Famous Portraits

Richar Avedon, 1980, Roberto Lopez

I like this portrait because it is plain and honest. By the was the man is presented it is easy to understand his profession. He looks as tough as the land he works, this is conveyed in his furrowed brow, lean face, and mildly toned physique. Richard Avedon's style is shown best in this portrait. Avedon rarely uses props, and mostly includes a plain white background. He lets the subject do the talking.

Arnold Newman, N.D, JFK

This photograph of JFK illustrates a man(JFK), his fortress in the foreground and his lands in the background. I think the large, towering architectural features emphasize the commanding position this president is in. Interestingly, Where JFK is looking is cropped out from the viewer. This crop shows that photographers don't always have to follow the rules. Arnold Newman's style uses interesting backgrounds and unique framing to describe the person being photographed. 

Annie Leibowitz, Whoopie Golberg

Annie Leibowitz always portrays he subjects in unique, edgy poses. Often, like in this photograph, these poses describe the subject's personality. Woopie is a playful and funny person, so apparently a bathtub of milk shows that. Leibowitz photographs many famous personalities. Some of these famous personalities include: McJagger, Demi Moore, Miley Cyrus, and john Lennon. Most of the people were at least partially unclothed during the shoot.

History of Photography

By completing this poster I learned that formatting is key. It is very difficult to make all the font sizes and border sizes all the same over a period of four days. I also learned that the first photograph was really a piece of work! it is impossible to see anything from it. Joseph Nicephore’s image demonstrates how far we have traveled in the field of photography in just two hundred years. Our timeline puts into contrast this imaging revolution, because the first camera phone is at the other end. The third and final thing I learned while doing this project was that the life of a photographer can be hard. While researching Annie Leibovitz I discovered she filed for bankruptcy in 2008 and had to sell of all her photos before then. It is amazing how such a famous photographer can have such an abrupt fall from grace.

Shadow

I just stumbled upon this image composition. I'll admit finding shadows which are interesting and distinguishable is very difficult, at least for me. I turned off all the lights in my house, then started shining a plug-in torch onto different surfaces to find what looked cool. The boots really popped out at me. I did rearrange them, but still I think the boots are an intriguing subject. I like them because of the neat texture on the grip and laces. During this assignment I leaned that shadows can be in and out of "focus" not as a result of the camera, but due to the distances between the object, light-source, and wall that the shadow is reflected on.  

Hot. Cool. Yours.

        It is amazing how many different letters are lurking around us. I think that this is a case of if you know what you are looking for, then you shall find it. This helped me with my learning because it shows that it is possible to find things that are not that obvious if you just look for them. Also, the geometry of our words helped us. We picked word with many Os. There are a ton of circular objects in our surroundings and not many Rs. If I did this project again I would choose another word with many Os or Is. This is important to my learning because it helped me understand what shapes that look like letters are most common in our environment. In addition, I learned how to use photoshop more efficiently. I learned the shortcut for black and white. Also I gained a greater understanding of how to use the brightness and contrast sliders to the right amount. Photoshop is a very important tool for any photographer to understand. It is interesting to see how some compositions "read" and others do not. It is very startling when the word pops out and makes sense. We had to go through two revisions to make sure that the objects read correctly to form a word. Photoshop and the revision process are very important things for any photographer to understand.

Unusual perspectives

        I created this image over February break in Florida. I was coming home from a great dinner out with my grandparents and Mother. When we were driving over a bridge close to their house I removed my eyes from my smartphone and looked up, I saw in the cooling Floridian night that there was a light fog which made the picturesque streets and lights of the quiet town of Venice seem to glow. I persuaded the adults to let me get out and wander the streets for a few minutes. Keep in mind that this is at 10:30 at night in Florida. I had to do a lot of persuading. The resulting pictures have some halos and blurring around the lights, which I think looks very nice. To capture this photograph I did have to stand directly in the center of a road, but at 10:30 in Venice not much is going on. The Florida night was humid and mild, there was the occasional sound of a passing car or thumping of bass from a far away club. The most noticeable feeling was the emptiness, Venice felt like ghost town, which left the lights on. Almost like Yarmouth, but with more light and less snow. 

     I love photographing at night, however I never carry a tripod which always becomes an issue with long exposures such as this photo. I have become fairly good at holding perfectly still for the 10-25 second exposures required for this series. But without a tripod on 2/3 of the pictures I took on that Venice night came out non-blurry. The ones that did come out well, I really like, not many of them fit the unusual perspective requirement though, so I hope to be able to weave them into other assignments later.

Composition, Rule of Thirds

     This photo is an example of compositional strategy because it uses the rule of thirds. Because the horizon line is on the lower third dividing line of the picture. This photo also has very interesting lines in the branches of the tree. The branches and the tree are the subject and they contrast with the background to bring out the subject. The background in this photo is included because it is in focus. This shows the details in the opposite shore and the color gradient in the sunrise. The background is included by having a more open aperture. There is also a flat straight line in the horizon which promotes the feeling of peace and calmness. One thing that I could have done better in this photo is decluttering the foreground, I think that the fence takes away from the subject of the photo. However if this was cropped then I would loose the rule of thirds. 

Shapes Assignment

I took this photograph with the blue scissors as the subject because I wanted to have shapes with an interesting subject. The one pair of blue scissors I tried to get to really pop out of the picture and grab your eye as a subject. In hindsight I with I used the blue filter option on my camera to maximize this effect. The scissors are also not in the center of the frame, they are a little to the left which shows the rule of thirds. There is also diversity of color in this photo.