Assignment 6: Final Images & Statement

For these images I was trying to see what effects I could achieve in camera, and then taking those photos and putting them together to create something even better. They all work with the idea of complexity and the feeling of multiple dimensions. In all the photos, there are details that you may not initially see, but the more you look the more you notice. I like the confusing, complex nature of the photos along with the sense of depth they have that leads to a series that can be interpreted in different ways depending on the viewer.

In-Class Activity Photos

3-D image:

                      

                                                        Noun: Disturbance

Homelessness- Action Verb:

Rearranged:

Serene-Adjective:

Time

Written Statement Part 2: Assignment 5

Everyone seemed to like the way that I combined the photos to create images that were indiscernable. They liked the colors that came out of the images. The black and white photo came across well too. The photo combination was liked, and it was looked at as something deeper. Its mystery became intriguing. I think how the colors printed didn't work well, so I need to be careful how much I distort things so they lose clarity in the future. I could make this a larger series by focusing on the manipulation and bright colors that were created by playing with light.

Blog Prompt 26

1. This weekend I was out taking photos and although I have some interesting ones that I want to work with, I feel like I have only gotten half of the photos I need/want for the project so far. I also feel like I only have photos from one category I wanted to use for my project- a lot of outdoor photos. I will be able to change this by working more on some of the light reflecting objects I would like to try photographing and also by starting to work with the photos I have taken so far in photoshop. I feel like this would help let me know what I still need/am looking for. The positive side is that I have some photos I think I can work with, and the negative is that I am worried I am going to stick myself with different versions of the same photo.

2. The opposite of my project would be very clear and crisp photography. It would be of very definable and relatable moments in life. I could work this into my project by making abstract images that people feel like they can relate to.

3. A consistent visual element of my project I hope is to have some manipulation of camera functions to make the photos have distorted lighting/scenes that turn out to be more artistic and resemble paintings more than they do photographs. I may want to make some just be distorted and not look like a painting too. The opposite of this would be to have very strict photographs that clearly defined a scene. I could try working this into my photos by layering somehow to have parts of the scene be very definite and clear against my distorted photos.

4. brightness, mixture, blurriness, strobe lights, memories, pops of color, variety, non-standard, quirky, manipulated, layers, bold, different perspective, texture variety, humanity, shapes, intimate?, expression, line interplay, abstract.

5. At the "deepest core" I like this project because it is creative. I wanted to try and push farther how I manipulated photographs for the last project. Once I really got working on those photos I really started enjoying myself. It was the problem solving of layering the photos and having them turn out or not, and being surprised at what I could come up with. The one black and white photograph that I did last time also has me flirting with the idea of trying to get into something psychological with the meanings of the photos as well. This multiple dimensions like feeling is something that interests me.

6. If there were no restraints I would travel around to capture more beautiful scenes to use in my project. I would work with capturing things like the sunrise, sunset and other natural drastic lighting situations to then manipulate. It would be neat to alter these scenes some so that they were blown out at times, or given a melted look. It would be neat to have more amazing scenes to work with other than the city I live in.

10. I assume that I am going to be able to capture new exaggerated/"blown out" lighting scenes like I was able to create for the last project. I also assume that all the photos I have so far will be able to come together to make something cohesive and strong. I assume that I will be able to get what is in my head into a photograph.

12. If I removed the lighting aspect of my project, I would probably end up with more of a deep, confusing, hidden meanings photography project. It would be interesting photographs that were compiled together in unusual ways.

15. In a dream I have had many times, it is chaos. The location is this weird house that is part library, part department store, part big kitchen, slash a CLUE like house. It is my birthday party at first, I am young, but then things take a turn for the worse. There are people I need to run away from in the house, so then it becomes a chase around this oddly set up house. I could try and re-create the locations in this dream and put them in my photos or I could try to convey the emotions I have with being chased in the photos.

17. I could connect my images physically by turning them into a 3-D box to be displayed. I would connect them conceptually be techniques used and general composition of all the photographs. I could make my photos disconnected physically by making them all of different sizes and not displaying them close. Conceptually I could use different techniques with lighting for all and not use layering in all of the photos.

Assignment 5: Written Statement Part 1

For these images, I tried to make my images about distortion of boring objects and turning them into something of more of a painting quality. For the black and white image I was still focusing on the distortion, but it is more focused on an eerie psychological projection. I wanted it to have the feeling of a scary movie/psychology tests/insane asylum. It wasn't my intentions when taking the photograph, but the more I played with it the more that is what it felt like to me, so I tried to enhance that by laying over it a photo I had of clouds and a photo I had of a road surrounded by trees on a mountain. For the image that has the swirling/flower like pattern(that is really my purse) I really wanted to play up the texture and make that more interesting and complex.
  To make these images I started with just moving my camera lens while taking photos of odd things around my room. I liked how they were turning out so kept taking more. In photoshop I liked how I could enhance them in either direction and still like how they looked. This is what made me decide to work with them. I then wanted to add more to them so I started playing around with different ways to layer them together. It started when I was trying to layer two separate photos I had of the distorted painting I did. I wanted to enhance the dimensions I was pulling out of them. This wasn't working how I wanted because they had two different background tones, so I started playing around with other photos. Once one photo turned out, I started trying layering on the other images I was considering using. I then just worked with matching the colors and opacities until the photos meshed together well.
  I was hoping to just try something new with these photos and work with more of the tools we had been learning to use on photoshop. I haven't really done too much outside of camera raw this semester before this.
This grouping of photos fits more into the photos as art category that I have seen among early photographers and then more contemporary photographers. None of the photos capture the moment as it was, or for what an object really is. I don't think that these photos address any issues outside of their physical context in a very deep manner. It was more about experimentation.

In-Class Assignment: Projection

Assignment 5: Rough Images

Blog Prompt 25

1)Bridget Farrall: I like that she kept a consistent subject. The tone fits well with her subject of old, abandoned looking houses. Her views emphasize natural lines and details which helps to unify the focus within the subject. She has good lighting and manipulation of tone within the monochromatic sepia color choice.

2) Vegar Abelsnes: He captured the scene well. By downplaying the color of the background trees/capturing this naturally helps to make the birds stand out. Allowing the birds to be caught in motion, not blurred makes the scene even more beautiful and surreal. The angle of the scene was chosen well.

3) Mitchell D. Cohen: His work came across as abstract photography done well. You feel like you are looking at something up close. This causes you to focus on the colors and texture and makes you wonder what the subject really is. His photos have a muted harshness to them.

4) Mark Berndt: I like the first six images that he submitted. The sepia/black color scheme is attractive. The photos feel like they are from the past and of somewhere exotic. There is a sense of travel photography in a way that captures the real feel of the location- not just the obvious scenes to photograph. I like his style and perspective.

5) Udo Spreitzenbarth: This photo has great lighting and is an image that feels like it has a story. I love that he chose to put this and black and white. The framing in this photograph I am also drawn to and think it affects how you see the scene he created.

6) Karen Weiss: She was able to capture the same subject-women- from multiple angles. Some of these are typical, some are more unusual and yet they work together well as a set. These photos give you a feeling that she would be able to do multiple different types of photography. She has consistently good lighting and layout.

7) Sita Mae Edwards: These photographs turn the body into pure form. Through posing and the use of shadows/lighting she emphasizes body shapes in a way that gives a sense of solidity and strength. Her photos are able to emphasize the male and female form in the same way, which produces unity in the set. These photos are beautiful.

Class Assignment

Assignment 4: Written Statement part 2

Interpretation: Some people liked my photos as postcards and others thought that they would work better as movie stills. Gilbert Grape was my favorite comparison. There was a general agreement that some of my photos should be lightened. Some people liked how I had altered the colors and others didn't, there was also some differing views on the placement choice of my focus subjects. Overall, they seemed to like the simplicity and solitude that these photos gave off.


Evaluation: I would play around with printing some of my images lightened up,  but for what they are/were I like them. I wouldn't really alter them much. I think that what I did is not something that is necessarily meant to be attractive and therefore is going to produce different reactions. I did another copy of the farmhouse lightened later on and I like it, but it does give off a different mood. I think that they work together well as a set though.

Extension: For a larger project I would extend these photos into a collection of capturing pieces of my surroundings, or America giving it a road trip like feel. I have this book "Boring Postcards" and I think it would be fun to capture it in the same way that the photographer did in that book.

Blog Prompt #24

A. The first link I went to was Nikki S. Lee's and her Hispanic project was the first thing to come up on her page. The photo displayed was very up close and had a sense of being candid. You feel like the photographer really just went out walking around and took photos of people that they encountered. If I was to re-create this on a smaller scale I would like to emulate the idea of having natural looking photographs and of a specific group/ a set of groups, but I would want to just do different sets of groups. I would want to shy away from the ethnic groupings and instead get groups like homeless people, and neighbors, people I see in my daily life, etc. I think it would be a neat addition to then have a statement from each person that I have a photograph of. I would like to have something recorded from them such as if they could say anything or have anything known what would it be, or maybe something about who they are as a person.
       The second link I went to was the Joel Peter Witkin site. A photo I was drawn to from his front page was "The Beginning of Fashion in Paris" (2007). It is a less busy, less gruesome piece that he has done, but I feel in its simplicity it has a lot of room to move from. I would like to re-create this photograph using a Barbie and adding to the moderately plain background he chose more items that would be a part of the process of designing clothes such as fabric, more sketches, etc. I think this would add more visual interest to the background. I would also like to play around with incorporating the background into the figure (Barbie) in the foreground.

B.  For my self-proposed project I haven't 100% decided on what I want to do. I was considering extending the photographs I have taken of people around town, and that I know and turning it into a portrait project. I have enjoyed taking photos of people and trying to capture who they are this semester. I have also enjoyed some of the ugly landscape photos I have taken and was also considering seeing where I could go with that. If I didn't do one of these two things, I would want to attempt something virtually different from anything I have done so far this semester. Maybe an idea that I have had in the past but haven't had the resources or reasoning to do. I am still very undecided, and figure I now have something to plan!

Semi-Contemporary Photographer: Winfred Evers

Winfred Evers looks at photography as material made conscious. A lot of her work involves combining and distorting images, leading to very abstract work. Yet she also has multiple portraits that are editorial quality and very crisp. She is not limited to one distinct style ability, yet after looking at her work you can see what she prefers to do, how she interprets photography. She does her own fine art photography while also compiling photos for stock image websites like Gettyimages, etc. and doing campaign photography. She has had personal exhibits, group/collections exhibits, and her work has been in catalogues. She was born in 1954 in Haarlem, the Netherlands. Evers attended the Free Academy, in The Hague, Netherlands from 1973- 1976. After reading over her website she comes across as a very eclectic and constantly changing personality. 

Historical Photographer Presentation: Gertrude Kasebier

  Above are examples of her studio work, and the top photo is from her series on Native Americans.

    Gertrude Kasebier is an American born woman, living between 1852 and 1934. She was raised in the plains territory of Iowa and Colorado until the time she was a teenager. She was educated at the Moravian College for Women in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. She later moved to New York City with her mother and by 1873 she was married. She went on to have three children. In 1888, when she was in her late thirties, Gertrude enrolled in the Pratt Institute to study painting and photography.
       By 1897/1898 she opened a studio and became a portrait photographer. Her work became quickly recognized and Alfred Stieglitz made her a part of the Photo-Secessionist Group. Her work ended up published in his magazine Camera Work along with a few others. One group of photos that she is well known for is her series of photos of Native Americans. She photographed nine Native Americans, and attempted to show the blurred experiences between traditional and contemporary times.
    Gertrude's work typically used relaxed poses and natural light. She emphasized the light and dark qualities of her photographs, and allowed the subject to take up most of, if not the entire frame. She also manipulated her work in the printing process. She would alter the surface of her photographs giving them a painting like quality.

Re-Creation 5: Re-created Constructed Reality

Original Photos:

Re-Creation:

I put my own spin on the style of photographer Jan Groover. The photos I seen of hers were all of simple  subject matter, and seemed to attempt to make objects like food and silverware interesting and artistic. There was an emphasis on abstract set-ups as well. Photos with other subject matter seemed to keep a focus on lines and simplicity. She was trained as a painter and uses her art background to make historical art references in her photographs. Groover was born in New Jersey in 1943.

Assignment 4 Final Photos and Written Statement Part One

When I took this photo it was a beautiful day out and I wanted to capture what I was seeing. I loved how the bare trees looked against the sky, but through my choice in only including a portion of the trees and lamp post I feel that I captured the simple beauty in what I was seeing. I tried to include just enough to let the viewer get this feeling. I think this perspective is unique because I was around a lot of buildings, etc. so I had to focus more on excluding things to get the shot I wanted then on what I was trying to include. This photo was not planned out, but was just a part of me going out to take photos and capturing the things that interested me, and my surroundings from my perspective. I like capturing scenes that are simple yet beautiful and can be related to by the viewer and yet make them question where the photo was taken at.

This photo was taken from the car window while I was on a road trip. We were driving through and stayed in many cities that shared names with countries and well known large cities in other countries. I tried to capture some of the signs, etc. that had these names on them because it became a joke throughout the trip. We hadn't planned anything ahead of time and last minute decided to go on a road trip and so every time we went by a well known place we would say "Hey, we went to ____!" I chose to include this photo in this set because of its simplicity and the alignment in one corner similar to the above photo of the trees/lamp post against the sky. It also fit into the color scheme that seemed to be appearing in the photos I ended up choosing.  

This photo was another out the window photo. On my road trip I started to see numerous farmhouses and barns in the middle of the fields. I found it ironic compared to the more commonly placed front of the property farmhouse in the North. These houses looked so desolate and yet almost serene. I didn't want to pass this whole phenomenon by and so captured it. It fit well into my theme of odd simplicity and framing for this set of photos. It also made the transition from side framed photos to center framed photos. 

This photo came out of experimental cropping when I was working with a group of city scene photographs. It contained elements of all of the previous photos that I had chose and fit nicely into the set. I feel like there is really a lot going on in this scene and yet it is still so simple because of the center placement of the lamp post into the frame. It becomes your focal point instead of everything that is going on in the background. It is a simple photograph that has a lot to say. 

Blog Prompt 23

1) I construct my identity by the choices that I make, the things that I do, etc. I also construct myself by how I look because first impressions do make a difference. I perform my identity by in practically the same way that I construct it. How I look and act is the performance of what I have constructed.

2) My environment is constructed because each place I go has decided on the image they want to have and manipulate their space to best display this image. Furniture, paint colors, design layout, etc. all affect this image and therefore the type of people that are attracted to that place and that limits the environment.

3) Many daily parts of the physical environment are constructed through landscaping and construction. The environment shapes itself and then on top of these naturally constructed spaces people come in and alter these things making them even more unreal and "constructed" to fit a purpose.

4) In my life I would consider more intangible things to be real and physical things to be constructed. Who the people I see are is real- or at least real to me, since you never know how much of what a person projects is something they want to be more than what they fundamentally are. Physical things that are a part of my everyday life are usually altered and unnatural and therefore I see them as constructed.

5) It would be neat to use people to create a scene in which you mix historical events with everyday life scenes, and show in the photograph how unreal it is, and the surprise of both groups at the others actions.

6) My cousin and I used to have this amazing Barbie house that was handmade and beautiful. If we still had it I think it would be fun to use to re-create household scenes within it.

Blog Prompt 22

This concepts they are working with in this particular video are amazing and sad at the same time. If you are able to come up with all the photos you can think of and have them created instead of having to really go out and find these things, it could be the end of involved photography. How long will it last and be new and not take over? It also takes away the truth to a moment. On the other hand, the technology they are working with seems to be an answer to a lot of problems photographers encounter. It is like the television, and other digital technology- do the benefits outweigh the costs?

Blog Prompt 21

A. News related photographs always play with camera angle to change how you view the subject being shown. They also have the advantage of being able to chose what photos they print and affect the general publics idea about a person. Many people shown in the news are not people that most people will see photos of somewhere else, so what they see is what they get. This concept becomes important when it comes to political campaigns.

B. Snapshot photographs are usually some of the worst photographs people will have of themselves. It almost becomes about the wrong parts of the photograph that make it so memorable. Half a face missing, the view up your nose, only half the group smiling while also having their eyes open. Snapshot photos really let you in on what was really going on, not what you wanted to stage.

C. Advertisements are all about the editing. One way or another it is guaranteed that whatever they are selling is going to be more appealing in the ad then in the store or when you get it. Things are typically enlarged, and always at the best angle. The imperfections are always taken out.

D. Stills from movies are typically iconic moments for that film. They are high in intensity and emotion, intending to make the viewer interested. They are typically images that can be put onto a poster and categorize the movie.


E. School photos, whether group, or individual are great for capturing time. They always have some sense of made-up along with the reality. On picture days people go above and beyond to look good, but yet half the time the photos still end up not turning out. This is a great aspect I feel of the school photos.

F. I am not sure if I really understand stock images...I looked it up and I looked in the dictionary...will need to visit the website you gave us to really have enough of an understanding to answer this question.

G. Lighting is the key in fashion photography. The women are made to be desired, which sells the product because you are made to want to emulate the models. That is the goal at least. Everything is also very dramatic and done up from everyday life.

H.  Paparazzi shots are a mixture of capturing celebrities at their best and worst. It typically depends on the article, if any, being put with the photo. They are commonly from weird angles, candid, and can be made to be interpreted however the journalist wants.

Ruth Thorne-Thomsen: Photos

Semi-Contemporary Photographer Presentation: Ruth Thorne- Thomsen

Ruth was born in New York in 1943. Her schooling consisted of a BFA in painting from Southern Illinois University Carbondale in 1970, a BA in photography from the Columbia College in Chicago in 1973, followed by a MFA degree in photography from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1976. She also had training in dance in the 60's and toured with a dance company for awhile. Clearly expression through art is key for her.
    Ruth describes her work as an "environmental collage"and it has been compared to works of 20th century surrealism. Ruth primarily uses a pinhole camera to create surreal landscapes by juxtaposing real environments with collaged images and objects. Sometimes the props in her photos she makes herself. The key to her process is combining the pinhole camera with paper negatives to create a soft-focus effect.