First Session: Portraits

Original Image

On Monday we went through the unit schedule and were given our first few tasks. As an icebreaker we broke off into pairs and were asked to produce two portraits: one of ourselves and one of our partners.

I partnered up with Toni, who told me she wanted to explore the artistic side of photography and enjoyed abstract photos. With this in mind, I wanted to create a candid shot of her. From my conversations with her she came across as artistic and fairly shy. I thought a candid shot would be the best way to capture her personality. 

I asked her to stand against a brick wall and look down, adjusting her sleeve. This angle showed off the turquoise highlights in her hair. The warm tones of the brick wall really complimented the cold, green tones in Toni's outfit. 

I chose a brick wall as it didn't interfere with the foreground but also provided an interesting texture in the background. I opted to photograph Toni, towards the left hand corner of the photo. I thought this would be more interesting than having her in the centre and created a more artistic shot.

With Juno Filter

After getting a shot I was happy with, I ran the photo through Instagram's editing options. I increased the brightness of the image, to expose her turquoise hair a bit more. I played around with a few filters and ending up applying a combination of 'Juno', 'Brannan' and  'Lo Fi'. I reduced the intensity of the filters so that I could effectively edit it further, to add my own style to the image.

With Lo Fi added

With Brannan added and saturation/shadows intensified 

I increased the shadows and the saturation. This created a more atmospheric image and intensified the red aspects of her outfit, contrasting perfectly against the green tones.

For an image taken on a smartphone I am fairly pleased with the outcome. Unfortunately I ran out of memory on my phone by the time it came to taking my own portrait, however I will be experimenting with self portraits throughout the week to see what I can produce. 


Since Monday's session I've also been thinking about how I want to present my blog. I have a true passion for fairytale and fantasy themed photography. I feel like photography has become such an artform and there is so much room for creativity. Fairytale and fantasy themed images really push the boundaries of creativity and appeal to me as an imaginative person. 

Throughout this module I really want to explore bring the ethereal, dreamlike qualities of fairytale photography into other genres such as fashion, candid, weather and possibly even urban.

With my passion for fairytale photography in mind I came up with a blog name, Through The Looking Glass. This refers to classic fairytale, Alice in Wonderland but is also a play on words, and in this context is referring to the viewfinder of a camera. I want this module to be an exploration of bringing surrealism into everyday shots.