Assignment 6 - Portraits

Assignment 6 - Portraits

For this assignment the hard part was my self-portraits.  I started brainstorming and photographing.  I am not...alone.  I am not...brave.  I am not...proud.  I am not...ashamed.  As I was doing this, however, I thought crossed my mind:  I don't know who I am.  One thing that I am not is 'sure'.  But while I am not sure of who I am, I am also not hiding what is in me now until I figure out myself.  Well, as I went along, it sort of turned into what I am.  I'm not even sure about half of them, frankly.  I don't know about my pictures, I'm not sure if they portray any of that, I'm not sure of anything.  But even if the pictures didn't come out well, I learned something about myself, which is nice.  Who would've thought that Photo Foundations II could also be Psychology 101?

Irving Penn

For my final project, I'm started to get really nervous. Where do I photograph these people? Should the background be the same or different? What are they going to wear? Do I take them outside or stuff them in a corner? Do I photograph their body, an overall image, or zoom in on key parts? Should I continue with my mask idea? For this assignment, I'm taking inspiration from Irving Penn's pictures. Simplistic and raw. I'm just afraid that I'm not going to get this right. It's not something I can come back to this project and re-do it in a couple of years. I have to get it right NOW. I'm going to photograph my first two subjects this weekend, because I know that I can come back and re-shoot them once I'm sure about how I'm going to do it. It's all the other one-time subjects that I'm worried about. If I get it wrong, there's really nothing I can do to fix it, because their images are set in stone and I can't get back my models.

If you guys know somebody who cuts, burns, scratches, bites, or self-mutilates in any way, let me know. With their permission, of course.

Sally Mann

There's something so eloquent about this girl even though she looks lower class and relitavely dirty. The background is so dark and blurry, which makes her stand out even more. I can't even explain how much I love this picture.

Fairy Tales

A couple of weeks ago I was hit by a sudden inspiration for a different final project. Now, I don't want to change my current choice, but I may do it on the side or for a different term. Fairy Tales, coming to life. When I was a wee little lassie I was always interested in Fairy Tales. Mostly because my father was so far away it seemed like they were more likely to come true for me since most of the princesses are parent-less. I think everybody, young or old, has Fairy Tales in the back of their head, wishing for one to come true in their everyday, average, boring life. I believe that stingy non-believers are only as they are because they're tired of waiting for theirs. This is why I decided that it would be a good idea to photograph fairy tales come to life. They're what give everybody hope. The thought of them actually existing in our meek, bland world is such a boost of courage. So this assignment wouldn't be to document anything or to explain how something is in this world. Instead, it would telling a story of what could be.

I saw a man doing this

"i saw a man doing this, i saw him hanging red leaves to a dead tree. but i'm not sure he was a real man, he seemed a shadow, a really strange creature. i saw a man doing this, i saw him making seasons change."

Never-Ending Travel

This picture goes really nicely with the light assignment as well. I think it's interesting how outside is more lit up than she is. Her face is shrouded in mystery, just like her future. It's not only an intriguing picture on its own, but I found what the artist wrote about it to be more important than the picture itself.
"what's a never-ending travel? simply our life. a travel to find the right place, the right persons, the right emotions, to see our dreams realized. because, without dreams, what kind of life you can have?"
That really hit me. Mostly because I'm a teenager, but partially because I'm sort of strange, I have trouble figuring out where I fit in life, where I'm going to fit, what I'm going to do and where I'm going to go and who I'm going to be. Looking at the picture makes a lot more sense after you read what the photographer wrote.

More Lise Sarfati

This is MY FAVORITE image by her. It goes well with the light assignment that we have, but also it reminds me of myself. I walk up my secret hill and I sit in the grass and I lay under the trees and I look at the bugs and the birds and I listen to the rustling of leaves. While not everybody sees a girl doing that in this picture, that's what I see because it relates to me so deeply. I think this picture shows that everybody needs a place where they can go to just be alone and think about life, and talk to the plants and the animals. Mostly to just be. In the image, I really like the colors, the greens are so deep! And the lighting is so interesting, I wonder if this girl is in a sort of rainforest-type enclosure where you can only see the sky from in between patches of trees.

This picture jumped out to me as interesting mostly because of the girl's awkward position. Also, the background color and all of the strange objects on the right side. Her arm being up sort of balances out the empty left side of an image. Now THAT'S what I call figure/ground relationship!

Lise Sarfati

I'm not one that calls Magnum Photos the epitome of photography central (not that I have anything against itself or its photographers), but I went to take a look today so I wouldn't just have unknown "INDIE" (ha, Mr. Slade!) photographers on my page. I want to show diversity in what I can appreciate, photographically. So when I found Lise Sarfati on Magnum, I was so happy! The first thing I noticed was her collection of houses or shacks. They're all so plain, so almost boring. One of them in a collection, I think, would look just plain dumb. But the fact that she has so many of them, it tells a story.
I began to wonder, What happened in these old homes? Are they uninhabited or does a family of six live there? What happened here?
That is why I'm intrugued, not because they're compositionally good (which I think they are) but rather because they tell a story. And the story is different depending on who looks at it. Everybody sees something different in these images.

Chimera, Cigarette Smoker, Frank Sinatra

More DeviantArt work that I found. This is a user named riotbubbles. It's a little different from what I normally like...hahahahahaha. JAYKAY. I really like the lighting in this, the background gets darker and darker as it approaches her. But her face is lit. I don't know how to desribe this picture. But, I find it really pleasing to the eye.

This picture is so light, and I love how it is an exact half-slice of her face. I'm not sure if the fact that her eyes are closed mean that she's ashamed, or is just so careless about it. I like to think the latter, she even seems a little amazed by the cigarette. Sorry, I have so many pictures of smokers. I just think they look so classy.

The darkness all around these strangers adds such a mystery, but they aren't scared, the image isn't scary. They seem so sure of it.

Assignment 4 - On Your Belly

I had a hard time taking a lot of pictures for this assignment. Some were easy, but after a while it felt a little bit monotonous, taking so many pictures, and I was lacking willing models, since all my friends hate me. ANYWAYS, I really like the picture I took of Sara between the two buildings. I tried to capture it so that it looked like she was looking over one of the buildings. I loved that playing with height because it's so cool, dude! Yeahhhhhhh, that's my story. And these are my pictures. Enjoy.

Assignment 4 - On Your Belly

Lips, Public Pleasure, Bad Girls Do Bad Things

I've fallen in love with Scott James Prebble!  Here are more pictures I've found by him.  I really enjoy how wonderfully staged they are.  And the colors are so vibrant!  I wish I could find some models to photograph, if I could I would do the same thing he does.  Also, that would be assuming I was a good photographer... Hahaha.  I love the background of Lips, the fading white, it's so classy.  It's such a hilariously adorable picture.

I really like this photo because of the casualness of it all.  Despite the...risque... theme, I love how dressed up the model is, how there's another laundromat user just in the corner.  P.S. Check out that FABULOUS white balance, eh? Eh?  Plus, the lighting on her mixed with the shadow on the left side of the image gives it a cool look.

This picture is so smokey! This image is entitled "Bad Girls Do Bad Things".  The perspective on this picture makes the subject seem so far away, and even though her foot and her leg are more focused, less covered in smoke, and darker, your eye is still drawn to her face.  At least mine was.

A Little Duck Phobia

I love these overly staged photographs, I wish that I could take pictures like that. It's called A Little Duck Phobia by Scott James Prebble. Plus I love the intense colors of the sky and the grass. This picture is so cool, I'm going to go look at more work by him!

07 & Indigo Dreams

07 and Indigo Dreams by "curlytops'' I thought were really amazing. There's something about the soft colors of the background in the upper image, and how the girl is so small in comparison to the rest of the photo, to the entire ocean and the wide sky. Also, I love that she's not centered, her color is really bright compared to the rest of the photo, and her ball is too. Indigo Dreams, the picture on the bottom, has an air of mystery to it. You can't see the girl's face for one, and the ocean is so dark and reflective.

The Gashlycrumb Tinies

Although this isn't photography, I still think that it's really interesting that you could take something so simple and classic, like the alphabet, and turn it into something beautifully gruesome. Plus, it's my name! :D I really like the style that was incorporated into it. There are several different people all dying by different mediums, being mugged, poisoned, et cetera. How gnarly!

Henri Cartier-Bresson

A long while ago I checked out a book by Cartier-Bresson from the library. I loved his work so much that I kept it! HAHAHAHA. I have his American in Passing. What I think is amazing about him is that he doesn't believe in darkroom editing. He thought that pictures should be composed in the viewfinder, not the darkroom. So on most of his pictures he left an interesting black border. I think it adds a really cool touch and it shows how fabulous he was a composition. I couldn't find my favorite ones from the book I got, but I did find a few pictures of his that are amazing. I'm a sucker for kissy pictures, and I like that he photographed almost entirely in black and white, so I dig him.

Assignment 3 - Emotion

Rodney Smith

After looking at Rodney Smith's images with the rest of the class, I fell in love with his photography. Here is one of my favorite pictures from his portfolio.