Sharing Images Assignment

My final project for this course is a submission of pictures from the entire semester of work. I chose to use instagram to display my photos because it's easy to use, it can be accessed by so many people from all over the world, it can link to other bios or sites so people can shop clothing, or makeup or book a photographer! The filters in other photo editing tools are better than the instagram ones but they're really easy to use and can improve a quick picture too. My instagram account is jsth_photography (name JH Photography) if you'd like to take a look!

Social Media and Photography

My youtube video link is sent in the assignment submission for viewing.

Looking at all the various photographers using instagram was cool, and made me think that you can use this because the format is easy, it's free, you can reach a high number of people very quickly from all over the world, and the quality of pictures looks good too because they are small in size.

Artist Study Info: Richard Avedon

Richard Avedon was a fashion photographer for over 60 years, from the States, that was quoted as saying “My portraits are more about me than they are about the people I photograph.” He was born on May 15^th, 1923 in New York and started working for Vogue in 1964, working there until 1988. He did a great deal of fashion photography but is also known for his series work photographing Western drifters, cowboys, miners and people that weren’t living in main stream society. He died in Texas while on assignment on October 1, 2004 when he was 81 years old of a brain hemmorage. His work is displayed in the Museum of Modern Art in New York, at the Art Institute of Chicago, and overseas in Switzerland and London.

Mr. Avedon loved photography from a very young age and joined a camera club when he was 12. He went to DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx and was a co-editor of a magazine at the school. Because of his work during these years, he earned the title of Poet Laureate of New York City High Schools in 1941. A year later he joined the armed forces and became a photographer with the U.S Merchant Marine during WWII where he was tasked with taking identity photographs. He did that for two years before leaving to become a professional photographer at the New School for Social Research.

When he was 22, he started doing freelance work and took to the streets to shoot models and fashion because he didn’t have access to a studio. He went to nightclubs, the circus, the beach and anywhere else unusual he could think to get pictures of people in an innovative and resourceful way.  This became his trademark. For his entire career he did formal portraits for Theatre Arts, Life, Look and Harper’s Bazaar magazines and loved showing peoples personality in their images he captured. A cool fact was that he quit working at Bazaaar magazine because people gave him grief for photographing models of color. That’s when he joined Vogue and worked there for 20 years. He was talented and many famous labels used him for their brand work and created some terrific campaigns for Calvin Klein, Revlon, Versace and more.

Some of my favorite pictures he took were “Napalm victim, Saigon, South Vietnam, April 1971”; “Bob Dylan, singer, New York City, Feb 10, 1965”; “Dovima with elephants, evening dress by Dior, Cirque d’Hiver, Paris, August 1955”; and “Kate Moss and Aya Thorgren, Versace Spring/Summer 1993 campaign, New York, November 12, 1992.”  All of these images are very unique and different, and all really make the person looking at the pictures think of a story that goes along with the image.  Although he’s known for his fashion photography, a special gift of his was his ‘minimalist’ portraits, and that’s what most of these ones are.

To take pictures over his 60 year career, his equipment understandably evolved, but the two main formats he used was a medium format camera that created 6x6cm negatives and later he used a large format 8x10 Deardorff camera that created 8x10 inch negatives.  When he took pictures of Twiggy, the British modeling sensation, at the age of 17, he was using a Rolleiflex camera and captured some of the best pictures of her alive in the moment.

His legacy lives on and is still known as an influential fashion photographer. Many people try to imitate his style and because of him, generations of models have been shot using the most unusual backdrops and busy places. He just had a natural flair for capturing his subjects and was passionate about expressing that. Although he was always bouncing and jumping around full of energy, he was also sad inside.  Some think that was because he lost his sister at the age of 42 who suffered from mental illness. His photography was a performance, and once he was done, he could revert back to being his subdued (and sometimes sad) self. Although much of his photography was appreciated, hailed and emulated, some of it was criticized.  Most would say that was because people were jealous and envious of him, his success and his body of work.

Image Manipulation

1) Over/Under
       - this first picture is overexposed and I think the effect is kinda cool.  It was wintery-cool outside, so the white wash picture seems fitting.

     - this picture was underexposed as an almost silhouette. It makes the image stand out and focus on the two people having a moment together that was caught by my camera! 

2. Cutoffs:  I loved taking pictures of my sister and my cousin, and my sister and her two best friends.  Once I zoomed in I realized I didn't need their whole heads in the picture to get a great shot. 

#3 Hand bone connected to the foot bone.  My sister and I have matching tattoo's that we got when she moved away for University.  We wanted something to hold onto while we were a province apart, and decided on these words "an unbreakable bond" which is what the two of us will always have.  It was tricky getting the right angle so it looked cool instead of me just standing over our feet.  I started with the feet both facing the same way, but once I made her move to connect our words and let them flow, I really liked the shot! 

Option 2- Layers Portrait

I tried to take a few pictures taken at the same time, on the same day of my sister Sarah.  I didn't realize how much the light changed depending on my camera settings or how close she was to me. I chose the main picture because I loved the light shining through the trees and her caught like she was just walking through the trees, but the other ones are posed and the light wasn't as good, so I put them all on this image.

I played around with a variety of filters- very cool.  I settled on the Stylize Find Edges for top left, Stained Glass for top right where I changed the cell size to 11 and the light intensity to 3.  Bottom left I used Sumi-E filtering and decreased the contrast to 11 for that picture and finally bottom right I used Sketch Note Paper where I had to decrease the image balance to 19 so I could make out her face.

For this next image I put a layer on top of the picture and filled it with the paintbrush a purple color. I decreased the opacity to 60% and applied a stained glass filter.  I then erased the top layer on their faces and a bit of their hair too.  

Before and After:  I changed the vibrance (increased it) and altered the hue and saturation to where I thought the picture looked best and then cropped it a bit too.

 Finally I took this picture of Sarah but thought it looked very flat.  I just increased the brightness and saturation and cropped it in and then added the words that make me think of her always. 

Image Adjustments

Before/After using photo editing tutorial: 

Image 1- Original Given to us.

Image 2: Own Photo Before (top) After (below)

Photography Basics Assignment

1. Depth of File Photo Pair:

This picture was taken using a Canon Rebel EOS7D with the AV settings changed.  This picture information is ISO 400; f/5; 1/4 . Although the light isn't good, so not everything in the picture is in focus, there is much more in focus than in the second picture taken with different settings.

This picture was taken using the same camera with AV settings changed again.  This one has information of f/1.4; 1/50 and the same ISO 400. 

As you can see in this picture, almost everything in the picture except the front frame is blurred.  I didn't realize there'd ever be a time you'd want part of a picture blurry, but see now that you can eliminate people from looking at things you don't want them to focus on by setting your camera to take narrow depth of field pictures.

2. Motion Capture Pair:

Fast Shutter Speed almost looks like the drops are suspended in air. This was shot with a Canon EOS7D with f/2.2 and shutter up to 1/2000.

 Slow shutter speed looks like it's all a continuous stream.  Shot with a Canon EOS7D with f/8 and shutter only at 1/13.

Intro to Photography Assignment

1. Aerial Photograhy- I didn't think much about taking pictures from higher or lower than where I was standing before, and didn't really think it would make that much of a difference, but my cousin came in to take pictures of Sarah in her grad dress with his drone, and I think they are very cool! I'd never be able to take pictures like this from this perspective with a point-and-shoot camera or my phone.

2. Wedding photography:  I was drawn to these pictures because they are not the normal wedding pictures. They are fun, and looking at them you can see the good natured fun between "no- we're your boys, stay with us" and "we're married, you're coming with me.lol"

3. Next is from the nature category.  I could have looked at these all day.  They are so peaceful and serene, but this one is a little bit different as when I stared at it, it became not so peaceful, but powerful and symbolized strength to me. 

4. So many of the medical pictures I looked at were totally posed and 'phoney' like this one (they don't even stand around and smile all together like this on Grey's):

but medical pictures like this I enjoyed looking at because I want to be a paediatric surgeon so ones like this held my interest. 

5. For fashion, I used one of the pictures that was taken of me by TN Model and Talent (I own the photos) because I think it it shows off the purse and dress like it was intended.

6. For the landscape category I chose this picture again because it stood out as a bit different.  The light is cool on the bottom part, the rainbow beautiful and the lightning powerful but to me it's about the cactus that says 'throw whatever weather you'd like at me, I'm just gonna stand here and do my thing'. 

7. Portraiture is likely my favorite category, and that's what I like to take pictures of the most (my sister, friends, etc).  This picture actually made me sad to look at, but it's a beautiful picture and you can tell it was taken by a professional. 

8. Automotive photography is an area I thought I wouldn't like at all, because I'm not that really into cars or anything, but this picture was interesting because the light is awesome, and the contrast between the new bright and shiny car and the dingy background made for a really interesting picture.

9. This picture from the disaster category speaks for itself.  Destruction, sorrow, heavy, death. 

10. Finally to lighten things up, I looked through a series of bright colors, vibrant photos and settled on this one.  It's cultural, bright, fun and light.