Anja Stiegler
Background to Stiegler
German-born photographer and image artist Anja Stiegler (aka PHOTOFLAKE), first discovered her passion for photography and image editing in 2006 when she was studying multimedia engineering. She has no formal photographic training and is completely self-taught.
Style
Stiegler's style is a mixture of surrealism and conceptualism. I think there is real beauty and elegance in the way she combines reality and illusion in her images. Her work has a magical and dreamlike feel to it and many of her photographs portray women or young girls in dramatic landscapes, juxtaposed with oversized objects or in surreal situations. I also like the way she uses light and contrast to make her pictures so dramatic. Her style of photography and use of photomaniplation
provided further inspiration for my theme of 'Out of Place'.
Colour
I really like how Steigler's use of muted cool grey tones creates contrast in this image, making the white of the women's dress, the remnants of the snow on the ground and the swan's feathers stand out more.
Mood
Although at first glance the image seems peaceful and serene, I think it also has quite a dramatic feel at the same time. The dark clouds overhead create a sense of foreboding, like the calm before the storm. I think the swan looks like it is protecting the woman from something.
Photographic techniques/camera settings
I think the Stiegler has achieved the soft, dreamlike tones in this picture digitally rather than by using any specific camera settings. I think she has altered the contrast, highlights and saturation in the editing process to produce the final image.
Personal Reflections
For my next image, I decided to experiment with oversizing my subject matter and changing colour to create a soft dreamy mood that replicates Anja Stiegler's photograph.
Things to consider
Photoshoot Plan
Equipment needed
Photographer Thomas Barbéy grew up in Geneva, Switzerland. Inspired by artists such as Roger Dean, Phillipe Druillet and H.R Giger, he started drawing at the age of 13, using black Chinese Ink ("encre de Chine") and gouaches to add colour. Barbéy began his career designing posters for music bands in Geneva, he then relocated to Milan, Italy, where he made a living as a successful recording artist, lyricist and fashion photographer. Now residing in Las Vegas, Barbéy has been a photographer for over 20 years, travelling the world with his camera and exhibiting in galleries all over the globe.
Style
His work has a very distinct style - he juxtaposes two or more totally unrelated subjects to produce highly creative photo montages. This can be anything from a pair of zebras intertwined with a piano keyboard, to elephants with tree trunks for legs or trees topped with clouds. He combines scenic images, still life and portraiture to form compositions that are both surreal and whimsical in feel. Barbéy only uses black and white images and occasionally sepia tone and experiments with perspective in much of his work.
Creative Process
Barbéy often stores images for up to a decade until the perfect opportunity to use them in a project presents itself. Only when an image fits perfectly does he use it and it's usually the combination of two or more negatives that create his final vision. Sometimes Barbéy has a very clear creative vision that naturally comes together and other times ideas come to him by accident. He subjects every individual image to what he calls the 'So What?' test - meaning that if he is not touched by it in some way or he cannot derive any meaning from it, he will scrap it and move on to another idea. The title he gives each final image is almost as important as the work itself, as it helps to `communicate the meaning of the piece to the viewer.
Equipment
When taking 35mm film photography Barbéy likes to use a Canon AE1 SLR camera. He creates his surreal montages with the help of an enlarger in a dark room.
Background to Barbéy
Composition
I selected a female model and my cat as the main subject matter and replicate the oversizing technique used in Anja Steigler's image. I decided to set these images against a dramatic rural landscape. To amplify the 'Out of Place' theme further, my model was dressed in an evening dress.
Equipment
I decided to shoot the image on my Canon digital camera and experiment with using a green screen, which would make the editing process of my model's hair and dress easier.
Location
I photographed my model and cat images indoors, using a room with good natural light. For the background shot, I tried out a range of different landscape pictures taken in Scotland, the Lake District and Bushey Park.
Editing
I edited my images in Photoshop and experimented with clarity, colour and saturation to try and achieve the dreamy look of Stiegler's work.
Original images
Additional editing in Photoshop
I cut out the model using the magic wand tool to select the background elements to delete.
Then I created anchor points to make finer edits to cut around the model's hair.
Next I used the clone stamp to select an area of hair to extend the strands on the right side of the model's face, to make them appear less jagged.
I also used the clone stamp to even out the colour on the edge of the dress and remove the hue of the green screen that blurred the edge of the dress.
I used the "quick selection tool" to "select subject" using the new Photoshop AI feature and then "select and mask". (I found this new method in an online tutorial on YouTube). This selected a pretty good outline of the cat.
The quick selection tool cut off the cat's right ear, so I used the "refine hair" option to colour this back in. I then turned up the "radius" setting to maximum to enhance the outline of the fur (another tip from the online tutorial).
I then selected "output / new layer with layer mask" to finalise the image selection.
I turned on the layers for the model and the cat and then used "transform / scale" to experiment with the sizing and positioning on the background.
I then turned on the Bushy Park background layer to decide on the final scaling and position.
To soften the subject matter and make it blend more with the background image, I experimented with different blurring functions.
I used the "filter" and "blur" and I chose "smart blur", as I could adjust the radius and threshold manually using the sliders to create the desired slightly blurred effect,
Final image
Finally, I used the "image / colour balance" to increase the cyan and blue on the model and the cat to give them a blue hue that blended in with the snowy background scene.