Twisting Captured Time

The time is upon us! A time when we can, at will, completely recompose the composition of an image! Software providing this popular function, such as Photoshop, is becoming increasingly popular with youth in efforts to 'advertise' to your friends your new tan *cough, edited, cough*. Despite these such mischievious illusions, photo-editing can enable us to capture AND highlight the essence, or key concepts in a particular photo. For example, by making a portrait of lovers black-and-white, we can make the image seem more like a sentimental moment than the colours present in a snap of time. Alternately, what seems increasingly popular with youth is making an image completely black-and-white and highlighting in a bright colour a garment in the image. As seen in the image here, great artists, such as Andy Warhol recognised the potential in editing photos.

Photoshop, and variations with similar functions, can also be of INCREDIBLE assistance in reducing over-exposure or bringing light to under-exposed image. You can write on text, pick up and carry colours, then plant them elsewhere. You can blur, sharpen, and in the most grotesque instances [as buddies showed me in high school] you can make it APPEAR that a persons face no more than a mess of skin. This revolting feat was achieved my 'carrying' or copying ares of skin to cover the eyes, nose and mouth. The result is not for the weak-of-heart! I take no credit for the carrot top to the right, believed to be comedian Emo Phillips [no relation], but I thought he looked wacky, so he's in! It is at this point I must confess that my display picture on this blog [my friend Aimee & I with stripey masks] is edited! I blurred it to accentuate flow around the edges of the mask - I've been asked often if they're painted on! I also increased the contrast on the image to make us more tanned *cheesy smile* <(>_<)>

Anyway, enough beating around the bush. In order of severity: following are some images I've edited representing friends, communication, nEWS-wORTHY, Australian, popular, GAMES & celebrity


This is an image of my lovely boss Kim & I at a birthday bash earlier in the year. As stated above, one of the simplest functions, black & white, has been employed to give the image a more sentimental feel. I won't elaborate on the blurring tool used to clear my ridiculously shocking skin type! But yes, such things are possible! This photograph represents friends at one of the most perfect of levels. Stereotype dictates that a boss ought to be of the whip-in-hand, make-your-life-hell variety, but my relationship with Kim, as seen above is a carefree friendship with more of a mother-and-daughter feel than anything else. I believe I achieved this in this photo because many people have asked if it was a snap of my mother and I - quite astounding considering we have almost no physical likeness to eachother! For those of you snickering, my creativity in the 'friends/friendship' theme is limited because I'm doing it for the second week in a row! Finally, on the subject of friends: help the kiddies get the 'e' and 'i' the right way round by telling them to 'fri' [fry] the 'end' of their friends! :)

Not the only, but one of the grand-daddies of communication history is the Morse Code [as produced by Samuel Morse in 1840 to transfer messages along telegraph wires]. Let's introduce this one with a joke [don't cringe I find anything funny]: Mitch Hedberg once said, "I would imagine if you understood Morse Code, a tap dancer would drive you crazy!" The image here was flushed green - most likely the influence of a lime-green old-fashioned French rotary telephone my grandparents had when I was little, influencing my first ideas of 'manufactured' communication[remember the ones you slide the dial around to insert ONE NUMBER - too much effort for civilisation these days!]. I had some trouble finding an interesting photo of actual morse code on the internet and I certainly didn't previously have any stored in my My Pictures folder, so I manufactured this one with the assistance of some very unwilling lipstick and my mirror - don't tell mum!

What qualifies as nEWS-wORTHY within our current culture should be scrutinised more closley to recognise the role of media to society at present. Sensationalist journalism appears to be creeping into many aspects of reporting and we as a civilisation are being fed specifically portioned amounts of tragedy, heroism, warfare, drama, etc. The film Bowling for Columbine seemed to reach the conclusion that within the US, the sheer volume of fear instilled by the news stories contributed to the way the people react to the unexpected. It appears to be a one-way mirror in this view because what is being laid before our eyes is organised intentionally, but we all too often forget to critique what parts of the story we're being told and what we're not. This image represents this subject because the controlling and censoring nature of media in that


Our appreciation for being an Australian, for so many of us, is irreversably accentuated the first time we travel abroad. Whether we travel to poverty-stricken areas of Somalia and recognise our own wealth; visit the crowded cities of Japan, and realise our own fortune to have such an abundance of space; or stop by Iraq and see just how sacred our own safety is to having a happy life, the joys of being an Australian are not to be overlooked, but having a peek over the global fence of diversity can help bring such joys to light.
Interestingly, we embody such diversity within our glistening shores. Recently I went on a holiday to Repton [near Coffs Harbour] and had a play with the dynamics in the following photos of one amazing Australian sunset to create a diversity of colours - proof that diversity in [skin] colour is gorgeous! The first, centre one here is the original. On the next row, the left image had its contrast saturation increased, and the following two I fiddled with hues and the amount of exposure to these hues!

From Year One, I remember the importance of everything popular, even to the shy, skinny girl I was. As I grew older, I realised the strong influence that confidence, fashion and boldness had on popularity. In most aspects of life this field can generally be deduced quite early as the direction the majority of the 'sheep' within society tend to be buying, voting, etc - although often this is the result of subliminal messages instilled by media and government! Many young girls treat fashion magazines, as pictured here as their bible to popularity - indeed, what are the stars wearing, drinking and eating this week? I've distorted the image to a horrible faded yellow shade to emphasise the way that one such 'bible' even a month old is completely faded of all relevance to the culture of the day. Almost every great mind that has changed the course of history throughout human existence, has been one to avoid popularity and beautification. They insist on beautiful mind, clear thought and challenging dominant discourse - rather than wearing it like a costume.

GAMES play a key role in entertainment for both youth and adults in priveledged countries the world over. Many claim it as a way to 'escape' the stress of reality temporarily - you heard right, 'wielding' a machine gun at 'the enemy' and attempting to defeat computerised competition using a gaming console is by many considered a relaxing activity!