For these photos, I attempted to imitate the work of Carsten Witte in the most authentic way that I possibly could. Firstly, I got my subjects and placed then against a plain black backdrop and asked them to stare blankly in the camera, showing little to no emotion and asking them to keep their heads as straight as possible. I then took several close-ups of their faces, all very similar but just so that it would help in terms of variety later on when trying the find skulls that fit their particular bone structures. I used a diffuser in order to dim the lighting as I intentionally didn't want it to be too dominant as I though it may interfere with the natural expressions that they go on to pull if the lighting was too bright (i.e. they may feel they're under interrogation), and I also understood it was an effect that I could later add in Photoshop. Once I took the photos, I put them on Photoshop and proceeded to Desaturate them (make them black and white) and increase the brightness so that the overall effect looked more haunting, as well as relatable to the prospect of bones and skeletons. I then Google'd skulls/skeletons/bones/x-rays etc which presented me with a range of content that I was able to attribute to my own works. Once I found one that I was happy with, I would open it up on Photoshop and move it on top of my original photo. I would then rub out any unnecessary features that it may have such as a background etc, and reduced to Opacity in order to blend it on top of my original photo. It was then simply a matter of aligning the two to make it look realistic. For this top photo, I Google'd 'x-ray', which gave me an x-ray vision of somebodies face, that I thought believably fit with my subjects face. Out of the two examples that I demonstrated in my artist research, this is definitely more reminiscent of the second one, as it does not represent an image of decaying bones, however, links to the idea that x-rays are a common occurrence in relation to what may or may not be decaying.
This image is different to the first as you are actually able to see the bones placed on top of the subject, rather than just x-ray visions of them. This, I believe, makes the overall photo look far more frightening and unusual in comparison. Again, I went through the same process, however using a different search request to identify a different effect. As my volunteers head is also slightly more slanted, it was a greater challenge aligning the two. This photo was actually far greater in terms of detail than the previous, therefore identifying an example that would match up to my subjects face in the first place was a challenge. I changed the opacity enough so that you were able to see equal amounts of both the persons original face and the added effect on top, similar to the way Witte did it himself. The emotionless facial expressions in connection with the effect on each photo, adds to the aspect of them being void of life and in a sense; dead. The bones used all look extremely deteriorated and therefore link to the idea of decay (bad health).
For this photo, I have used an effect more comparable to an image of human tissue, demonstrating what is directly behind what people look like on the outside. This is in my opinion a factor as to why this one looks so potent and has the most powerful presence out of my collection. I also feel that the effect best aligns with my subjects face out of all of these examples, therefore it makes it harder to judge and speculate that the two aren't in some way connected or matched. There also seems to be the greatest contrast between black and white in this photo, which is also why I believe that the overall image is left looking the most lifeless and serious out of the four.
The facial expressions pulled here seem to imitate that of Witte's best, and therefore emphasize the idea that he was taking pictures for a modeling shoot that wasn't exactly conventional. The deadpan look that the subject is giving to the camera suggests that she's unaware of her unique features and is simply there to pose as if normal and not for a particular distinctive reason. I felt as though I needed an example of a person who only had specific features altered, i.e. the mouth/jaw area instead of the majority of their face like my previous examples, as Witte himself had this variety in his own works. This photo is also subject to the most intense form of lighting, which is another potential attribute as to why it looks so evocative overall.