Scopophobia – Fear of Being Watched

Nyctophobia – Fear of Darkness

Paralyphobia – Fear of Petrification

When taking my photographs, I encountered many challenges with each photo. For example, in the Fear of Petrification photo, trying to make the stone texture on Keegan’s face apply on only where he is black and white. Another example is also when I was struggling to make the eyes in the Fear of Being Watched photo properly blend in with the background. Even with both of these challenges, the greatest one I faced was trying to make the shadow effect in the Fear of Darkness photo. Originally, I tried to simply darken the exposure on a single photo and apply a mask to the effect, but it looked too artificial. I decided it would be better if I took two photos, one with me in frame with the lights on, and another with me out of the frame with the lights off. I placed the second photo over the first, and created a feathered mask near halfway, creating the effect present in the photo. After this, I found a stock image of a hand reaching, selected it, and applied the selection to the mask, creating the outstretching shadow hand. Looking back at all the processes I utilized for the different images, admittedly, many could have been a lot simpler. It may be bias, but even with this knowledge I think the more complicated editing still looks better because with it I can achieve a greater amount of detail.