, Dave! the landscape photos at least ring a bell…
I suppose my penchant for the frame has to do w/ staring at so many byzantine icons.
But, Andrew, you do anchor this image of Heather with the horizontal photo that resolves most opaquely along her nose and the left side of her face. Would be fun to see more.
February 4th, 2007 at 14:21
Hey Dave, I just saw the versions you made from my picture (one with a traditional frame) and I really like the look of it. I think I like the additional spaces around a person so maybe if I am going to work a bit with traditional framing, I will need to shoot a bit wider to get my background into the final frame. Thanks for some visual ideas for me to play with in the future.
February 4th, 2007 at 14:35
Hey Dave, thanks for the links to other works of Panography. I was inspired by your work on your blog site of Galdiola (http://davidhuth.com/gladiola/Gladipics,%20page%202_files/gladipan.jpg). I want to look at this David Hockney’s work some more. It is really interesting. Yeah I would like to do a whole series of portraits in this style to see what kinds of variations I can come up with.
February 4th, 2007 at 21:05
yeah, there are several flickr pools imitating hockney’s work, usually using Photoshop:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/13867288@N00/pool/
some good ideas in there… this pic of heather would shake them up with a new perspective!
February 5th, 2007 at 5:24
Hockney!? Hockney!?! Isn’t that some kind of ice sport in Ireland? Whut?
February 6th, 2007 at 6:04
Hi Kris.
Yeah I I wanted to give the picture a bit of a focal point since the lack of opacity tends to make the picture float around without a strong anchor as you suggested. I didn’t want to be too overt about it—just enough to get a starting point for the eyes to follow.
March 13th, 2007 at 17:33
I remember many faces of Heather as a young girl…the serious face as she studied for tests in school…the competitive face as she either ran down the soccer field or basketball court…the compassionate face as she told of her experiences on the youth group mission trip to Venezuela…the sad face when we knew that our Golden Retriever, Sunshine, died……the silly face when she did goofy things with her brother and sister…the joyful face as she walked down the isle toward the man she loves…the hopeful face as the doctor said “The cancer is gone.” The many face’s of my precious daughter will always be in this mother’s heart. Love you two!
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