This cowboy background can be interpreted differently by everyone, not that the other ones can’t. Cowboys are very symbolic and can represent something different in everyone’s eyes. Likewise Stephen Harper is very much the same, some may see him as a good guy, other not so much, some people don’t even care about politics or who he is. Also Stephen Harper is a man that is normally in a suit and wouldn’t be seen in public in these worn out clothes so its a bit of a contrast to who we see him as. The cigar also adds to the effects and adds to this character of him being a big shot. It portrays him as being a sort of punk and in a sense a rebel which isn’t exactly his real personality. This also goes against his political stance going for good health since he is smoking and a new law that prohibits smoking in many places. This portrays him as a hypocrite and not the best leader which many people believe to be true
First, I selected Stephen Harpers face and copied it to the selected background. Then I brought down the saturation to resemble the black and white picture. I placed his head in the desired placement using the free transform tool and erased parts of his neck to resemble that its inside the scarfs. To add to that I used the burn tool and darkened the lower parts of Harper’s neck to create the dark and shadows that would have been cast inside the scarf. Them I created a layer mask starting at Harper’s forehead and going up to make it seem like his head was going inside the hat. The I used the clone stamp to get rid of unwanted parts of the cowboy’s head. To make it more convincing, I quick selected the cowboy’s cigarette and moved it to a new layer then covered up where it used to be with the clone stamp. I them moved it and used the free transform to place it in Harper’s mouth and erased unnecessary parts of the end. The I moved around the brightness and contrast and provided a picture that was much more united and the illusion was complete.
