Portrait Techniques

One technique that interested me was alternate perspective. It's interesting because It brings out a view that you normally would not see in a photograph. Another technique is eye contact which can bring feeling to the photograph as the person's focus is not staring into the lens. Obscuring is also a good technique because is focuses your eyes on one part of the person and can bring out shadows and contrast. Lastly, introducing movement causes you to have a greater understanding of what is going on in the photo.

Famous Portraits

 Marylin Monroe Actress

5/6/1957, Anne Leibovitz

 Leibovitz takes photographs of famous people that are usually provocative and cause controversy. I chose this photograph because I know how famous Marylin Monroe was and that she affected American culture in a big way.

Woody Allen

1996, Arnold Newman

 He is known for taking photographs for magazines of famous people and set a standard in photography. I chose this photo because I know many of the films Woody Allen made.

 

Truman Capote

 1974, Richard Avedon

He took photographs of fashion and celebrity images. The photographs all had a blank white background to make the person stand out. I chose this photograph because one of his books was featured on Seinfeld.

History of Photography

I learned a couple different things doing this history of photography poster. One of which is how new photography is versus art and drawing. Humans have made artwork for tens of thousands of years and only in the last two hundred years have we had photography. Another thing I learned is the interesting ways photographs were taken in the 1800s. It took hours to get a photograph whereas right now it takes less than a second. Finally, I learned about the transition of photography from professionals to amateurs. When the Brownie camera came out in the early 1900s, it revolutionized the demographics of who can take pictures. This is important because it enables us to look into the lives of ordinary people back then.

Unusual Perspectives

This picture is of a clock that we have always had in our house. We have always had this and when it is silent, I hear it ticking. I finally learned Roman numerals by having to read the time on the clock too.

Hot. Cool. Yours.

Purpose:

• To strengthen your creative problem-solving skills so that you are looking at things in a different way;
• To find letters of the alphabet in everyday objects to create a word;
• To become familiar with basic Photoshop tools.

The first thing I learned whilst doing this project is that many things in our lives resemble letters and we might not know they do unless we really look at them. It's important to be able to see these things because it helps your recognition of words in everyday life. Another thing is how you can make objects that ordinarily don't resemble letters look like them. Such as with the air duct in the 'S' in "Yours". The last thing I learned is how contrast and brightness can have an effect on the values in the photograph. By increasing contrast, the difference in value of light and dark becomes greater. This is helpful as it can make outlines of objects show up better.

Composition

This picture I took used the motion blurred compositional strategy to show motion. The exposure timing of the photograph was set long which caused the lights of the ferry to trail behind it. This showed the movement of the object without using the action setting. Since it was at night, the only features were the ferry's lights which through a telephoto lens made them trail off. The photograph shows motion of the ferry at night and it's reflection on the water.

Shapes, Organic and Geometric

I took this picture because it is of my favorite car brand and the salt residue and dirt reminds me of the commercials that say, "built Ford tough". I set my camera to macro mode so I could a close up image. Another reason for taking the picture is that the Ford logo was sold during 2009 when car manufacturers were going bankrupt. Because of this, Ford was one of the few companies that didn't need a bailout from the government.