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Photoshop

Images created in Photoshop using various graphic manipulation techniques.

It is an image created based on the cover of the movie "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" (2013). I took the original image, reproduced the lighting in my photo studio and took a portrait. Then I changed the face of the protagonist of the original image with my own until I achieved a united and organic look.

It is an image made with the double exposure graphic technique. I joined two images: of my portrait and of the stars. I developed its blend by hand with a brush in Photoshop, and to get to the final look I applied the author's touch up to the image with post-production special effects.

I took this photo in the year 2019. It was the time of the great fires around the world. Forests from the Amazon, Siberia, Australia, Africa, the United States, Spain, and many other countries were burned. Animals died, people died, and the entire planet itself was suffering. Many countries asked the world community for help to combat the fire and its most terrifying consequences. And this is repeated year after year.

On my last trip to Portugal in September 2021, I drove through the territory burned by the largest fires that the country had from June 17 to 24, 2017. They were caused by an intense heat wave and the dry electrical storm that produced a total of 156 fires that spread throughout the country, particularly in mountainous areas northeast of Lisbon. The infinite fields of burned trees are still there, although much territory has already been recovered.

I want to share with you some official data of what happened:

• At least 65 people died in the fire and 254 were injured.

• The largest loss took place on a rural highway in Pedrógão Grande, where 47 people died in their cars when fire engulfed the area; 30 people died trapped in their vehicles, while another 17 died trying to flee on foot.

• The Portuguese authorities mobilized more than 1,700 firefighters from all over the country to fight the fire.

• Spain, France, Morocco and Italy deployed firefighters and seaplanes to help extinguish the fires.

• Portuguese Prime Minister António Costa called the disaster "the biggest tragedy we have seen in recent years in terms of forest fires." Three days of national mourning were declared starting June 18.

• The vice-president of the European Commission, Jyrki Katainen, affirmed that the commission could contribute up to 95% of the necessary recovery and reconstruction expenses after the fire.

I will end this text with a minute of silence.

I made this image in 2019 to draw public attention to the exponential growth in the number of political prisoners in Russia and the increase in serious repressions towards the civilian population. It's a total Photoshop: the dodgy look on the face and body, the bruises on the collarbones and under the eyes, the unkempt cell, the dirty bed, the letters on the wall that say in Russian: "freedom, equality, fraternity ". I put myself there with Photoshop, but it could be a documentary image of any peaceful person in any country in the world that does not apply the fundamental laws of humanism and democracy.

Flowers, butterflies, and the ocean in your head. Is this the inner world of a brutal man with a beard and all? Maybe yes, sometimes. But I'm going to disappoint you all. I did not pursue any further objective, apart from the training of graphic montage techniques and digital drawing. It was my first image more elaborated in details. Many layers of images and long hours of work. And although I say that I did not think in any metaphysical sense of this image, it was created with my hands. Things reflect the inner world of their creators.

To produce this image I did a photo session in my living room with natural light from the window and a clear glass vase half full of water. All the visual magic happened in the post-production stage. I hand-painted the entire image in Photoshop based on creative inspiration I had at the time. The title of the image is a verbal play on the word ultraviolet, which does not exist grammatically in the masculine gender.

In this image the face is mine, but the body belongs to Antonio Banderas, since it is a frame from the movie "Acts of Vengeance" (2017). To visually match the original image and do less Photoshop work I put some ketchup around the mouth to mimic blood. Eating the sauce I took a portrait with lighting that reproduced the light pattern on Antonio's face, and in the post-production stage I graphically integrated myself into the image.

It is a well-known cover of the movie "The City of Stars" (La La Land) (2016). But in the original image Ryan Gosling appeared, and there was no graffiti with Trump doing a good iguana to Putin. My interest was to "hack" the image, change the protagonist's face to mine and add an important artistic message. It was the year of the US presidential election, and there was a lot of concern in the world about external influence on its results. In an ironic way I expressed the obvious. Also, I practiced new Photoshop techniques.

Alicia Vikander and me. Two protagonists of a brilliant film. A dream come true. But unfortunately it only comes true in Photoshop :) I didn't even see the movie, honestly. I was drawn to this image for its pretty cinematic look and was curious to find out how it's achieved. I reproduced in my studio the light scheme of the protagonist's face (Michael Fassbender), expressed the necessary emotion and took a portrait. I then exported it in Photoshop and started replacing the original face with my own. This graphic montage doesn't require much skill, because it's quite easy to erase the unnecessary parts and reveal the new layer instead. The real success is in the portrait you take and the coincidence of its lighting with that of the original image.

I produced this image to express my support for the Venezuelan people and convey solidarity and compassion. At one time many Venezuelan people started following me on Instagram. Little by little I began to understand the deep drama of this country and I really wanted to say something about it.

It is an image inspired by the famous series Breaking Bad (2008). I created it following the same pattern as always: reproduce the lighting of the original image in my studio, take a portrait of myself and replace the protagonist's face with mine.

I wasn't in the mountains taking pictures of myself. I was in a supermarket parking lot in Moscow. But he wanted to see me somewhere else. In addition, I really wanted to practice some new visual production techniques. The part of the image that I did not modify is my body. Everything else is false. The mountains, the snow, the wind. Everything was drawn and assembled in Photoshop.

1986 © & ℗ Alex Bold

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