Final Portfolio

Final written Assignment:

-FINAL WRITTEN ASSIGNMENT:

Look back at the 8 images you selected for the first assignment. Compare and contrast those images with the images in your final portfolio. How have your ideas about images changed? How has your sense of what they can communicate grown? Write a short essay (200-300 words) comparing the 2 groups of images.

Answer:

Looking back at the images I presented at the beginning of the year, I do not see a huge difference with my subject matter or composition of it, but the way I now use the subject to create a story. I have always loved portrait photography. It is something I want to continue with in the future and hopefully pursue as a lifetime career. The main difference I see between my photography now and a few months from now, is that I am not only taking photographs of a person or portrait of a specific object. Instead, I am taking a photograph about who and what that person or object is about. I like to focus on the reality of my subject and capture it right in the moment it is happening. Compared to just staging a model, the photographs I take now, tell a story in itself based on the live action and moment shown in the image. I not only feel that my photography now has a stronger look, but a stronger message and feeling that I hope to continue in the near future.

Although I love both black and white photography, I feel with my sense of photography, I am becoming more prone to using black and white images. With my goal and subject matter, I feel that this solution is best for documenting and telling the story of the subject or object being shown in each one of my images. Although color can help with that as well, I feel a lot of my more successful photographs are those produced in black and white. I have also learned that I enjoy playing with different types of lighting and how I can use it in different settings to tell a specific story, something I have never done before.

Looking back at what I did in the past, and comparing it to my most recent photographic images, I really cannot believe how far I have gotten and how much my skill has progressed in such a short period of time. I am a storyteller and I have always wanted to bring that out in my photography which is another love of mine. Now that I feel like I am that much closer to succeeding, there’s nothing more that I can ask for! 

Eve Arnold

Eve Arnold, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. 1995

Assignment 12:

Reading Quiz:
1. How would you describe the look of Bryan Graf’s images? 2. How does he draw inspiration from the landscape?

Answers:1. His images suggest a lot of texture and feeling of touch.2. He draws inspiration from the landscape by taking or shooting landscapes in black and white and also in "Raw color".  Then during the printing process, he layers colors over the black and whites and maks them look different than just a normal landscape shot.  

Assignment 11:

-Retouch image (before and after)

-Reading Quiz

1. How do you change the order of the images in your slideshow?

2. What is Ryan McGinley inspired by? 

3. Why is he drawn to his subject matter?

Answers:

1. In the filmstrip below the screen, you can drag and move the images in the order you wish.

2. Ryan McGinley is inspired by his Family (brothers and sisters) and people who resemble them.

3. His family are the people who raised him, and to photograph those who resemble them, idolize him.

Assignment 10:

Watermark:

Reading Quiz

1. What is a watermark and why would you use one?

2. Why would you use the Publish Services panel in LR?

3. How are Loretta Lux and Beate Gutschow using digital techniques to construct reality in their work? Answer for each artist.

Answers:

1. Watermarks are typically the persons name embelished on a photograph. A watermark can act in multiple ways; it can be a way to brand and market your photos or it can protect your photos from individuals who steal them and try to make them their own.

2.If you upload your images to different websites, or want to keep track of the ones that are published the Publish Services panel in LR is good to use.

3.Beate Gutschow creates reality in her photographs. She uses about 30 different photographs for each picture, puts elements from each into one, and creates landscapes. Her work is a combination of photographic imagery with a hint of the idea of painting. Loretta Lux, on the other hand, is delicate with her alterations to her  images. However, she creates reality through the backgrounds of her photographs in an almost dreamy way. She uses paintings as inspiration and sources to help further the reality she is trying to create in her children's portraits.

Assignment 9:

Retouched Image:

Reading Quiz:
1.Why is Robert Adams drawn to photograph this body of work at night? What is it about night that is exciting for him?

2. Why is it important to use compact florescent bulbs with your clip lights or lamps for lighting a photograph?

3. Why would you want to diffuse your lights (or flash) when photographing? 

Answers:

1. The first function of landscape photography is geoegraphy- it is " the record of place." The second one being autobiography- which is the personal connection the photographer has and the message being captured for the viewer. Lastly, the third function is metaphor- for the image could potentially stand for something else, depending on what the viewer wants the image to mean.

2. It is important to use compact florescent bulbs because they produce less heat which helps not being a fire hazard.

3.Diffusing your lights gives you a softer photograph.