Photography can take many forms, and when you start handling editing tools, you can do many great things. This is my first attempt at a poster-like picture.
The idea
Walking down the streets of Nice I saw this senior gentleman all alone and thought I wanted to capture his demeanor and, especially, his seemingly tranquil nature. I also wanted to tell a story; that of a generation of grandparents that are left alone, with no one to care for them. I am always a bit shocked when I see someone of an older age all alone, thus the sudden burst of creativity.
I tried pulling him out of his surrounding with the composition, but I couldn't get what I quite wanted, so I decided I'd heavily edit the photo to put him in a lonely setting. As I did so, the idea of making a photo with only him and some sentence developed. The text came in much later I must say, once I felt something was crucially missing in the overall composition. As I played around, I wished to use some dark humor to shock the viewer, I think it's always the best way to grab people's attention, and especially to make them question things. Art plays a very important role in activism, I believe it's quite crucial for artists to make their vision heard with their creations; not always though, art is also allowed to be just esthetic.
Death is a subject that rummages a lot in my mind, since it's a core part of life. I think it's quite interesting that we all know for a fact that this will all end at one point, and all that we've built here will stay on Earth forever (yes, the ecological damage we've done is irreversible) or be destroyed by time or those that come after us. It gives purpose to what we have and what we achieve. But it also creates loss and sadness. I think death is the most beautiful part, in some ways, to life. It's the climax of a life's work, it binds or tears people apart, and that's when you see those who truly cared, and those who don't.
In all of this, I am always so baffled by how unsensitized my peers (people of my age) are to how fragile life is. Caring for those that came before is, in my opinion, so important because, once they're gone, that's it, there are no more laughter, board game nights, or itchy kisses from them. It all goes quite quickly, but the moment we have with those we love is precious because it's unique. Even if you believe in something after, this moment here is one of a kind.
So yes, welcome the end since it's the last time you'll be here, but it's also the last moment you'll get to spend with those you love. And welcome the end of others, it's their last goodbye, their way to end it the way they can, some even end it with panache like Cyrano de Bergerac.
The technique
Photography wise, there isn't much to gone on about; it's very basic.
There is a lot to say about the editing technics however. So I'll make a small list of steps I took without detailing everything:
Contour the subject;
Copy the frame of the subject and displace it one pixel to the right;
Repeat the second step until I get a strip of a few tens of pixel wide I like ;
Pull those pixels as wide as I wish to the right by copying the pattern it created on a one pixel wide band. Simply pulling it to the right would drop the pixel density a lot;
Displace the strip and the main subject to the left;
Copy one more time the subject to place it at the end of the blurred strip;
With the blur tool, mix in some of the subject on the far right with the strip to give that melting look;
Change the background color;
Put the text with a rounded angle to encircle the subject;
Finally, add a bit of grain.
Tools
Camera: Canon 1300D
Lens: 18-55 mm
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