What do you do to keep your muse inspired? Read a book, watch a film, go out and about with your camera, or drawing pad. If you need certain discipline, have a specific aim and hold you accountable to it. A good alternative is to take part for free in the 52Frames: one photograph weekly with a specific theme or word.
Word of the Week: chaos
When I got to know the word for this week, I was happy. Chaos is part of my busy life and it wouldn’t be difficult for me to come up with an idea. However, I wanted to come up with a slightly different one for it. I thought of throwing papers in the air with a self-portrait of me spinning around as if I were lost. Thinking more, I got the conclusion that some people would probably have the same idea.
It was then that I thought of creating chaos with multiple exposures. Once, this was in my mind, I remembered Pep Ventosa. I love his work and the idea was settled.
Creating chaos
I didn’t want to have anything identifiable to represent well the chaotic state of a busy multi-tasking mind. Therefore, each spot for taking the pictures wasn’t as close to each other as we normally choose when we apply Pep Ventosa’s technique. The elements of the picture frame were a computer, a desk, some papers, and a bit of general mess. 😉 I took several pictures, edited them to correct lighting and colour.
I then imported them as layers to Photoshop, transformed them into smart objects, and finally applied the stacking feature. I played with all the possibilities and ended up choosing the median of all layers, instead of mean. The reason for such is that I wanted to obtain an abstract, painterly effect. Otherwise, a more detailed manoeuvring of the layers is the way to go. As the final touch, I created masks where I wanted to hide partially what I had obtained originally.
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