Wednesday 30 October 2013

Playing with Pictures

One of the upsides of your friends knowing you like taking pictures is you often get asked to take pictures for specific events.  Last Saturday morning I had a chance to dress the three witches up, stick them in front of a fire in The Old Gate Inn (who were really lovely and accommodating!), feed them tea and cake (it's a hard life being a witch) and take pictures of them.
I told them to just move slowly and interact with each other so they rattled lines off whilst I jumped around on furniture near them and snapped away.  I was really happy with the results and have sent the best ones off as press photos.
Sunday I had even more fun when Steve gave me my first ever lesson in Photoshop.  The thing about the Discworld is that while you can picture some of the landscapes as possibly being similar to landscapes we know, it is still a fantasy world, born in imagination and every person who thinks of a Discworld setting thinks of something different.

This basically gave me free reign to use some of the photo's I had taken in rehearsals and turn them into scenes from my imagination.

Photoshop is a lot of fun.  I got a little carried away but it was such a thrill to be able to physically put the actors into the settings that I had in my head.  The edges are a little rough (this is the first time I have ever used Photoshop) but overall I was pretty happy with the results!

Firstly Hwel and Tomjon, lost in the mountains near Lancre, taking such a long time getting to the Kingdom that the witches get fed up and decide to meddle after all.
Duke Felmet in the middle of one of his breakdowns, mistaking the handkerchief that the Fool offers for 'a dagger that he sees before him'.  John only had half a Fool's costume at this stage as the rest is being hired.  Yes, that is a Christmas elf's hat - he has a proper Fool's hat for the show but needed something to rehearse with!
The witches with the Discworld floating majestically in the ether behind them.   Steve did this one first and this is what gave me the idea for playing with some of the other pictures.
Artwork credit to nicolsche  http://scribblenauts.wikia.com/
Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg in the middle of a spitting argument about taking revenge on the Duke and Duchess.
Artwork credit to Gaius Duke http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=172601
Magrat and the Fool in a meadow as time freezes and the world moves around them.  This one I like the least and it shows that I do need to work on my blending and colour balance skills to meld the pictures together. 
We normally have pictures from the dress rehearsal decorating the foyer of our plays.  As I am taking the dress rehearsal pictures (interesting challenge as I am acting in Scene 3 as well!) I may end up tweaking my favourites and putting them in Discworld settings!

I'm getting nervous about the play now - we have less than a week until opening night!  The next blog post about the play will be my summary and review one.  Posts also may be a bit sparse over the next week or so - I will be in the theatre for a lot of the time so may not get a chance to post much.

Wish us broken legs!

No comments:

Post a Comment