Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Final Project Proposals!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
YAH!!!!!!!!

1.) I want to shoot portraits of people in vintage clothing in out of place environments. For example: taking a portrait of someone in a computer lab wearing clothing from a past time period i.e. 1980's 70's 60's and even 50's . I would get the clothing from goodwill/thrift stores/craigslist. Color and lighting will play a big role in this project, possibly using filters or post processing to give the photo a vintage or retro feel to them, Also I want the lighting to look like old photos maybe by using a flash or blown out highlights.

2.) Another idea is environmental portraits, environmental meaning shooting portraits outdoors using reflectors or long exposure night portraits. I want the photos to feel unnatural in a natural environment, to do this I will put the sitter in clothes that are to delicate/clean to be in a rugged outdoor environment or clothes that are overly outdoorsy in a cleaner outdoor scenario. This project would take some research in lighting in the outdoors.

3.) I want to take still life's in studio and out of studio of small objects with the idea of making them look bigger than they actually are. I might have to take out a macro lens or use post processing to get the desired effect . The idea is to make ironic images of things that are just not meant to be big.

4.) For an easier project idea I might want to do a photo journalism project where I highlight the influence of the digital age in today's society and how modern devices impact our every day life.

Sunday, January 24, 2010

Richard Avedon:



This post is suppose to be about Richard Avedon Talking about his father in an interview but I don't have the article any more so I'm going to have to write most of it out of memory. I also wanted to add some stuff about Richard Avedon that I wish we went over.

We read this article that was an interview on Richard Avedon about how he takes portraits and who he shoots. At first when I read the article I thought that he was just another fine art nut job trying to make things seem more artistly complex then they actually are, however when i looked him up online a little more I found out that the article did not do him much justice. In the article he was basically talking about how taking portraits is like directing a stage that every thing is place some where for a reason. I know I am suppose to write about him and his father but it is just not memorable to me........wait hold that thought I just remembered the name of the article, its called "Borrowed Dogs" and I found it online so I'm going to read it again real quick.


Ok I just read the article again, now that I have refreshed my memory. Richard Avedon is trying to say that you might be able to take a good photo that captures some one looking good, but its not a really beautiful photograph unless you capture the true soul and essence of the person who they really are. For example he said that they had a portrait of his dad smiling sitting next to a piano, he said him and his family use to call the portrait "smilin' Jack Avedon" because thats not who his father actually was he wasn't that smiling guy sitting next to the piano, Richard Avedon said about his father "You are angry and hungry and alive.". Richard Avedon is in fact saying that you cant just take a picture of your subject but you have to take a picture of who they actually are not who they are portraying to be.


It's funny that I am writing a response on this because I just wrote a response on Belinsky writings in the 19th century writings on realism and naturalism art. Belinsky says that your art isn't true unless you capture the truth and beauty of the subject, not to just record what you see or make a copy of the subject. I wanna put up some other stuff I found on Richard Avedon some stuff I really wish we went over in class.



This video is a Charlie Rose interview with Richard Avedon, and I think that he did a incredible just at describing what it takes to be a photographer.

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Friends










"Never shall I forget the days I spent with you. Continue to be my friend, as you will always find me yours."
- Ludwig van Beethoven


Family












The Family:

I was shooting the family over break and I was going to put up pictures for this blog post with them but i just found out that the photos that I edited for print did not save what I edited because I edited them on the lab computers so i to re-edited them and put them up. the only problem with that is it not going to look exactly like how I displayed them. shooting family was something easy for me because I have always shoot around family now I had a excuse to so i got to take more pictures without have to put up with so much whining I really like the shooting them it was like a break from the hard stuff in a way that its easy for me to get the photo I'm looking for because I'm so comfortable with them. It is also really nice to go home so the over all atmosphere is really good and up beat. When shooting family there is really no excuse for having an image that is distant you should be able to connect with your subject and get the emotion of the image.

I also wanted to put up images of my friend that I consider family that just didn't make it into my final cut. I'll put up the images for this blog post later tonight and then post a new one about photographing friends later tonight as well.