Photo Genetics

In my new project we have been looking at similarities between family members, facial similarities like eye shape, laugh lines etc. We then researched a few artists that merge photos together, thus creating a different person or even just showing how similar family members can look. We looked at the work of Ulric Colltte, Mike Mike and Nancy Burson.           
           
Burson is best known for her pioneering work in morphing technologies which age enhance the human face and still enable law enforcement officials to locate missing children and adults. Her Human Race Machine, which allows people to view themselves as a different race, is used worldwide as an educational diversity tool that provides viewers with the profound visual experience of being another race. - http://nancybursonsbio.blogspot.co.uk/

She works with many faces and overlaps them to create a completely new face that is not a real person, one piece she has done (below) is made up from the faces of Jane Fonda, Jacqueline Bisset, Diane Keaton, Brooke Sheilds and Meryl Streep.
http://nancyburson.com/pages/fineart.html

Here are a few more of her works:-

She also photo merdged animals with humans:-

After looking at Burson's work I decided to experiment with the idea of merging faces together to create a new one. I used a photograph of myself and a friend and merged the two together, doing a few copies on different opacities. Here are the images I used:-

Here I combined them:-

Here are three I did in different opacities, 75% 50% and 25%.

I then researched into Ulric Colltte's work with split faces edited together to show similarities.

Photographer Ulric Collette has created a series of portraits of family and friends, split them and spliced them into images that merge ages, genders and bloodlines.  Collette himself takes part on both sides of the camera, combining his own image with his family in a nearly seamless collection of finished prints.

http://www.thecoolist.com/split-family-portraits-by-ulric-collette/

Here are further examples of his work

And here is the split image I did of my friend and I:-