I need help right now. please ART ART ART ART ART?

Question

I have an art assignment due soon in approximetly 2 weeks.I have nothing to do so far and Im stressing. The topic is photography/photoshop, I would like a concept and such. HELP ME I DONT KNOW WHAT TO DO

Answer 1

Okedokee.  Here's an idea.

Using your digital camera and a good tripod, photograph yourself or a friend against a solid neutral background.  Light yourself usign strong primary light source (i.e., tungsten lamp, floodlight or just ambient outside light from an open doorway) from one side of your head.  Double check your distance to subject so that your eyes or your friend's eyes are in sharp focus.  Take several shots and try to "bracket" your exposures by changing the aperture settings and exposure lengths.  Make the shot dramatic by relaxing the muscles in the face.  Stare deeply into the camera lens.  Crop the shot in your viewscreen (the one on the camera) so that the only features visible are your head (from just beneath the chin to the top of the head).  With a strong primary sidelighting, you could set up a reflected secondary lightsource on your other side with a large piece of white or grey poster board.

Download your photos from your camera to Photoshop.
Select the most dramatic (based on expression).

Double click the background in layers to create a transparent layer.

Carefully knock out the entire background using whatever tool you are comfortable with. (Lasso tool, magnetic lasso, etc.)

Create a second new layer and paint it black.  Drag this layer below your image layer.

Using a small brush eraser, clean up any trash or edges around your face.

Desaturate your portrait image in RGB so that it appears in grayscale.

Save the file as a layered PSD.

SECOND IMAGE: Back to your camera.

Find a nice close-up texture to shoot, such as a wallpaper design, some fallen leaves, water ripples, patterned concrete or whatever suits your fancy.  Once again, "bracket" the shots for aperture and exposure length.

Upload this group of images from your camera and open them in Photoshop.

Study them carefully for focus and textural quality. Select the best of the texture group.

Open up your portrait image and adjust the image using levels.  Adjust for best blacks, nice mid-tone grays and don't blow out your highlights.

Create a duplicate layer of your image and from the menu bar, select "threshold".  Drag the threshold to the far right so as to create a "high contrast" version of your portrait image.  Using the magic wand, select the blacks, select similar and delete.  This is the layer you will use for the displacement map of your texture.

Study this article on the use of displacement maps.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/4301/Photoshop-Tutorial-Displacement-Maps

Ultimately, using this method, you will be "wrapping" one of your texture images around your portrait.

After you have created a successful displacement and the texture appears to be wrapping your portrait, save this layered file.  Flatten the layers and save the file again with a different file name.

Create a new layer.  Select the freehand lasso, zoom up to each iris on each eye and carefully "draw" around each iris.  Hit control delete and "fill" each with black.  Go to your color palette and select whatever color you like (something crazy). Magic wand these two black iris areas and fill them the weird color you've selected.  Multiply the layer onto the layer below.  Your eyes will now be the new abstracted color, the rest of the image will be in grayscale.

Create some text layers.  Using various shades of dark grey and nearly black, write a poem or some sort of abstracted gibberish.  Use cool fonts you like and make them different sizes and different angles.  Allow the fonts to only appear in the black background.  Change the focus on various text layers by blurring them.  This will create the illusion of depth.  Play with this idea.  The more you get into it, the more you can tell about yourself without being overly descriptive.  Try to keep the entire image and idea abstract. Good luck.

How's this idea?  Worth a recommendation?