W. Eugene Smith

 

“Don’t tell my mother,” said the young man. Still under the effects of ether, he didn’t realize she’d been holding his hand during the procedure.

W. Eugene Smith/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Out of W. Eugene Smith's photos, it was hard to choose because all these photos had an incredible story to tell of his adventures. I finally just choose the one above because I thought is was funny when Smith's caption stated "“Don’t tell my mother,” said the young man. Still under the effects of ether, he didn’t realize she’d been holding his hand during the procedure." Smith's overall aesthetic would be caring and passionate in Smith's work as a Doctor. This set of photographs works to tell a story of how Smith captioned each one to help us follow along his journey. 

Thomas Struth

Unconscious Places

 I looked through both the Unconscious Places 1 and 2 and sat back and ponder if Struth really completed his goal. I will have to say yes I do think Struth accomplished his goal of “work with distance, to keep an open and innocent gaze, to work without any personal narrative or experience of the city" (Thomas Struth). It is possible to make photographs of a location without any connection to it at all. I do not think that the very act of turning your camera on any subject automatically put the subject matter under scrutiny. The reason I say that is because going into detail about a subject all depends on what the photographer wants to have the viewer preserve, that power is all in the photographer's hands and it just takes a click of a button to capture. 

Montage Project

 

Anastasia Schaefer

How the Tables have Turned

My theme was simple but unique, just allowing the animals to have a turn at the table for they are always either the food or the beggar from under the table. Now the humans are the food or begging to not be next, I thought it was funny yet eye-opening on how we might look to some animals. 

Robert and Shana ParkHarrison

 Robert and Shana ParkHarrison

My interpretation of Robert and Shana ParkHarrison photographs is mesmerizing and pulls the viewer in to want to know more about the photo and what it is about. Robert and Shana's work focuses on the relationship between humans and the environment. This idea has only recently come to popularity with movements like the Go Green initiative and concepts like the carbon footprint. Their photos can be preserved in several different ways, as the photo above you can interpret it as watch what you say for it can tear someone apart, or be gentle with your projection for it does have an effect on your surroundings. 

Concept for my Montage

 Thinking

The whole planning and thinking of an idea is easy it is the unique ideas that are harder to approach. My first idea was to have a crime scene with ten different photos montaged into one real-looking photo. I went about it and took photos for it but I didn't want the police force to look bad because I remember what a wise woman once told us "The photo we take of someone is how others are going to perceive them" (Maloney). I then took a different approach to this when with all the different animals as human heads sitting at a dinner table eating food with little humans running for their lives. I wanted to take a fun approach and it was fun taking photos of people and telling them what it is about and everyone was smiling. I had the vision in my head so I didn't refer to anything. 

Portrait Project

 

Dan Winters

Tupac Shakur - Hollywood, CA - Rolling Stone

Anastasia Schaefer

Dan Winters wasn't my first choice for I wanted to photograph a female and I couldn't find a willing female to be my subject I asked my teacher (Prof. Maloney) if she would she said yes but said only if I couldn't find anyone else and if they fall through on me. Luckily I found a willing subject but I had to change my photographer to imitate. I went back through each photographer listed and finally found one that would look great with my subject. Dan Winters's photograph of this shirtless man with tattoos. It's simple and has a plain background I know the studio has a similar gray sheet to hang up.  The color palette is a little weird I know they edited this with either Lightroom or Photoshop to get that grayish vibe/texture. The high key I think in this photo is the shirtless part along with the shadow and bandana. The low key I would have to say is the tattoos. I will need to have a bandana and luckily I had a black and white one in my backpack. I would like it if my subject would get these tattoos or let me draw them on. I don't have a silver cross so I might have to leave it out. Post-production work on Dan Winters's photograph would have to be the color pallet texture. I will need my model to have a similar skin tone and some amount of muscles, tattoos would be nice but I can photoshop them in, to the best ability.

We had to create an inspirational photo and I did create one I liked but I did not show it in class. The one I did show is the one below it turned out good, I do like the blue tint with the mask. It makes a creepy eerie feeling like something in a true story horror suspension film. 

Anastasia Schaefer

Vik Muniz

 

Vik Muniz

The mark-making in Vik Muniz photography makes you want to take a second look. I personally think this style of photography that Vik Muniz destroys the photography it hurts my eyes to look at it because it is so busy your eyes can not adjust to look at the picture as a whole. The photograph does perceive its self as more of a tool rather than a final output. 

Matthew Albanese's Work

 

Matthew Albanese

1983

Albanese Selected Works

What makes Matthew Albanese's work strong is simple "By manipulating the scale, lighting, depth of field, and color balance in each image, Albanese, as the New York Times wrote in 2011, has become “adept at coaxing humble materials into looking like something else”" (Benrubi Gallery).  Matthew Albanese's photography is surreal and just draws you in. The lighting does add an effect of peacefulness and it was just a matter of waiting for that perfect shot of the sunset/sunrise to get that reflection on the water, I definitely think he alternated the saturation of the photo to get that textured look.  

Kate Middleton's 40th Birthday

 

Kate Middleton's 40th Birthday

Photographed by Paolo Roversi

How a photograph compares to a painted portrait is that for a painted portrait the subject has to sit still in the same position for however long it takes and then that natural authentic smile will start to drift away into a forced smile. The best photos are taken in that split second of a moment. Every stroke can tell a story and bring forth a unique perspective for a painted portrait, but the saying is " A picture is worth a thousand words" (Napoleon Bonaparte). I think for the medium of photography when the decision to commission a photographer versus a painter, is that it brought forth a spotlight for all photographers and a confidence boost to help them realize that they can be just as good or even better than a painter. The picture above stands out to me to be the most successful because the joy gleaming on Kate's face just brings me back to a time when I was happy I absolutely love the contract the photographer took and the depth of field he used. The longer I look into Kate's eyes I see a sparkle of the soul and the beautiful rawness of a moment in time when she was floating on clouds of feeling happy after you marry someone you love. 

Mother and her three kids

 

Alfred Stieglitz

Masterpieces 

Pinterest

Out of Henri Cartier Bresson, Immogen Cunningham, and Alfred Stieglitz we were to choose one to describe. I choose Alfred Stieglitz with this photograph of a mother and her two small children and a baby. The qualities that drew me to this photograph was not just the black and white but realness of this because nowadays everyone photographs preset places and people who look their best. For a digital artist, this is a great example to go off of for the point of photography is capturing raw truth for you can always make up a false perspective. 

Replicate portrait in studio

 Dan Winters

Research

I am not sure what to write here but I will try. Dan Winters wasn't my first choice for I wanted to photograph a female and I couldn't find a willing female to be my subject I asked my teacher (Prof. Maloney) if she would she said yes but said only if I couldn't find anyone else and if they fall through on me. Luckily I found a willing subject but I had to change my photographer to imitate. I went back through each photographer listed and finally found one that would look great with my subject. Dan Winters's photograph of this shirtless man with tattoos. It's simple and has a plain background I know the studio has a similar gray sheet to hang up.  The color palette is a little weird I know they edited this with either Lightroom or Photoshop to get that grayish vibe/texture. The high key I think in this photo is the shirtless part along with the shadow and bandana. The low key I would have to say is the tattoos. I will need to have a bandana and luckily I had a black and white one in my backpack. I would like it if my subject would get these tattoos or let me draw them on. I don't have a silver cross so I might have to leave it out. Post-production work on Dan Winters's photograph would have to be the color pallet texture. I will need my model to have a similar skin tone and some amount of muscles, tattoos would be nice but I can photoshop them in, to the best ability.

Before Photoshop

After Photoshop

Portraiture Slideshow, Portrait Exercise

 

Helen Levitt

Helen Levitt, New York, c 1942.

Why this photo?

The compositional element that drew me to choose this photo from Helen Levitt out of the list of street photographers provided, would have to be the space and value I see in this photo. This photo is a simple moment in time in the past of two kids having fun with water outside. I would have to say this photo is a mix of comical and nostalgic (thinking fondly of a pastime). How this photo makes me feel as a viewer I will have to say happy like in a daydream kind of feeling. 

Moving Water Critique

Eadweard Muybridge

 Animal Locomotion: Plate 628 (Man Riding Galloping Horse), 1887’ © Eadweard Muybridge. Image courtesy of Beetles+Huxley.

How Eadweard Muybridge created these photos as one photo is simply inventing a photographic technique called “stereoscopic stop-motion photography,” which allowed him to capture rapid movement in a series of still images. A series of multiple cameras could be triggered by tripwires to produce ground-breaking sequential images. He wanted all his subjects to carry out a single activity.  

Harold Edgerton

Harold Edgerton, Shooting the Apple, 1964, © Harold & Esther Edgerton Foundation, 2012, courtesy of Palm Press, Inc.

•        Edgerton was a pioneer in using short-duration electronic flash in photographing fast events photography, subsequently using the technique to capture a bullet during its impact with an apple.

Why was this important?

Both Eadweard Muybridge and Harold Edgerton created astonishing photos. 

• Eadweard Muybridge made three major achievements in photography: first, the development of a photographic process fast enough to capture bodies in motion; second, the creation of successive images that, mounted together, reconstituted a whole cycle of motion rather than isolating a single moment; and third, lead to advances in areas as diverse as zoology, painting, and motion pictures. Eadweard created a way to snap a picture by using a tripwire to help capture the movements of animals/humans' shapes and forms from doing an activity. Harold Edgerton invented stop-action, high-speed photography, helping push the obscure stroboscope from a laboratory instrument into a household item. He used the technique to make a body of work that's revered both for its scientific advancement and its aesthetic qualities.

Moving Water Project

  Moving Water Project

The main goals of this project were to explore motion and depth of field in photography and improve our technical skills with a camera. The project was to freeze the motion of water and blur the motion of water. To control the final effect, I needed to maintain the shutter speed and adjust the camera's ISO and Aperture to help capture the main objective.

Blurr Motion

ISO: 800

Aperture: 10

Shutter Speed: 3''2

Freeze Motion

   

ISO: 6400

Aperture: 3.5

Shutter Speed: 1/800

Moving Water

 Moving Water for Sketches/Research/Ideas

Water Drop By: ljsummers on DeviantArt

Cite: Just click on the photo, or here 

water_drop_by_ljsummers-d5cl35w.jpg (900×584) (wixmp.com)

I really like this sketch for it resembles a Kings crown. Plus it will be a cool frozen shot.

Detail of a small rushing waterfall over rocks.

By: Dreamstime

Cite: Just click on the photo, or here 

Moving water stock image. Image of nature, purity, brown - 7041665 (dreamstime.com)

I really like this blurred photo, it so majestic and calming.

Research- I found some ideas in my mind, but I need to find out where and how I can approach these ideas in a way no one gets in trouble and I still have a great pic.  

Ideas- I would like to splash water in someone's face and capture a frozen pic that looks epic. But finding a subject to agree to this might be difficult. I do have another idea with two subjects splashing each other's faces but again finding those subjects will be quite difficult. For my idea for a blurred photo, I want to do the small pond behind a gazebo and capture the small waterfalls. But the only concern is whether I can be still enough to take this picture by hand, along with finding the right time in the evening to be able to have a long exposure and still have a great picture. 

24 Hour Project

24 Hour Project

This project was to carry our camera around for 24 hours and capture 10 words that are listed mean, cool, ugly, fast, green, dark, dirty, transient, ubiquitous, linear. Along with making 1 photo have a Large DOF and 1 photo to have a Shallow DOF. With all this you all have to consider the assessment criteria which was:

visual expression of words

camera work - good, even exposure

use of shallow DOF

use of large DOF

composition

creativity

critique participation

Not only all of this but we also had to make global adjustments in Lightroom.

I personally think trying to make adjustments ruined some of the photos, but some of the photos benefited from the adjustments. 

#1

Mean

ISO- 3600

Shutter Speed- 1/50

Aperture- 5.6

#2

Cool

ISO- 3600

Shutter Speed- 1/160

Aperture- 5.0

#3

Ugly

ISO- 6400

Shutter Speed- 1/400

Aperture- 5.0

#4

Fast

ISO- 1600

Shutter Speed- 1/50

Aperture- 5.6

#5

Green

ISO- 800

Shutter Speed- 1/8

Aperture- 10

#6

Dark

ISO- 6400

Shutter Speed- 1/25

Aperture- 4.5

#7

Dirty

ISO- 1600

Shutter Speed- 1/320

Aperture- 4.5

Large DOF

#8

Transient

ISO- 3600

Shutter Speed- 1/250

Aperture- 5.0

#9

Ubiquitous

ISO- 800

Shutter Speed- 1/50

Aperture- 4.5

Shallow DOF

#10

Linear

ISO- 1600

Shutter Speed- 1/4000

Aperture- 4.5

Using the Shallow DOF on #9 help bring out the image and focus on the label I was capturing.

Using the Large DOF on #7 help see every item that was in this van and notice how truly messy/dirty this was. 

 

Men of War

Tom Stoddart

Men of War

2003

01/31/2023

Perspective 

I looked through Gary Winogrand, Joel Sternfeld, Martin Parr, and Tom Stoddart on street photography. As I looked I liked a few of them but only one street photograph stood out to me and that was Tom Stoddart with the compositional element of expression, texture, and how the light helps you feel the depths of his eyes. This photo can be viewed differently by the different viewers and what knowledge they have of the photo and the time it was taken in along with the environment. For myself, it's emotional, historical, and nostalgic. As a viewer this photo makes me feel inspired to make a change to keep the war/fighting at bay. It helps me see the humanity in this world along with the deepness in his eyes you can sense what he has been through and the things he has seen that can't be unseen and his story is worth being told. 

Photo's Power

Lewis Hine's

 These photos ended child labor in the US - YouTube

How I feel when I looked at Lewis Hine's photos well, I was hurt that these kids went through so much and acted more like an adult than adults now. This one photo truly captured the child's pain hidden deep within her eyes but she doesn't complain because she is selfless for her family. How I think people would react to Hine's photos today is depression knowing that they never had to experience this when growing up but maybe get a new perspective of what they now have and get to enjoy. Honestly, I really don't know exactly only because everything has changed and human's ways of thinking and reason have changed since these photos times. I do think if these photos have the same style but shed light on something communities care about then absolutly because never underestimate the power one photo can bring, I have seen one photo bring the strongest man in the room down on his knees but photos don't only bring negative emotions photos can bring a light of love to people who have felt darkness for so long. 

Compostion and Lighting

Mushroom

Edward Weston

Mushroom

1940

January 25, 2023

IVENS' ARTIST DATABASE : Edward Weston (ivensart.blogspot.com)

The strengths of the composition and lighting of this Mushroom photo would have to be the intensity of the focus on the gills. While allowing the cap and the stem to blur in the background.  Not only does this shot seem close up but highly detailed. The lighting is set up so precisely to grab the effect Weston is obtaining. 

Instagram Street Photography

 Street Macadam

While looking through the different Instagram accounts I found a feed that struck me and hit deeper than the others. I know this was supposed to be 4 rows of the images in a screenshot but that's 12 photos in total and I thought I would pick out the ones that stood out to me and just make sure I have all 12 photos. I went with Street Macadam Instagram feed. 

Best Instagram Accounts for Street Photography | Photo Article (all-about-photo.com)

@street_macadam • Instagram photos and videos

What I like about this IG feed is the realness it has within the first 4 photos. There's just this undeniable blissfulness of life this photographer captures. It brings the real deepness of the small moments in life that you can't help but smile and wish we can go back in time and understand the simplicity life brought in every day. The other photos have so much going on and have so many different ways to look at them. What draws me into imagery is the texture and colors that are captured in a photo that portrays a story worth more than 1000 words could explain. I would love to emulate what I feel within a photo to help the viewer understand what happens so deep within that it can't possibly be explained in detail and all we can hope is the one photo we capture can deliver what words can't.