Making My Final Image Selection

Making my final image selection was a really difficult choice.

I ended up pretty much where I started in the first place.

After photographing so many fascinating insects from the entire insect world. I had a huge width and diversity of images that I wanted to show.

As I tried to make my final image selection, I became confused as to which images I should put together.

It was only after editing my book and trying some different page layouts at the end when of my book where I had planned to show my final images that I realised that I was slipping away from my original idea of portraiture.

My intention was to show the subtle differences between similar subjects and a Bumble-Bee and a Locust are not even remotely similar.

From my book layout, I put the 4 best Cockroach images that I have taken together in various different layouts. 

This worked perfectly and I decided that this series of four very similar specimens was the perfect way to best demonstrate the idea of portraiture that I am trying to show in this body of work.

Below in figures 1 to 4 are the four final images that I have selected for submission.

Fig-1

Fig-2

Fig-3

Fig-4

Just before my final submission, I was introduced to a fantastic post-production technique that I was previously totally unaware of.

By using a very clever selection method, it is possible to mask my subject with a huge level of accuracy and to the select the opposite of this mask which in this case was the background that I wanted to be the same full-black in each image. By adjusting the exposure with a levels adjustment, I was able to turn the background in each image black.

I wanted my images to have as much consistency as possible. In the framing of my subjects. After a lot of experimentation with different crop-factors, I have used a 10x8 landscape crop as I think this shape of frame best suits my subjects.

My subjects are all positioned at the same angle looking square into the camera. From my research into portrait practitioners, I decided that this was the style of portraiture that I like the most.

thr backgrounds have all been adjusted to a full-black as is they were against a black-background in a photography-studio.