Imogen Cunningham

Imogen Cunningham was born in 1883 in Portland Oregon. She started her career early at the age of eighteen with her first camera and continued taking pictures up until her death at the age of 93.Cunningham made great strides in the world of photography, being one of the first women to make a career out of photography. She is known for her up close pictures of flowers in the 1920's. She used natural light and extreme sharpness to define her images. Cunningham was also one of the co founders of the group f/64 along with Ansel Adams and Edward Weston. She was an amazing photographer and here are some of my favorite images of hers.

Paul Strand photos

Here are some of my Paul Strand Photos, my personal favorites are the bottom three photographs only because I think they capture the extreme white/black contrast the best. 

Final Bad Photos

Here are my final bad photos for the first assignment

Paul Strand (Pre-assignment Biography)

         Paul Strand (1890-1976) was an American photographer who focused mainly in black and white and shaped the way Americans in the modernism age viewed photography. He traveled around the world in the twentieth century to take beautiful pictures that focus on surface detail, shadows, and most importantly; light. He was known for capturing the light in scenes like the city or up close pictures of nature, like leaves and driftwood. His pictures have a lot of interesting shadows and the intense contrast of black and white is what makes his photographs unique. He always puts one abstractly white thing and one abstractly black object in his pictures so the eye is captivated by the photo.
         To do this project successfully, I've researched Paul strand's images and put a few of my favorites below. I think the most important component of this assignment is to catch the light and to do straight-forward photography that when even in black and white you can "see the color". I really enjoy the pictures of driftwood and I plan on trying to capture some images of driftwood up close so you can see the unique designs and patterns. I don't want to constrain myself to one thing though, I also want to explore taking pictures of buildings and people. Hopefully some of my pictures will come out resembling those of Paul Strand's.

ANALYSIS OF BAD PHOTO ASSIGNMENT:
This post is late, but I am still getting used to checking the blog everyday and filling out he responses. One thing I learned from this project was basically how this works. I am new to Photoshop and uploading images, I am technologically challenged so this is very helpful or me! The assignment was to take bad photos and although that sounds easy, it certainly wasn't. It is actually hard to make one element of your picture "bad" but produce a beautiful photo. Honestly I think a lot of this happens with luck, when your bad photo is actually unique and captivating. Most of my photos were jut outright horrible, I get very confused with all the different settings on the camera and i haven't figured out how to master the different elements of exposure. I realized that to take some interesting photos I need to plan the assignment out ahead of time and try to go somewhere interesting. I was stuck with my dog this weekend and that was all I could take pictures of. I am definitely still learning and hopefully this Paul Strand assignment will show some improvement.

Ansel Adams

There are many many famous photographers in the world but one whose photos' caught my eye was Ansel Adams. He was a famous photographer spanning from the 1920's to the 1960's. He primarily worked with black and white photos because he claimed he could get “a far greater sense of ‘color’ through a well-planned and executed black-and-white image than [he had] ever achieved with color photography”. he was famous for taking landscape pictures of the American West and being an environmentalist. He invented the Zone system with Fred Archer, a photographic technique for finding the optimal film exposure and development. he also founded group f/64 which was a group of photographers that shared a certain style of crisp, sharp-focused photos of mainly Western landscapes int he U.S. Ansel Adams was an amazing photographer who was known for the depth and clarity in his photos. I found his photos beautiful and very inspiring because they show how moving and beautiful a black and white photo can be. 

here are some of his photos for your enjoyment :)

Bad Photo Assignment

Photographer- Laura Johnson

Model- Trevor

Aperture, ISO, shutter Speed Notes

Aperture, ISO, and shutter speed are all part of the Exposure triangle. Aperture controls the amount of light let in to the photo. To change the aperture you hold the AV button and rotate the wheel to make the number smaller or buggier. ISO is the camera's sensitivity to light. The higher an ISO speed the less light it needs for a picture. You can change the ISO speed accordingly if you are shooting indoors or outdoors. To change the ISO speed you press the up button (^) and change the number. Shutter speed is how fast the camera takes a picture, or how fast the shutter opens and closes.To change the shutter speed you turn the q\wheel on the top of the camera.

Light Walk

We definitely lucked out with this weekend with some of the most beautiful weather. My "Light walk" was actually quite eventful because my perfect photo opportunity came at my sister's wedding! She got married at Halibut Point State Park in Rockport on Saturday. It was very small and informal so I actually got the chance to use my sister's camera and be the "wedding photographer" for the day! It was absolutely gorgeous out so almost every angle was great. Some of the best photos came when we put the people opposite from the sun so even though they were squinting a little bit, the light was hitting everyone creating that happy atmosphere. We actually got a photo of everyone because a professional photographer happened to walk by and ask us if we wanted our photo. That was very cool to see how he moved around getting us from all different angles. The light was definitely perfect that day and it shone off the water to create that beautiful sparkly-day effect.