Screaming to Get Out - Self Portrait

[mwatson]

Camera Pentax K10D
Exposure 0.125 sec (1/8)
Aperture f/6.7
Focal Length 20 mm
ISO Speed 200

I am working on a self-portrait project and the idea I had behind it is personalities.

I wanted to convey the fact that everyone has someone inside them screaming to get out. My original idea was the combine three photos, two with motion blurs to the left and the right and one with my face still in middle.

It looked okay but I decided to go back and reshoot and came up with this. I tried to make it so you could look at one face and ignore the other and because of the combined use of the middle eye.

I used layer masks to combine the two pictures.

My questions are

• Is there a noticeable seam?
• Does this photo convey the message I was attempting to get across?
• Should I have done more processing to smudging the middle of the faces so the screaming face looks like it is pulling away?
• Does it just look like I crudely placed two faces onto one body?
.

[BigFuzzy]

While I think you did a pretty good job with the seams and the photoshopping in general and also think you have an interesting project/idea in mind here the issue I have is that the photo(s) in and of itself is bad to in terms of exposure, lighting, composition etc to the point that the questions you ask aren't relevant anymore (to me).

These "basic" issues are the things one would need to nail in my opinion before trying to stretch their vision into something deeper and/or more interpretive.

To me it's woefully underexposed and the whitebalance needs to be corrected badly.

The image seems to be focused on the handtowel hanging from the wall instead of on you. And the towel itself is very distracting even if it weren't the sharpest element of the image.

Plus all those lines from the door behind your head are also distracting.

Again, in summary, I like what you're trying and it's really really good you're trying to do something that's not just a snapshot of something cute you saw while out strolling around. However, the basics of exposure and composition and focus really really take away from the efforts to the point I can't appreciate your artisitc efforts.
That said, keep shooting!