These from my daughter Isabelle, who is working on a bottle tree collage.
Mermaid in a Bottle by Isabelle, adapted from photograph by Prince Grobhelm, Wikipedia
Self Portrait in the Bottle Yard by Isabelle, adapted from bottle photograph by Roberrific, Flickr
Self Portrait in a Brown Bottle by Isabelle, adapted from bottle photograph by Dumfries Museum, Flickr
Self Portrait in Pink by Isabelle, adapted from bottle photograph by Macieklew, Flickr
Self Portrait in Blue Bottle by Isabelle, adapted from bottle photograph by Ennor, Flickr
Self Portrait on the Road by Isabelle, adapted from bottle photograph by Herzogbr, Flickr
For these last two, she wanted to try out including more body in the bottle, so she used some photo I had taken of her. She loves how the green one looks like Tinkerbell.
Self Portrait as Tinkerbell by Isabelle, adapted from a bottle photograph by Jo-Marshall, Flickr
Self Portrait in Clear Bottle by Isabelle, adapted from bottle photograph by Dumfries Museum, Flickr
Pretty cool, aren’t they! I can’t wait to see the final collage when she’s done with these!
So… How’d she do it?
First, she downloaded photos available for remixing from Flickr and Wikipedia. Using free GIMP software, she merged photos of herself — mostly ones she’d taken in the refection of a computer screen. She had to scale some images to make them fit correctly. She also adjusted the color balance of the self-portrait layer to match the bottle. Then she erased the edges and lowered the image opacity of the self-portrait until it seemed in line with the ghostly feel she wanted to create. For some images (like the single blue bottle), she darkened the entire photograph after the merge to give it more atmosphere.
Her last step? She’ll print these on non-glossy paper and cut out the bottles to “hang” on her bottle tree collage. I’ll post her collage (which is also extremely cool so far) when she finishes it. Until then, I couldn’t resist posting the photos, since they’re pretty intriguing as is.
Big thanks to all the awesome photographers on Flickr and Wikipedia who make their work available for this sort of adaptation. You’ve inspired my daughter. She says she now intends to go find some cool bottles to photograph for herself!