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.

Assignment 8

Inspiration Board:

-Reading Quiz

1. How can you create a collaged look of overlapping images using LR? 
2. How can you change which images are in front or behind?

3. How does memory figure in Pedro Meyer’s process?

4. How does he view his work in relation to straight photography?

Answers:

1. To create a collage in LR you have to go to the print module and go to "Custom Package."

2. If you right click on the image and choose back/forward or bottom/top you can change the pictures arrangement from the front and back,

3. Pedro remembers by making images that will help him in the future. The images he creates are his memories.

4. Straight photography is a convention that in upcoming generations, the pictures taken and made will be considered just that.

Assignment 7:

-Panorama

-Reading quiz

1. What does it mean to check the “stack with original” box in LR Preferences: External editing? Why is this helpful?

2. How can scanners create compelling photographs “that require neither film nor camera”?
3. In what way is the role Gregory Crewdson plays in creating his photographs different than what we typically assume of a photographer?

Answers:
1. : The "stack with original" box in LR Preferences is External editing, and means, to have an edited copy of a picture next to the original one when you return to the Lightroom preferences from a program like photoshop. It is helpful because it is easier to find your images and keep everything organized.
2.  Scanners can give a photograph or specific object detail, in a way a camera cannot. It can also capture a different stand and focus point a camera cannot comprehend.
3. Gregory Crewdson, didn't actually take his untitled photograph. Instead,  he had a cinematographer capture the picture in which he organized and planned out for weeks. He set the scene and mood, but had another person take the photograph for him.

Assignment 6:

-Altered landscape

Use a NEW IMAGE to create your vision of an idealized landscape. Your alterations can be as realistic or as fantastical as you would like. Use any combination of the Lightroom tools and adjustments that we have discussed to achieve your vision.

Answer:

-Reading Quiz

1. What are ICC profiles and how do you use them when printing?

2. What is monitor calibration? Why is it important?

3. Adams writes that landscape pictures function on 3 levels- geography, autobiography, metaphor. Describe what he means by each.

Answer:

1. An ICC, or International Color Consortium, is a set of data that tells the printer what amount of color must be used to produce an image accurately.  

2. Monitor Calibration is the adjustment setting to accurately represent the way a color is shown. It is important because it helps make the image and colors precise to real life.

3. Geography- frame, dimensions, place and shapes
    Autobiography- Actual image and story of subject
    Metaphor- what the picture portrays, not what it necessarily is.

Assignment 5:

-Retouched self-portrait

Think about how you want to represent yourself and start with a new self-portrait. Retouch the image using Lightroom’s Adjustment Brush, the techniques we discussed in class, the techniques in the reading, and ideas from your own imagination. Create a version of yourself that is altered to meet your fantasy or your vision.

Photography:

-Reading Quiz

1. How do you apply masks in LR and how can you use those masks to adjust your image?

2. Describe the difference between the adjustment brush and the gradient filter and how you might use each one.

3. What is Pascal Dangin’s job? In what ways is it creative?

4. What is his attitude about the ethics of the job he does?

Answers:

1.  Using the Adjustment Brush tool and the Graduated Filter tool. The Adjustment Brush tool lets you selectively apply Exposure, Clarity, Brightness, and other adjustments to photos by “painting” them onto the photo. The Graduated Filter tool lets you apply Exposure, Clarity, and other tonal adjustments gradually across a region of a photo. You can make the region as wide or as narrow as you like.

2. The gradient filter lets you adjust exposure, contrast, saturation, clarity, sharpness and color to an image and the adjustment brush allows adjustments to exposure, clarity, brightness, act. Depending on the effect you are looking for, either of those filter will work successfully.

3. Pascal Dangin's job in photo re-touching. It is creative because it basically is making the camera lie.

4. He thinks of it as Taboo.

Assignment 4:

-Use the Develop Module in LR to edit one of the images you photographed for the Campus shooting assignment. Post both the before and after versions of the image to your blog.

Remember to make one or more virtual copies of your image before you start adjusting it. Adjust the white balance, the exposure, the clarity, vibrance, and the contrast (with the tone curve) as we discussed in class. When you are finished adjusting the image export it as a jpg using LR’s preset: For Email.

-Reading Quiz

1. What does the phrase “The man who said ‘I saw it! I saw it!’ and passed it by” mean in terms of photography?

2. Drawing on the Daido Moriyama essay and our class discussions explain in your own words how photographs can “contain the living pulse of the human being behind the camera”.

Answers:

1. The phrase "The man said 'I saw it! I saw it!' and passed it by" means in terms of photography that a photographer sees all. He is both a viewer and a "dweller." In terms of photography in order to get an amazing photograph and capture an amazing image, the person behind the lens has to really look and really see his or her subject not just view and observe.

2. Photographs can "contain the living pulse of the human being behind the camera" because it has a special connection to him or her. The the photographer chooses a specific subject to photograph because they see and feel something special about it. A certain connection is made and suddenly for that moment, it is a living and moving experience, one with a special pulse, that the photographer encounters.

Assignment 3:

-Looking at Photographs

Download the PDF containing 5 spreads from Looking at Photographs from Blackboard (in READING section on left)

For each spread read the text and consider the image carefully. Select the image that most engages your attention and write a paragraph explaining why you have selected the image. Please keep in mind the photographic elements described in last week's reading (detail, frame, time, vantage point) when you are considering and evaluating the photographs. Post your paragraph to your blog.

(note: this is not the assignment I mentioned in class, you do NOT need to email me your campus contact sheets)

Answer: "Broken Window" by Brett Weston was one photograph from Looking at Photographs that most engaged my attention. The single black area of the photograph gives a sense of wonder and curiousness to its views. At first, I did not recognize it as a broken window, in fact, I didn't know what i thought it was. After reading the short article about it, I found it fascinating that the back area was not a void or negative space but the actual presence of the broken glass. The lack of detail and high contrast lighting really gives me no choice but to "see nothing as something." 

-Reading Quiz

1. Describe IN YOUR OWN WORDS what is meant by the idea that “the link (with the human eye and its usual optical radius) is not really needed” in terms of photography and film. (Ossip Brik reading)

2. What is a DNG file? Why would you convert your files to DNG when you are importing them to LR?

3. How do you enter Lights Out mode in LR? How can you use this mode?

Answers:

1.  By saying "The link (with the human eye and its usual optical radius) is not really needed," we basically are stating that even without our eyes looking though the lens, a camera and take of the cinema is so advanced and unexpected that a photograph can be taken and a scene or subject can be shown in a way that the human eye isn't used to seeing.

2. A DNG File is an Adobe Digital Negative Raw Image file.DNG files store all of your metadata and raw settings within the file itself.

3.  Press the "Shift-Tab" keys to hide side panels and then "L" twice to enter lights out mode. You can do this for presentations and to view what your image looks like blown up and as a final product.

Assignment 2:

-Review your camera's manual and answer the following questions about your camera.
Post the answers to your blog.

1. What is the maximum image size your camera is capable of shooting in terms of pixel width and height?
2. What options do you have for controlling exposure with your camera?
3. Describe some hypothetical situations in which you would want to use different exposure modes/settings.
4. What ASA/ISO range is your camera capable of? Why would you choose one over the other?
5. What is white balance and what options do you have for adjusting it on your camera?
6. What is the histogram and how do you use it?

Answers:

1. 4,608 x 3,072
2. Metering, Autoexposure lock, Exposure Compensation, and Flash Compensation. ISO, Shutter Speed, and Aperture.
3. If I were to shoot a fast moving object, and shooing on a manual setting, I would choose a high shutter speed and medium exposure to capture of an exact moment in time.
4. The ISO range is 100-3200. I would use a lower ISO if I was shooting a scene that is bright.  I would choose a higher ISO if the scene I was shooting is dark.
5. My camera has white balance settings such as Automatic, Incandescent, Fluorescent, Direct Sunlight, Flash, Shade, Cloudy and it can be set manually.
6. The histogram help guide you to achieving a proper exposure.

-Reading Quiz
1. On pages 1-3 Szarkowski describes many ways that photography offered a new kind of picture making process with a very different group of practitioners. Describe one of the ways that photography was a very different art form.
2. What does John Szarkowski mean by the characteristic “The Thing Itself”?
3. Szarkowski writes that the time that photographs describe is always the present. What does he mean?

Answers:
1. Photography was a different art form because its product was never "made" it was always "taken." You make art, not take it, or so the people thought back when photography was first introduced. Now, it's so much more.
2. "The Thing Itself" was the image giving more credence than the actual human eye. "For the image would survive the subject, and become the remembered reality." This technically means that one simple image can make an object or memory last a lifetime.
3. He means that they will always represent the duration of time it took to produce the image. The photograph will always and forever show the time it was taken, never before or after. It is stuck in the present of where it once was.

Past Photographs

Below, you will find eight images taken in the 2012 year:

 

Photography has always been a love of mine. I admire the fact that you can capture a moment in time and always have the opportunity to reflect back on that moment every time you come across that image. As far as my sense of style in photography, I enjoy being able to capture a moment that tells a different story to each of its viewers. I tend to capture more surreal or dark scenes that give its audience a sense of wonder and curiousness. I want to have that audience ask themselves what they think is going on in the image and what the story behind it can be. I am a story teller, I always have been, but with my photography and photographs, I have the opportunity to give my "listeners" multiple stories at once without any words being spoken. My vision is to really create and show the meaning of "a picture is worth a thousand words." This is what I believe is being shown in each one of my photographs provided. Through the dark and intense contrast, the expressions and hidden faces, and the sense of wonder and uncomfortableness, I believe my images and the way I produce photography are direct proof of my vision, style, and story that I am trying to tell.