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.

Near & Far Pre-Assignment

This assignment is based on Ansel Adams (who I've previously written about earlier on my blog). The pictures we take are supposed to be landscapes with greater depth of field than normal. To do this, the camera must be on aperture priority, on the second highest aperture. The ISO can be low if it's a sunny day. The point of these pictures is to get the greatest distance with the greatest amount of clarity and detail. To do this, you need to pick three objects, one close, one in the middle and one far away. If you focus on the object in the middle, you will get the greatest depth of field. I have already taken some landscape pictures from the High School, but I am going to continue shooting at different areas if I can, to get some variety.

5 Rules of Composition

1.) Rule of Thirds
2.) Leading Lines
3.) Patterns
4.) Frame
5.) Fill the Frame

Book Assignment

1.) Photography Speaks:150 Photographers on their art
By- Brooks Johnson
Published By: Aperture Foundation, Inc. 2004
2.) Nonfiction Photography
By- Bunar Alexanian
Published By- Walker Creek Press
3.) A life in Photography
By- Edward Steichen
Published By: Doubleday & Company, Inc. 1963
4.) Weegee
By- Aperture Magazine
Published by- Aperture Foundation Inc, 1978
5.) Alfred Stieglitz: An American seer
By- Dorothy Norman
Published By- Aperture Biography, 1990
6.) Photography Reborn: Image making in the Digital Era
By- Jonathan Lipkin
Published By- Harry N. Abrams Inc. 2005
7.) Eisenstaedt's Giude to Photography
By- Alfred Eisensaedt
Published By- Viking Press 1978
8.) Paul Strand
By- Aperture Magazine
Published By- Aperture Foundation, Inc. 1987
9.) Eugene Atget
By- Aperture Magazine
Published By- Aperture Foundation, Inc. 1980
10.) Scenic Photography 101
By- Kerry Drager
Published By- Amphoto Books, 1999
11.) Ansel Adams
By- ?
Published BY- the Friends of Photography, 1984
12.) This is the American Earth
By- Ansel Adams & Nancy Newhall
Published By- Sierra Club, 1968]13.) The Americans
By- Robert Frank, Jack Kerouac
Published by- Steidl, 2008
14.) Black and White Photography: Basic Manual
By- Henry Horenstein
Published By- Little Brown & Co. 2005
15.) Men at Work
By- Lewis W. Hine
Published by- Dover Publications, 1977
16.) In Real Life: Six Women Photographers
By- Leslie Sills
Published By- Holiday House, 2000
17.) Other Realities
By- Jerry Uelsmann
Published By- Bulfinch Press, 2007
18.) The Photograph
By- Graham Clarke
Published By- Oxford University Press, 1997
19.) Photography Encyclopedia
By- Fred W McDarrah & Gloria S. McDarrah
Published By- Schirmer Books, 1999
20.) An Autobiography: Richard Avedon
By- Rochard Avedon
Published By- Random House Inc, 1993

Minor White

Minor White was born on July 9, 1908 in Minneapolis, Minnesota and earned his degree at the University of Minnesota in 1933. From there, White was originally a writer who then moved to Portland, Oregon in 1938 and joined the Oregon Camera Club. He spent two more years learning about photography at Columbia University. From 1946-1953 White served as the head of the photography department at the California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco. He co-founded the magazine, Aperture in 1952 with Ansel Adams, Dorothea Lange, and Barbara Morgan; and edited the magazine until 1975. White was known for his ideas of spiritual photography and still famous even years after his death in 1976.

Edward Weston

Edward Weston was a highly influential photographer who changed the techniques of 20th century photography. He was known for taking pictures with high amounts of detail and his pictures were usually from the American West since he lived in California. He started his photography business in 1911 opening his studio called Little Studio in Tropico. He was also one of he founders of the group f/64 along with Willard Van Dyke and Ansel Adams.









All of his pictures have very high detail in them and precise shadings of black and white. I really like his close ups of the vegetables because you don't see that detail in them every day, your eyes just skim over that. But when it's presented in front of you, you really notice the immense detail.

Walker Evans

Walker Evans, born November 3rd, 1903 in St.Louis Missouri is known for his photography during the Great Depression. He photographed "modern America in the making" for over fifty years, taking photographs from the 1920's until the early 1970's. He was known for taking pictures of people on the street in local cafes, bedrooms, or at a stand on the side of the road. During the Great Depression Evans photographed the workers and architecture of the Farm Security Administration (FSA) In Southeastern America. He worked for Fortune magazine as a staff photographer for twenty years until he became a professor for photography and graphic design at Yale University.




His pictures are really clear and sharp, I find this photo very interesting just to look at. It shows a different era of our history and it is quite fascinating,



This picture was part of his collection that was shown at the Museum of Modern Art called Walker Evans: American Photographs. This is one of his FSA photographs and I love the colors and the grey tones. The people are so interesting and I think their faces really tell a story of the Great Depression.



This is a very famous image of Walker Evan's. It is so simple but yet very interesting. Its so sharp and I think its just a well done photo.

Michael Carroll Pictures

Here are some images that Michael Carroll took.



The use of black and white makes these photos great, I love this image because you would never think how just a little hand could tell such a big story.



This image really depicts how awful these orphanages were and its really powerful.

Michael Carroll

Michael Carroll is a photographer who captured the horror story of Romanian orphans after the fall of the communist regime in 1989. Thousands of children were infected with HIV/AIDS and were dying every day. Carroll used his camera to document what was happening in Romania and bring it back to the US for media sources like the New York Times and the Boston Globe.  After seeing this tragedy, Carroll and many supports created the Romanian Children's Relief and it's partner, Fundatia Inocenti to help children and families in need and prevent child abandonment. Carroll's work in Romania opened the Western worlds' eyes to what was really happening in Romania at the time and helped bring them assistance. 

Romanian orphanages have come a long way since the tragedies of the 1990s but the children are still not in the level of care we would see proper for them. A lot of children are still being abandoned but overall the sanitation of the orphanages has gone up in recent years. 

Today Michael Carroll works as a freelance photographer and media consultant. His corporate clients have included Disney, Compaq, Malden Mills, Beth Israel Hospital, University of Massachusetts Medical Center, Boston Children's Hospital, American Express and General Motors Corp. (http://www.sxu.edu/student-life/ministry/crpd/sweeney/hand_held_film_general/bio_michael_carroll.asp) He is till the President of the Romanian Children's Relief.


http://www.sxu.edu/student-life/ministry/crpd/sweeney/hand_held_film_general/bio_michael_carroll.asp
http://www.romanianorphanministries.com/the-orphans-of-romania/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanian_orphans
http://www.romania-insider.com/hand-held-documentary-about-romanias-orphans-screened-in-bucharest-in-december/14613/

Edward Curtis

Edward Curtis was the most well-known photographer of native Americans. He produced many prints of Native American tribes that were all sepia-toned. his most famous work was The North American Indian (1907-1930) that had twenty volumes including poster-sized prints. The volumes were organized by tribe spanning over the regions of the Great Plains, the Great Basin, Plateau Region, Southwest, California, Pacific Northwest, and Alaska. He photographed over eighty tribes, giving the world the most famous depictions of Native Americans we still know today.


These photos show how Native Americans truly lived. I love the sepia tones, I think that it really makes the photograph unique.




I love the headdress on this man in the image. I think the colors and tones are great and it's just overall an amazing picture.

Once again I think we are lucky to have all these images of Native Americans that Curtis took. This just shows us so much about their lives.

Shutterspeed Priority Post-Assignment

One of the most difficult things about this project was timing. It is hard to get the perfect shot of someone in midair because you might miss it and it's hard to ever get it again. The continuous shooting setting on the camera really helped me with this assignment because it allowed me to take multiple pictures at once and see if any of them turned out right. Another difficult thing was focus. To focus the person before they get in the view of the camera is difficult and sometimes with the person in focus the rest of my picture would look really blurry which isn't the look i was going for. I think this project was really fun because i learned more about the settings on my camera and how to use them to get better pictures. I think some of my composition could have been better and I think it would be cool to photo-shop these pictures as if they're walking in air. I really want to learn how to do the photo-shop edit where you take out the stool but I will learn that eventually.


Here are my shutter speed pictures for this week,

This is my favorite photograph of the three. I made Dylan do it many times but I think this one came out so good. I love that you can see his face and how contrasting the white bar is to his clothes. I think it's really cool.

This picture is supposed to make it look like hes walking on thin air but the blurry background really irritates me. I had to lighten it in photo shop but that made the background pixilated and i don't like it. 

This photo is cool but i wish the railing wasn't in the background. 

Diane Arbus

Diane Arbus was born on march 14, 1929 and she died on July 26, 1971 from committing suicide. She went to the Fieldston School for ethical culture and married her childhood sweetheart, Allan Arbus, at the age of eighteen. They had two daughters, Doon and Amy before they divorced in 1969.

Diane Arbus is a photographer that is known for her square, black and white pictures of people in New York. What made her photographs unique was her subjects. You usually chose to take pictures of "freaks"; transgender, dwarf, giants, nudists, and circus performers. She had the belief that a camera was needed to expose truth and she did just that. She showed her audience a whole world of people they knew nothing about. These people are usually shunned from society and Arbus brought them to the center of attention with her photographs.


This photo is so disturbing but interesting you can't stop looking at it.

She photographed people that we normally don't feel comfortable around. The longer you look at it the more you're intrigued. I love it.

Her pictures have a sense of creepiness or weariness about them. The black and white makes them almost fake, like they are so surreal you can't stop looking at it. This photo is great composition with the matching outfits and them standing side by side it draws your eyes right away.

Jacob Riis

Jacob Riis was born in Denmark on May 3, 1849. He moved to New York City in 1870 when he was 21 years old. In New York he had little to no money so he experienced what it was like to be poor and live in the slums. When he got his job with the New York Tribune he made it his mission to expose the lives of the poor to the common public using photography. He was the first person to use flash powder so he could capture the lives of poverty at night. He appeared in Subscriber's Magazine and then created a full-length version of his work called "How the Other Half Live". His work was very expository and inspiring to many people.


This picture just shows how cramped the conditions these people where living in were. A lot of people had turned a blind eye to this extreme poverty until Riis exposed them.



Again, just amazing at capturing the emotion of these people.



This just shows us how different the times were back then. Our schools are not like this anymore so it is really interesting to see what these young children experienced.

Mary Ellen Mark

Mary Ellen Mark (1940) is an American photographer that is world renowned for her exhibitions, magazine work and multiple books. She was born in Philadelphia and attended Cheltenham High School and eventually received her degree in art history at the University of Pennsylvania in 1962. She has traveled all over the world since then to capture human nature in it's "highest degree of humanism". She works primarily in black and white and her subjects are people around the world who exhibit a theme of either loneliness, drug abuse, prostitution, or homelessness. Her images are so famous because everyone everywhere can relate to them. These things exist all over the world, making her photographs relatable and iconic.

 




These images are just AMAZING!! These pictures are just truly expository; they shed light on cultures and people we don't normally think about. These pictures are so inspiring me, it makes you think about the people in them, what their lives are like.

Julia Margaret Cameron

Julia Margaret Cameron was a British photographer in the late 1800's. She was born in 1815 and died in 1879. she received her first camera at the age of forty-eight. She began with no knowledge of photography and within eighteen months had submitted over 80 photos to the Victoria and Albert Museum and had arrangements with the print seller Colnaghi. she took pictures of people she knew and made them into celebrities. She was completely original and innovative.


These pictures are beautiful because you want to know what the model is thinking. what was Cameron's thoughts for this photo? What was she trying to convey? I love pictures of people because i think they tell a story more than any other types of photography.



One of the reasons her images are so interesting to me is because I never could have imagined this man. I don't know him, yet there he is, developing a story line that is open to my imagination.


Once again, just beautiful and original.

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/camr/hd_camr.htm
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