Part 1: What I've Done
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| St. Ann St. f 8 1/250 sec My favorite part of this photograph is the vibrant color in the bricks, sky, and flowers. You can also see the colorization in the railings surrounding the building. I love this because of the angle and composition of this photo. It was a photo I took quickly, set up f-stop and shutter speed well, and encompassed what I wanted to show. It showed myself how much I had grown as a photographer throughout the semester. It may not show in the picture significantly, but I saw it in my actions. |
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| The Candle Man f 4.5 1.6 sec This was a photograph from the first project, and after seeing it I thought, "wow this is serious quality". It may be my favorite picture I have taken for this class to date. I love the harsh lighting and the detail of the shadow and the rust showing on the can that makes it special. The angle it was taken at, with the blurred background of the workshop creates a nice affect in the photo. |
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| Dawn Before the Dark f 5.6 1/125 sec I was extremely proud in the capturing (again) of lighting and detail within this picture. I wanted to capture a warmth, which I think I found successfully. This point was a turning point for me because I took this picture from many angles, and I worked with the shutter and f-stop more than ever before. I think I took twenty shots to get this one, but it was worth it. I finally found the patience needed for a great shot. |
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| Let Some Light In Montage I love this picture because it was random and is not perfect. This was taken from the "Beautiful Apocalypse" project and was taken sort of at random, not an extremely well thought out or seriously focused shot. I love it because of that reason; for me, the photo does not have to be brilliant or perfectly thought out to be beautiful. I loved in this the lighting and the color in the sky in contrast of the dark, dirty window, and the dark dying tree. It was light in the doom, which seemed very interesting to me. |
Part 2: What I Think
1. "In the preface to the second edition (1843) of The Essence of Christianity, Feuerbach observes about 'our era' that it 'prefers the image to the thing, the copy to the original, the representation to the reality, appearance to being'. For the images that have virtually unlimited authority in a modern society are mainly photographic images..."
Photography surrounds us in our everyday lives, whether or not we see it consciously. We see it on everything from the background to our computers, phone, iPads, and other devices, to the photos in our books, to photos on the wall. We may not construed all of it as photography. Either way we look at it though, the photography moves our lives in one way or another, whether it be consciously or subconsciously. In some situations, photograpghy is perferred to the real thing, but in some situations the beauty of the actual thing is more interesting than a picture, just becasue the photo can not grasp the detail of beauty within the simplicity. Art is a questionable subject, but it is beautiful all the same.
With photography being almost everywhere we look, it is hard not to be influenced by it, even if we do not always see it. In the sense of a faith point of view, it is hard to keep morally intact when looking at nine out of ten photos we are incountered with. Most photographs that we realize we are seeing are within ads, and many of those ads are extremely sexual. Not in a beautiful form of sexuality that we could see in art, but in an extremely fake, vulgar sense of the word. We perfer the images we see to the real life being of a human. In that same sense, it is not hard to see why people turn to pornography, tainting their views on what used to be harmless art. It is just as easy, though, for photography to enhance faith rather than hinder it. I have a friend who went through an extremely hard time for a few years, and the only thing that brought him out of it was photography. He said he found God in nature, and in turn he found that beauty of nature within photography. It grounded him, as the simple beauty can to so many others.
While it is easy to see photography as just mindless pictures, the essence of an image truly does affect the mind in some way. Whether it be for the worse, hurting a faith and morality in the sense of sexuality, or it be for the better, simplifying a mind and setting it closer to God and faith. Subconsciously, if it is seen or not, these photographs have some affect on the mentality of a person. In the end, the photograph may be seen as better than the actual thing, which can taint our mind and our mentality of our society as a whole in the end. It is up to the people to distinguish the reality form the imaginary, as the photograph could be biased in some way or another.
3. "What is written about a person or an event is frankly an interpretation, as are handmade visual statements, like paintings and drawings. Photographed images do not seem to be statements about the world so much as pieces of it, miniatures of reality that anyone can make or acquire."
Photographs are the interpretations of a real subject by an artist, just as is writing, paintings or drawings. Photographs, just like everything else could be biased, and almost fake in a sense. We learned within this class to edit, crop, sharpen, and color correct pictures, and we were able to emphasize whatever we so desired in the picture. In the same way, photographs in ads are photo shopped to be perfect beyond compare. They are solely interpretations of what the artist sees.
Drawings, painting, and writing are very similar in that aspect. They are all visual interpretations, whether through cropping and editing or through freehand and drawing, of what the artist depicts in their life. Photography, though, is still more realistic than drawings or paintings. Photography is up to interpretation to a point, as the photo is still an image of the actual item. Drawings and paintings can be endlessly interpreted by artists that are creating them. It is all up to the artist whereas photography is not always.
Due to these interpretations, photographs, just as any art, are interpretations of something, because it is all that the artist wants you to see. They have the ability to block your view of something that is happening to or for that artist. All art is an expressions of something else, and that is the beauty of it in the end.
Part 3: What I'll Do
1. I take photographs because I love having the ability to capture a moment for a lifetime. It is cliche, but I believe a picture is worth a thousand words, and I being an avid reader, I feel I could capture an entire story in one picture if I tried hard enough. It can be simple or extravagant, but it is always beautiful and emotional, and I love being a part of that.
2. I have found a way to care more about what I am doing. While in the past I took pictures and just did not care about what went into it (I just snapped a shot and hoped for the best), I have now sharpened the skill to make the picture really count. It matters more to me now what the end product did than it ever has before.
3. I need to sharpen the skill to find the right angle and lighting (f-stop too). I seem to have the idea of what I want to accomplish in my head, I can just never get it right. I am my biggest critic, but I think it is really just because I still have not put enough time and patience into the skill.
4. Everything is a photograph now. When I was in New Orleans, I saw how each angle and detail of every building I saw could be a photograph and I figured out how to try that. It was not just a building, it was all art. It is easier for me to find the shot, and I may not always take it, but it makes me value the scenery more than I ever did before.
5. When I was in New Orleans, taking pictures for my Student Choice Project, many people saw me with my camera. Seeing that I was not taking typical touristy pics, some local artists that would be set up in the area would ask me what I was doing. I never had tot tell them I was a high school student, I just had to tell them I was trying to get some photography, and that's all they needed. I felt like it was more than just a school project at that point, I felt like an actual artist at that point in time.
1. "In the preface to the second edition (1843) of The Essence of Christianity, Feuerbach observes about 'our era' that it 'prefers the image to the thing, the copy to the original, the representation to the reality, appearance to being'. For the images that have virtually unlimited authority in a modern society are mainly photographic images..."
Photography surrounds us in our everyday lives, whether or not we see it consciously. We see it on everything from the background to our computers, phone, iPads, and other devices, to the photos in our books, to photos on the wall. We may not construed all of it as photography. Either way we look at it though, the photography moves our lives in one way or another, whether it be consciously or subconsciously. In some situations, photograpghy is perferred to the real thing, but in some situations the beauty of the actual thing is more interesting than a picture, just becasue the photo can not grasp the detail of beauty within the simplicity. Art is a questionable subject, but it is beautiful all the same.
With photography being almost everywhere we look, it is hard not to be influenced by it, even if we do not always see it. In the sense of a faith point of view, it is hard to keep morally intact when looking at nine out of ten photos we are incountered with. Most photographs that we realize we are seeing are within ads, and many of those ads are extremely sexual. Not in a beautiful form of sexuality that we could see in art, but in an extremely fake, vulgar sense of the word. We perfer the images we see to the real life being of a human. In that same sense, it is not hard to see why people turn to pornography, tainting their views on what used to be harmless art. It is just as easy, though, for photography to enhance faith rather than hinder it. I have a friend who went through an extremely hard time for a few years, and the only thing that brought him out of it was photography. He said he found God in nature, and in turn he found that beauty of nature within photography. It grounded him, as the simple beauty can to so many others.
While it is easy to see photography as just mindless pictures, the essence of an image truly does affect the mind in some way. Whether it be for the worse, hurting a faith and morality in the sense of sexuality, or it be for the better, simplifying a mind and setting it closer to God and faith. Subconsciously, if it is seen or not, these photographs have some affect on the mentality of a person. In the end, the photograph may be seen as better than the actual thing, which can taint our mind and our mentality of our society as a whole in the end. It is up to the people to distinguish the reality form the imaginary, as the photograph could be biased in some way or another.
3. "What is written about a person or an event is frankly an interpretation, as are handmade visual statements, like paintings and drawings. Photographed images do not seem to be statements about the world so much as pieces of it, miniatures of reality that anyone can make or acquire."
Photographs are the interpretations of a real subject by an artist, just as is writing, paintings or drawings. Photographs, just like everything else could be biased, and almost fake in a sense. We learned within this class to edit, crop, sharpen, and color correct pictures, and we were able to emphasize whatever we so desired in the picture. In the same way, photographs in ads are photo shopped to be perfect beyond compare. They are solely interpretations of what the artist sees.
Drawings, painting, and writing are very similar in that aspect. They are all visual interpretations, whether through cropping and editing or through freehand and drawing, of what the artist depicts in their life. Photography, though, is still more realistic than drawings or paintings. Photography is up to interpretation to a point, as the photo is still an image of the actual item. Drawings and paintings can be endlessly interpreted by artists that are creating them. It is all up to the artist whereas photography is not always.
Due to these interpretations, photographs, just as any art, are interpretations of something, because it is all that the artist wants you to see. They have the ability to block your view of something that is happening to or for that artist. All art is an expressions of something else, and that is the beauty of it in the end.
Part 3: What I'll Do
1. I take photographs because I love having the ability to capture a moment for a lifetime. It is cliche, but I believe a picture is worth a thousand words, and I being an avid reader, I feel I could capture an entire story in one picture if I tried hard enough. It can be simple or extravagant, but it is always beautiful and emotional, and I love being a part of that.
2. I have found a way to care more about what I am doing. While in the past I took pictures and just did not care about what went into it (I just snapped a shot and hoped for the best), I have now sharpened the skill to make the picture really count. It matters more to me now what the end product did than it ever has before.
3. I need to sharpen the skill to find the right angle and lighting (f-stop too). I seem to have the idea of what I want to accomplish in my head, I can just never get it right. I am my biggest critic, but I think it is really just because I still have not put enough time and patience into the skill.
4. Everything is a photograph now. When I was in New Orleans, I saw how each angle and detail of every building I saw could be a photograph and I figured out how to try that. It was not just a building, it was all art. It is easier for me to find the shot, and I may not always take it, but it makes me value the scenery more than I ever did before.
5. When I was in New Orleans, taking pictures for my Student Choice Project, many people saw me with my camera. Seeing that I was not taking typical touristy pics, some local artists that would be set up in the area would ask me what I was doing. I never had tot tell them I was a high school student, I just had to tell them I was trying to get some photography, and that's all they needed. I felt like it was more than just a school project at that point, I felt like an actual artist at that point in time.
