We all know that the modification, retouching, and compositing of photographs is utterly commonplace. But few actually realise the extent to which some advertising imagery is conjured from so many disparate elements. These GIFs prepared by Russian compositor Ashot Gevorkyan reveal the crazy path from reality to finished product.
Below are the GIFs, followed by the finished piece that resulted:
It’s simply incredible the extent to which a completely false reality is woven so seamlessly. While some of these images are immediately recognisable as fabrications because of their implausibility, it points toward other more mundane examples of commercial photography that seem ‘real’ yet are actually a combination of many different images
The rise of this style of compositing makes me wonder how it affects people’s broader understanding of photography. Images like these can look so convincingly real that a public unfamiliar with the process come away thinking these are just conventions of photography to be consumed and replicated. It points to the importance of media literacy in today’s culture. People need to be able to sort out for themselves what’s real and what’s not, and little peeks into the process like the GIFs Gevorkyan has made are steps in that direction.
See more of Ashot Gevorkyan’s impressive work on his website. [Behance via Petapixel]