Assignment #4- High Key Low Key

Cup Before Developing

Cup After Developing

Pebbles Before Developing

Pebbles After Developing

Push Pin Before Developing

Push Pin After Developing

Crane Before Developing

Crane After Developing

I really really enjoyed this assignment, it was challenging and took a lot of time and effort to really set up a good shot. I found myself searching my house for white objects and black objects, and for the best backgrounds, and for lights I could use to set up my "studio". By the time I started shooting I had lamps and sheets and tons of little black and white objects scattered across the floor, with a tripod balanced somewhere among all that. I enjoyed shooting high key more than low key. I found that the composition of the high key photos were simpler and cleaner, and really brought out the object I was shooting, which made it really interesting to me. The lighting was really essential for the whites, getting a good shadow, and making sure it wouldn't interfere with the shot, getting the right angle of the camera on it to make it the most appealing. I am pretty pleased with the way that my high key photos turned out, although the focus on the pebbles is something that I might want to look at again. Low key photos were more challenging for me. First, finding objects was a challenge (I ended up just making the crane myself to get an object to shoot). Then I found that my backgrounds all looked grey from the light reflecting off of them and it took a lot of configuring of the lights and backgrounds to get it right. I found a tripod to be extremely helpful here, or at least a firm surface, becuase the exposures were so long I couldn't hold the camera still long enough.

             One of the main things I learned from this project is that bracketing is extremely important. I bracketed all my shots, sometimes several different times with different lighting or angles, and that really saved me. I also ended up print bracketing a lot on my assignments because they tended to look different on my screen then they did on paper. Whites are SO delicate. It was very very difficult to get the whites looking white, not grey, and to make it balanced just right so it wasn't over exposed, but still very white. Blacks were a little easier to print, although they tended to print darker than I wanted.

        So basically bracketing, tripod, lighting, shadows, and preperation were the key elements of this project for me. I loved it! I think I will do this again in the future, just for fun :)

Irving Penn 1917-2009

Irving Penn was a very interesting photographer of the 20th century. He was born in Plainfield New Jersey on June 16th 1917, and just recently passed away on October 7, 2009. He went to the Philadelphia Museum of Art at age 18 for 4 years, during which time he spend two summers working at the Harper Bazaar. His job at the Harper Bazaar was to make copies, and sketch shoes. At this point in his life he had no thoughts of becoming a photographer, only of an artist. In fact, at the age of 25 he spent a year in Mexico painting, at the end of which he decided that he would never be more than a mediocre painter and took up photography. He was later quoted as saying,

"I am a professional photographer because it is the best way I know to earn money I require to take care of my wife and children."

He led a very successful photographic career, his work being featured in among others, Vogue, Museum of Modern Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Addison Gallery of American Art, and the Baltimore Museum of Art. He had a wonderful variety in his work shooting during his career for editorial illustrations, advertising, photojournalism, portraits, still life, travel, and even television. In a phrase that captures his attitude towards such a wide expanse of material, he is quoted as saying,

"Photographing a cake can be art."

Or in others words, it doesn't matter WHAT you are shooting, it is all about HOW you shoot it. He is a rather inspiring photographer because his black and white shots are so simple, and yet they manage to affect my emotions, and leave an impact. It is a shame that he is no longer around to continue producing such beautiful work!

Assignment #3 Bracketing

These are my best shots from my bracketing assignment, they were really fun to shoot, playing with lights, reflections, shadows, and content. My troubles at first were with deciding what it was that I wanted to shoot. I ended up just looking aroung my house for cool little trinkets that we have gathereed over the years and setting them up in kind of neat situations, hence the clock globe and the flower candle. I really learned to appreciate a nice sturdy Tripod - it was beautiful! I had fun adjusting the angles and the height of the tripod to get the right lighting and all that. I learned that I am not as smart as I would like to think I am. What I thought was going to be the best exposure NEVER turned out to be the one I ended up liking the most. So I am fully convinced of the importance of bracketing. I think I am going to use this method a lot (within the reasonably usable exposures at least, probably not the super white or super black ones) to make sure I always get the best shot.

I really didn't have to do a ton of editing or developing, my shots were pretty good already from the bracketing. It did help to make the blacks and whites more defined though in each shot, instead of a grey tone over the whole thing. I loved the clarity and definity of the developed ones. Overall, I really liked this assigment, it opened my eyes alot (as well as my shutter speed :D )

Volleyball Before Developing

Volleyball After Developing

Candle Before Developing

Candle After Developing

Lamp Before Developing

Lamp After Developing

Clock Globe Before Developing:

Clock Globe After Devoloping:

Assignment #2 Numbers!! (again)

These sets of pictures are from a cool maze that I have inside of a ball. I used Macro mode and tried to get some cool shots of the complicated intricacies of the ball :) The lighting was a little off on a few of them, like 95 and 91, and the sharpness was not always up to par, but I think they turned out pretty neat anyways. They are complex, and yet simple with the number in there. Enjoy!

Assignment #2 Numbers!!

Balancing Act...


Experimentation with Shutter Speed, and moving the camera, turned out pretty nifty I think.




Shadows and light here were my main focus


Cool up close shot of pens!

Assignment #1- Scavenger Hunt

Peach Perfection - name that restaurant!!



Its just a random shot from my scavenger hunt that I liked.

Haiku!

Autumn Cicadas
A Most Beautiful Sound
A Nostalgic Past

EWOK

EWOK!! The Best kind of ewok is an ALIVE AND WELL one :)