Edward Weston Continued

Here are two more of my images for Edward Weston this week. Every picture I've taken I have tried to incorporate some aspect of Weston's photography. Below these images are the pictures that inspired me to take these. 

Big Project.. Continued

As I am continuing doing Edward Weston, I am realizing that I am moving farther away from his object pictures (pepper, shell, etc.) and closer to his landscapes. His diversity in his landscapes has really caught my attention this week. He took a lot of landscapes including the ocean and since we live right on the ocean, that makes recreating his images very easy. I love how he takes pictures of the ground, and rocks, and trees because the simplicity of these things turns out to be beautiful. Here are some of my pictures this week, they were all taken on an iPhone 4s.

This photo was taken at Lanescove and the best part about it is the clouds. In color, the sky is very bright with lots of blues and pinks but when put into black and white you can really just focus your attention to the clouds. Edward Weston loved taking pictures of the sky so this photo definitely falls under his type of photography. 

This was taken int he woods behind my house, the little brook that runs through the rocks makes this a very interesting picture. i think that if i had taken the picture with my camera angled upward it would've had better composition. This is kind of straight on photography which is int he style of Weston, but the composition and angle could have been more interesting. 

This picture was taken over Christmas vacation when i was in Vermont skiing. They had just gotten a lot of snow and it was -20 degrees so there was ice everywhere! In the woods, a lot of the tree branches were hanging down on the ground because the ice that had formed around the branches was weighing it down. I thought that it was a great find, something that only happens at certain temperatures and for sure one of nature's little phenomenons. 

Big Project Week 2

For my second week of the big project, I tried to focus on Edward Weston's landscapes. He has many beautiful landscapes including the ocean, rocks, and plant life- all things which we have here in Gloucester. To take pictures of the ocean I went behind my house to the rocks were there are some great waves. With the water crashing up on the rocks and the beautiful blue sky, the pictures came out awesome. They are very beautiful in color also, but as I was trying to make works int he style of Weston, I chose to make them black and white. Here are my pictures of this week:

Now these are Edward Weston's pictures that inspired me to take these photos. 

Big Project: Edward Weston

These are my first three pictures in the style of Edward Weston. Edward Weston is known for his straight photography, which I tried to be replicate in my pictures of the vegetables. Weston's picture of the pepper is my favorite of all his pictures because it makes something so ordinary look beautiful and creative. To take these photos I had to create a black backdrop. I also had to get a big light to shine on the vegetables from certain angles. I think that by creating this falsely lit environment it creates beautiful shadows. If I tried this again, I think I would use different material for the backdrop because I think this material takes too much attention off of the subject because it is too noticable. The picture of the mountain was taken in Jeffersonville, Vermont on my ski trip. Weston was also very well known for his landscapes and his straight forward but detailed approach. I tried to replicate that by focusing on the mountain straight on but including all the details of the trees surrounding it. This is proving to be a very difficult process but I am learning more about my photographer by trying to recreate images inspired by his style. Here are my first images:

THE BIG PROJECT

For the Big project, I will be studying and taking pictures in the style of Edward Weston. He was a great photographer who took images in what is known as "straight photography". For this assignment I want to mostly focus on his series with peppers because I think its amazing how something so simple can be turned into such a beautiful image with just light and shadows. He also is known for his beautiful landscapes. Here are some of his images:

Natural Light Pre-Assignment

Our next assignment is natural light portraiture. I am looking forward to this challenge because we haven't photographed any people yet and I'm excited to see how that goes. To take portraits inside, we need to find a source of natural light, or a window. If we need more light we have to use white cardboard as a reflective surface. These pictures should capture something special about the subject. I am going to try to take pictures of my mom cooking or my brother-in-law playing the piano. Another new thing I'm going to try is using my iPhone. A lot of famous photographers use their iPhone to make great images so I am going to try that as well. If it doesn't work, or come out the way I want then I will go back to using the regular cameras.

Here are some examples of natural light portraiture.



I really like this picture because I think the highlights of her face are not blown out and the "dark side" of her face still has some light too. The lighting in this picture is perfect and it's a great example of portraiture.  



Here's another example of natural light portraiture but in color. His eyes are positioned correctly, if he was looking towards the camera with his face in the same position his eyes would be too far in the corner. One thing to remember about portraiture is that you want the subject's eyes to stay centralized to not make them creepy-looking. Again, the light is beautiful in this picture, perfect highlights but still with light on the opposite side.

Near & Far Post Assignment

The Near & Far Assignment was quite a challenge. One of the biggest obstacles for me was finding a good landscape. I don't have my license so I can't drive to a landscape in Gloucester without making my mom be willing to drive me there. This makes my options for landscapes limited, which is why two out of the three are actually from Gloucester High School. Another difficult thing was getting the greatest depth of field while making he entire picture focused. It was difficult to focus on the thing int he middle and still get a crystal clear picture. I took a lot of photos for this assignment but most of them are not quite what I was hoping for. Here are three of the photos I took for this landscape assignment.