This is a thumbnail shot of the mess that my room is right now. It is by far my greatest weakness and frustration in life. I have a smallish room and a lot of stuff and keeping it clean is a daily challenge that I fail at time and time again. This is an interesting picture of how this chair has been used for holding stuff instead of for sitting on. Its use has been shifted and re-evaluated to fit my every day need for it. I feel as if this happens with a lot of things we own. We own too much and don't use very much of it half the time. I thought this picture was a good example of that lifestyle and a good reason to evaluate what we own and how we use it.
Sometimes we look in the mirror and forget who we really are. This image is meant to be comical and at the same time a harsh reality. This funny looking mug is looking at himself for the first time and the facial expression shows a very real human emotion. Compositionally it is set up to bounce the eye back and forth between the object and it's reflection which keeps the eye within the picture plane.
I enjoyed the challenge of trying to take a sincere portrait of someone who is not a fan of being in front of the camera. I was trying to use the toned down color scheme and the environment to say something about how I view the subject. I thought this composition was the most successful out of the portraits I have taken so far.
While experimenting with my camera out of doors shortly after a snowstorm, I discovered that it was incredibly difficult to capture any detail in the moon whatsoever. But despite failing that goal I was surprised to find this image with as much focused detail. I chose this image because of its contrast and interesting composition.
This is a picture I took at a Jason Mraz concert about 2 years ago on my point and shoot camera. I think what I like most about it is the repetition of the microphones. Also, the parallel lines of the closer mic and the guitar neck are nice. Additionally, I think the cool background contrasts well with the warm color of the guitar.
The plastic baby's face is emphasized. The left side of the photo is in shadow, hiding its smile. This baby takes on a new purpose and life in a new light. The top photo shows the difference in expression when the face is exposed from another side and shot at a different angle.
This image is one I took while working on my spaces project. It shows nice light coming in from the window at a nice downward angle. I thought the shadows were very strong as well, giving off a sense of unity and adding a lot to the composition. I enjoyed how the light in this particular picture helped to call out the wood and its detail and texture. The wood is varying from slat to slat and the light in the photo helps to identify the different values and colors.
This photo was taken at Crab Tree Farm in a furnace/storage room. I enjoyed all the textures in here and the contrasting light and dark areas.
This is an image of my mom. I took it as a beginning exploration for the portrait project. I think the sunlight on her face and reflection on her shirt really brightens up the picture, although her smile seems simple and weary, yet genuine. This was taken while my mom was working on homework with my brothers. I thought the tilt of her head and crossing of her arms brought an interesting dynamic to the photo.
I took this image as a part of my last project on money. It is a simple photograph, but it is of an object that has a lot of ties to our culture, so it could mean many things to the viewer. Also, the texture and contrast create visual interest.
After Monday's critique I was feeling inspired by Chris's detailed, dirty containers, so I decided to light this waterbottle and see how many of the water drops I could get in focus in one shot. Also, as I tend to take rather gray pictures, I intentionally tried for contrast in this image.
On my morning walk from the dorm building to the cafeteria I took these photos for the color film project. The negatives are slightly damaged (from processing?) with a light bar on the tops and bottoms of the photos. I chose to post them because I felt that they clearly described this cold landscape, walking alone when I'm up too early, and feeling like a stranger commuting. Longing to move out of the dorm building, to be warm and to feel stability, I take advantage of this route and the chance to be a voyeur. I try to look into the homes, imagine sitting down, and asking them how it feels to have I-90 run through their backyard.
Another shot from my blizzard shoot with my roommates. I love being able to see snowflakes on her eyelashes, eye brows, and face. I played around trying to get different feeling/emotion from the picture based on saturation and contrast. I have several versions of this shot, but I like this one for the enhanced feeling of cold the color adds.
As I was checking my mailbox (very rare), I looked over into what always seems like the deserted corner and saw these broken mailboxes. Some were falling off of the hinges, most didn't lock anymore, and others didn't have the numbers on them anymore. It made me think of being forgotten. Here these broken mailboxes sit next to fully functioning boxes, and yet they are forgotten even though we look at them almost on a daily basis. Are they too broken for human interaction?
This picture was taken on a cold winters day while snowed in and I could only look out the window. The shapes that the ice creates is very organic and bends the light as it passes through it. I wanted to capture just a small amount of the blue sky and keep everything else neutral. Water can take on so many different forms, I am more drawn to the frozen state of it.
Maggie is looking at her figure drawing book that shows a study of hands. This image is emphasizing her hand, which conveys that she is deep in thought.
After telling my roommates about beginning a project on portraiture and knowing we have the next couple days free from school, they volunteered to be subjects in a winter photo shoot for me. I really liked this shot of Allie. I think what draws me to it is the contrast of the cold and the white and the warmth of the colors in her skin tone and the fur on the jacket.
I used some friends to try and get an interesting portrait image to use for the printing project, but the images I took turned out a little grainy for printing. I liked the seriousness/intimidation factor of this image. The light landed a bit more on their hair than on their faces than I would've liked, but it creates some interesting contrast nonetheless. Mostly I like the fact that I caught a moment of seriousness because I feel like the expressions fit the mood created by the lighting.
This image was taken during the crazy Blizzard that has halted a lot of our lives, leaving us in a place of excitement as well as unrest. This is only a small view of the large amount of snow that is being dumped on the Chicagoland area, but it is a good picture of the night time majesty that is observed by those walking along in the Blizzard. It is, in fact, a Beautiful Monster and is hard to capture in one image. I tried to capture at least some of the chaos and mayhem being lit along the streets where many are now prohibited to drive.
