Brooke Edwards- Crit 3: Extended Seeing Recipe

 

             

               The photo I have decided to discuss is number nine of my set – the black and white photo where the hands overlap. I want to explain the processes for this photo because so many people asked how it was done. It was a runner up for my POW and those who commented on it said things like, “I have no idea how you did it” and “I had to do a double take to make sure I was seeing what I thought I was seeing.” So I am going to take this time here to try to explain my methods.

              I am still using my IPhone 5c iOS 7.1.2 (I still need to get the new update but I am worried about losing storage space). The story of how this photo came to be begins with me being downright frustrated. At this point, I had been trying little by little to understand and work on the slow shutter technique.  I finally decided that I needed to spend the rest of my day playing around with apps and experimenting. I eventually gave into spending a few cents on a slow shutter app called Slow Shutter Cam Version 2.1 because the free version just wasn’t doing it.

              I took this app and I went outside – I invited my boyfriend, Matt to come with me and I started to scavenge. He probably thought I was crazy. I would stand in a spot until an idea came to me. A few small ideas came to mind but then the idea for this photo came to mind and I went with it. I said, “Hold on, wait a second” and I walked over to the tree and put my hand on it. “Will you do me a favor? Just put your hand here, on top of mine. I want to see if this works.” After trial and error it did.

              What I did was lay my hand on the bark and take a picture through the slow shutter app. The app was set to Motion blur on all of the lowest settings (capture duration and blur strength). This helps to get this exact effect by changing these settings the photo would become more blurred and less transparent. After the first shot I kept my hand in place, the camera still and asked Matt to put his hand on top of mine. I took another picture and it created what you see below. This is how you get the effect that a ghost hand is on top of a more permanent form. Finally, I used the Afterlight app to edit the color and contrast of the image. I felt that this made the photo seem more like a memory which was one of my main intentions.