Advanced Composition
In these photos, the goal was to take a rather simple picture the viewer could extract a story from. I had my friend Andrea model for me in both pictures, and I'm pretty proud of the results.
The first has her ascending a flight of stairs toward an open door, which has been grayed out as well as the rest of the background. I wanted to portray her as someone entering a world she may or may not fit into. It was meant to have a mysterious sort of vibe, and I feel the editing of the background helped achieved that. |
This second photo was taken after we were taught how to use reflectors to bounce back light onto the model, instead of relying on broad daylight for our composition. Her jacket matched the colored spray paint on the wall, so I had her head tilted up to look at it, as well as the beige arrow nearby pointing to the spot next to her. It probably would have stood out more if I had her sit right underneath it. I'm proud of the outcome, though I wish the shadow behind her wasn't so obvious, and that the arrow was more clear to point out.
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Advanced Lighting
For this second assignment, we were required to take a picture while using the strobe for lighting instead of usual daylight. I first had Andrea pose with a somewhat lonely expression - which I know is a really cliche idea now - though I began to realize it wasn't really fitting her. She started to make weird faces while I was figuring out what else to do and I would randomly take pictures, and the best ones I took were when she was genuinely laughing. I got rid of the depressed-looking photos and continued to have her smile and laugh and just enjoy "the flashies." I think I was pretty successful with these pictures because since they weren't exactly planned, it gave more of a natural look versus the stiff postures of trying to get something exact. And Andrea just looks hella cute when she smiles and I'm so glad I captured it.
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Still Life Image
The assignment here was to set up a still life composition that looked natural, but also told some sort of story the viewer could draw out. I based this set up on something I could relate to myself: procrastination. There's a pile of books stacked on a desk to signify having to read or do homework. However, surrounding the books are a collection of electronics (an Xbox controller, a PSP, and a Nintendo 3DS), things most teenagers own that distract them from school and doing work. They're purposely positioned in front of the books, and because each device is familiar to most eyes, steal the attention. The headphones guide the viewer's eyes around the electronics, and very rarely do they land on the books behind it all. I also blurred the background a bit to help focus on the composition, as it seemed too busy. I wish I could have experimented a little bit more with the choice of lighting, but I'm pretty satisfied with how this came out.
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High Dynamic Range Photography (HDR)
I'm fairly proud of the way this picture came out. We were assigned to take 3 pictures of the same scene, each with a different exposure, and then merge them all together using Photoshop. It was a bit difficult to stay still without the use of a tripod, but surprisingly, I managed to not move so much. I wanted something colorful and fun to look at, and I found the Circle in the Sun's poles fitting. The original picture - without messing with the exposure at all - is on the left. After merging the 3 pictures together in Photoshop, the resulting picture is on the right. The shapes appear sharper and there aren't any really dark or really light areas. A friend also edited the coloring to where the overall color wasn't so blue. I personally like it, because it adds a sunniness to the photo. If I had to change anything about the photo, though, I would have not included so much of the blurred pillar in the front; it takes almost half of the whole composition and I literally just realized how out of place it looks.
Visualizing Music
In this piece, we had to take a photo whilst exploring the theme of music. It had just finished raining before I went out to shoot this picture, and I felt that this image of one of the larger puddles around campus seemed to define the many different types of music there are. Some music can have a dark theme to it, while others are more lighter and cheerier in mood, or a mix of both light and dark messages. Songs can also be busy with their beats or their lyrics, while others are more simplistic in tones. I really liked the composition of this picture with the leaves sort of surrounding the middle of the puddle, which reflects off the clear, yet cloudy sky above. In a way, it sort of represents the different ways a single song can be composed and made into something that appeals to a listener.
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Museum Piece
The objective of this assignment was to create our own piece in response to one of the many seen at the La Jolla / Downtown Museum of Contemporary Art. For my piece, I combined the themes of memory and perspective; the piece as a whole represents a vivid memory as shown with the colors and composition. However, I also incorporated tiles to give it a mosaic kind of feel. black tiles are meant to block out parts of the piece, while the clear pieces are meant to distort the image. This represents the idea of a memory not being completely clear: parts may be blocked out and hard to remember, while other parts are somewhat there, yet not completely.
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Comedy-esque Photo
The goal of this assignment was to simply take a funny picture. The first picture I had taken didn't initially do the job - even I didn't think it was funny - but I managed to come up with something that looked at the comedic device of irony in pictures. Handicap symbols are usually associated with ramps to assist to their needs, but never found near a flight of stairs. Stairs are literally the one obstacle handicapped people had to face, but people in wheelchairs having to face a flight of stairs simply does not work out.
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ROP Contest: Phone
This contest was open to photographs of three categories - black and white, colored, and a picture taken by a phone. This picture of an area of the school was taken by an iPhone 5. For a phone quality picture, I think it managed to capture the details of the flowers and leaves pretty nicely. At first, I thought the lighting was a bit unbalanced with the flowers' petals and the sidewalk in the upper right hand corner, but I believe the shadows and darkness within the leaves of the bush was enough to balance it out. If I were to change something about it, I wish I would have taken the picture at a different angle, as this angle makes the bush and the flowers appear to be cluttered and disorganized.
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Self Portrait
For this assignment, I wanted to base my self portrait off the idea of "creativity hitting me like a bang." I'm a fairly boring, uninteresting person at first glance, but when it comes to visual art, ideas hit me just like a bullet to the head. The composition for this picture came at me in the exact same manner.
I honestly had a bit of trouble, however, with trying to put the photo itself together. It was difficult to overlap myself properly over the paint splatter and blur the two together, while trying to keep it as "natural" looking as possible. I feel like if I had more experience in editing, it would have come out a bit cleaner, but for a first try at this type of picture, I'm satisfied. |