Picture Tales: Manipulated - Image 01

This original picture from which this image is created was taken on Fuji Provia 100 in a wood in southern Crete. The girl is a professional model from Bulgaria booked by a friend who lives in Paris! Her make-up and hair were prepared by a professional French make-up artist.

The 35mm slide was taken using a vertical format, and the bottom third was cropped. The square image was then adjusted with the curves control and processed using a watercolour filter to give a painterly effect. The mosaic was created by progressively moving a standard square selection around the image taking copies of slightly overlapping pre-planned areas. The copied selections were then pasted into precise locations in a new image to build up this improperly-registered view.  The most difficult part of the process was choosing the degree to which adjacent squares should be out of register. For instance, in the areas of the model's hair, poor registration goes almost unnoticed. However, in the areas that include the face and the strap of the dress the misalignment is very noticeable. Too little misalignment destroys the effect of the mosaic, but too much movement can render parts of the figure grotesque. Ultimately it was just a matter of trial and error.