Transport: A Junior Conceptual Transport Project by Makeda Yezalaleul (2017)

The transportation device I chose to take a picture of was a bicycle. I shot the bike’s front wheel and brakes from an overhead angle with light coming in from the right hand side. The photo’s background is the side of a pool. I chose this specific object because it’s bright color stood out to me. I also believed that I could take advantage of the large wheels and capture many interesting photos/parts of the vehicle. I chose the lighting to accentuate the bike’s headset and gears in order for them to be the point of interest in the photo. The background is the pool because I wanted to experiment with different solid color backgrounds that complemented the color of the bike. I shot from above so that the bike’s wheel, frayed wires, and faint paint chips could clearly be visible. I wished for this because I didn’t want the bike too seem flawless and wanted to incorporate a major element of the transportation aspect of a bike into the image.

In Adobe Photoshop, I learned a lot about selecting specific items in photos and only manipulating what I’ve selected, while keeping what you don’t want to change about a photo unchanged. I’ve also learned about different layers and the ability to alter one and not have whatever you did on that layer, affect another layer. With the lasso tool, I made a selection around the bike’s headset, or simply where the bike’s color was visible, and made a new layer. In that new layer, I heightened the bike’s color brightness. The change I applied help refine my final composition in that my audience would become especially drawn towards the bike’s headset, which my initial intention was.