For my final photo essay I chose Eugène Delacroix's 1824 painting, Girl Seated in a Cemetery. I was assigned to come up with a story inspired by the painting and illustrate the story in a series of seven photos, edited appropriately in Photoshop. Here is a link to all of the photos I took before narrowing things down and really deciding my story. Here's what I came up with for my final seven images. As you can see, the final photo is the reference to the painting.
Here are the alterations I made to each image:
1) Adjusted brightness/contrast
2) Adjusted brightness/contrast
3) Adjusted brightness/contrast
4) Converted to sepia, added grain texture filter
5) Converted to sepia, adjusted brightness/contrast, added grain texture filter
6) Converted to sepia, adjusted brightness/contrasted & sharpened, added grain texture filter
7) Adjusted brightness/contrast
I adjusted brightness and contrast to make sure it looked pretty gloomy (luckily, it was also a gloomy day when we photographed,) but to not lose the details in the shot. I made the fourth, fifth and sixth images sepia toned and added a grainy filter to indicate that they were a dream/flashback/remembrance and not actually occurring.
Overall I'm pretty happy with the turnout! If it weren't for the title of the painting, you wouldn't even know that it took place in a cemetery--but I was able to come up with a story (if you take a peek at all of my 70+ initial photos, you'll see that I edited it down quite a lot) and express it visually.
