Period 1-Semester Final

Final Exam, Digital Photo
January 21, 2015
Periods 1 and 2

1. My favorite photograph from this Lens slideshow is number nine, the picture of the red deer.I love pictures of silhouettes because they create a calming mood. The mist around the deer also makes it look much more majestic than if it had been a picture of the deer in normal light. From this picture I feel that I can actually experience the cool water of the mist just through the photographer's eyes.

2. I believe the best picture is picture number two of the woman and the child. It captures the human emotion flawlessly. i can clearly see the despair in the child and the worry in the woman's face. Just through the picture, we can create a story or a reason about what is happening at that time. It is also probably the most difficult picture to capture because the photographer had to pick the correct time to capture this specific emotion to truly show his audience the emotions of the people going through those and similar experiences. The photographer captured the range of emotions on the woman's face, from worry, to stress, to despair all at once which takes a lot of skill as well.

3. I believe that my best work this semester occurred during the  Master Photographers Assignment. It helped to have a picture that I could keep as a base and that I could work off of. I believe that this is my best work because I was able to incorporate our photographer, Irving Penn's elements and pictures into my own photographs that resemble his. The project helped me grow as a photographer because it made me look at everyday things such as matchboxes from a unique perspective. I especially love the picture of the woman's eye in the compact mirror which I attempted to recreate in my own project. It is my favorite picture of the five I chose simply because it is taken with such a unique perspective. If I had more time, I would try to incorporate more of my elements into the photographs so that they don't look too similar to the original ones. 

4. My three rules of composition are viewpoint, framing, and simplification.

5. This is my third composition rule photo. 

I used simplification and viewpoint by blurring out the background

 so the attention is on the flower and also taking the picture

 from the bottom as opposed to the front.

6. Your first rule is the rule of thirds. 

7.  Teamwork is really important in photography. 

• easier to come up with picture ideas
• good, honest critiquing
• more efficient in finishing projects
• make project more enjoyable so that it is not a chore thus creating better photographs
• makes it easier to talk with others about your ideas and what you think is best

8. Working in teams can also be a digression.

• distractions
• conflicting ideas
• taking the criticism negatively
• no cooperation between members
• if tasks aren't spread out equally it can cause issues

9. One of my favorite projects produced by someone else in the class is Aileen Hsu's Master Photography Assignment, especially the picture with the umbrella. I really loved the way she added her own twist to Penn's picture of the girl with the umbrella. Aileen's picture was very innovative yet still had roots in Irving Penn's work.

10. Our photographer was Irving Penn, a grand master of American fashion photography. Using his "less is more" concept, he defined a visual style to such varied objects from designer dresses to cigarette butts. In 1943, when Penn started working for Vogue, the fashion magazine, he became one of the first commercial photographers to cross the chasm that separated art and commercial photography, which has got to be one of his most significant contributions to the photography field.

11. Dorothea Lange's best-known picture is called the "Migrant Mother". It was taken in Nipomo, California in the year 1936. After taking a job in the Resettlement Administration, Lange took this picture among others.

12. The Life magazine was very first published on January 4, 1883 as a humor and general interest magazine which stopped in 1972. 

13. Elvis Presley was born on January 8, 1935. 

14. Robert Capa was one of the founding members of Magnum Photos, the first cooperative agency for freelance photographers, which was founded in 1947. 

Top Album Covers: AC/DC: Highway to Hell

Masters of Photography Project Reflection

I thought that this project was really fun and allowed me to experiment with a different style of photography. However, i don't think it accurately represents my work as a student because I was mostly attempting to imitate our photographer, Irving Penn's own style. This slightly restricted the addition of my own element into the pictures and I tried too hard to imitate them. I did enjoy the project, though, as it helped me look at my environment in a unique way. In addition, I would have also liked to take more pictures off school campus, which I did for some of the pictures. I came into the class thinking that photography was easy and not worth paying too much attention to. But I soon realized that it is harder than it looks and requires a lot of concentration and skill. 

The Master's photographer's project helped me realize how difficult it is to just imitate someone's pictures, let alone coming up with the ideas. I admire photographers more now and have learned some valuable lessons to help me become better. Teamwork is really important in photography. Only if the subject and photographer work as a team, can the photos turn out well. It is essential in order to create good pictures. Without proper teamwork, it is hard to come up with ideas and actually take the pictures as well. It also helps when we are in a team because then we can critique each other and help each other create better pictures. However, some disadvantages include distractions, and conflicting ideas, which can result in terrible pictures. I think that if I had to do the project again, I would work more closely with my group and try to incorporate more of my style into the pictures. 

Masters of Photography - Irving Penn

Irving Penn took household objects as well such as matchboxes and
 fruits to bring attention to those things that people usually overlook in our
daily lives. That type of pictures of his is what inspired me to take this one.

 Irving Penn did a lot of fashion photography especially for the Vogue magazine.
This one is one of the pictures that caught my eye of  a lady looking
into a mirror. I used a compact instead of the box mirror
 that he had used which inspired me to take this picture.

Penn was most known for taking portraits of people and
so I picked some of the portraits that caught my eye and
used their influence to take these pictures.

Irving Penn takes pictures of ordinary objects like shoes and
 brings attention to them which inspired me to take this picture.

Reflection

Irving Penn was born in Plain field, New Jersey in 1917 and died in New York, New York in 2009. He has traveled from New York to London and even Morocco to take pictures.  Most of his objects were people. He took many portraits and mainly focused on people as his subject.  However he also took pictures of a lot of still life such as shoes and fruits. 

Irving Penn is unique in that he takes pictures of things that people don't normally pay ttention to. For example, he tok a picture of a matchbox, which is something that people use but don't pay much attention too. I think that this makes him unique. We chose this photographer because when I looked him up,. his pictures were so out of the box. He looks at things from a completely different point of view and that definitely caught my attention. 

Irving Penn inspired me to look at simple things from a new point of view. He did a lot of fashion photography but didn't always ask the model to do regular poses. instead he asked them to do different and sometimes weird things which made it easier for him to catch people's attention with his pictures. In the beginning, I wasn't too interested in his pictures because something of them are weird and awkward to try and recreate. But soon I realized that I liked looking through all of his pictures and it was really fun to take pictures similiar to the ones Irving Penn has taken.I enjoyed looking at things from a similiar perspective to his. After looking through his pictures, i understand that he is a great photographer who looked at the world in his own unique way. 

ATPI Contest

"Every Sunset brings the promise of a new dawn."

Second Portrait-Another Group: Nitya

Composition Review-3 Rules

Before

After
My Three Rules
Viewpoint-picture is taking from the bottom instead of eye level
Framing- there is a circle around the eye that frames it
Simplification- brings the focus to the eye
http://www.photographymad.com/pages/view/10-top-photography-composition-rules
http://www.digitalcameraworld.com/2012/04/12/10-rules-of-photo-composition-and-why-they-work/