Photography Evaluation

Introduction
Our assignment for Media was titled Freak or Unique. This assignment was based around photography that has a freaky, eerie or ominous feeling to it. We had to produce 4 or so pictures that represented the Freak or Unique theme. Our images were to be taken on a seamless white background or in/at our own location of our choice.
Research
For my research images I found 10 freaky image that I thought stood out to me. The first three images I found were pictures of animals that had been merged/combined and formed a completely different specimen. The next 7 image followed the more horror-sided freaky theme, all of the other 7 images were edited into black and white and then edited in their own individual or similar ways. I liked two images that were edited similarly, one of these images was of a farm-like area, the image had been edited to make it look as if there was human silhouettes in the sky and the other images was of the silhouettes of hammerhead sharks that almost looked as if they were swarming. To find these images I searched various themes such as: eerie, spooky, scary, dark and horror.
Characteristics of Freaky/Unusual Photograph
Photographs can be seen as freaky or unusual because of how they are taken. These types of images are usually non-natural occurring and are most likely edited by the photographer to give it a freaky edge. One such example of editing would be to change the colour of an individuals eye(s) to another colour (most likely red) while making the rest of the picture black and white, this gives the individual a distinct look as the coloured eyes stand out in the entire picture and due to them being red, it makes them look evil as such. The majority of freaky pictures are usually in black and white or grayscale.
Ideas
For my ideas I intended to recreate Freaky/Unique images to recreate or base my images off of my research that I performed before going through with the Photo shoot. The ideas that I founded came to me through the research that I did on 10 images. The images that I researched each held their own unique theme and they inspired me to take similar images.
The Photography
Our photography took place within the college, we set up a seamless white background to shoot multiple images of different props that we had brought in or had been provided with. We did not have to record what time we took our pictures. I only used one model for my photography and I used a total of three props. We all used the same equipment for our photography, we all had to use a tripod, red-head lights and a camera.
Final Images 
These final images I produced were shot with a seamless background and edited/finalized in Photoshop. For my first image I took into changing the image to black and white and then began to change the brightness and levels of the picture.

 For the second picture I took pictures of a models arms and hands on a dark surface. I then removed the users arms from the picture and left the hands. I edited the hands individually, but with the exact same adjustments. My purpose for this image was to create a picture which had noise implemented into it, the original image had very minimal noise so I edited it in using Photoshop. I edited the background in a similar way to the hands and gave it a distinct amount of noise. The hands in the picture are supposed to look as if they are trying to drag they're body into the picture.

 My third image was edited similarly to my first image. My first adjustment was to change the image to black and white, I then proceeded to change the light and the contrast of the picture. I altered the brightness and contrast multiple times till the sole of the shoe began to look as if it was stained with a black substance, I then went onto changed the gamma of the picture and I also changed the images exposure. I left the image as final after I had altered it to look as if it had been completely blacked out, leaving only the whites of the shoe visible, yet stained.
Next Time and What I Learned
On my next assignment I would look more into editing skills and tools so that I can produce better final images for my assignment. Although I believe I edited my shots well, I think that they could be far better than they actually are, but being relatively new to photography and amateur at Photoshop, I was not able to produce images  to the standard I wish I could have.

From this first assignment I have learned how to set up a simple seamless background for photo shoots, how to operate a camera properly and how to use more tools on Photoshop for editing. I have learnt more than I expected to during this course and have definitely learned there is more to Photography that just pointing your camera at something and pressing a button, for example, the 'Rule of Thirds' was something that I had never heard of before this assignment and it helped me a lot during my photo shoot. I hope that for my next assignment I will be able to learn even more about Photography as I have become more interested in it than I thought I would.