This class was very enjoyable which made it easy to do the assignments and go to class. The only thing that I would have changed was starting the photo book project earlier. I do not think I had enough time to get the quality of photos that I would have wanted. Also, more night photography practice. Overall I really liked this class and learning to use my camera on something other than on auto. 

I took photos of my momma, dad, and my friend Javier. These were last minute photos for me as well as them! My dad was the only one that was stoked to have his photo taken…To take these photos I had a Quarter Pounder box that I kept open with a skewer. I secured a flashlight in the box and used it as a Lightbox. These are my results. 

My favorite assignment was the diptych and triptych. I that it was interesting to just go out and take pictures and try to piece them together in the end. The other assignment that I enjoyed was the still life for the book, Letters to a Young Artist. I liked having creative goal for the image I wanted to create. My least favorite assignment was night photography because it was really hard for my to get the hang of it at first. I did enjoy trying such an interesting way of photography but I did not like the way mine personally turned out. 

Worm’s Eye View by Kelly Swayze | Make Your Own Book

My photobook is all images from a worm’s eye view. 

1. DSLR: Digital Single Lens Reflector
2. 3 Creative Modes:
   1. Manual: lets you shoot with whatever settings you want
3. Exposure Triangle: Shutter Speed, F-Stop, ISO
4. Composition:
   1. Birds Eye View
   2. Worms Eye View
   3. Harmonious Colors
   4. Contrasting Colors
   5. Rule of Thirds
   6. Silhouette
   7.  Framing
   8. Leading Lines
   9. Symmetrical
   10. Asymmetrical
5. The library lets you see all the photos that you have imported as well as move photos around.
6. Metadata gives you all the information on your photos, like the type of camera you used, the settings you used, and the date and time you took it.
7. Develop Modes
   1. Crop
   2. Brush
   3. Red Eye
   4.  Spot Correction
   5.  Radial Tool
   6.  Gradiant
8. The histogram shows you your exposure on your image. The eyedropper tool lets you select a color on the photo and alter the image.
9. 5 Types of Lighting
   1. Rembrant (triangle?)
   2. Butterfly Effect
   3.  Half face
10. LastName_mm/dd/yyyy_image#

The movie, An American Journey: In Robert Frank’s Footsteps, was produced in 2009. It talks about Robert Frank, an American-Swiss photographer and his contemporary photography. It was very interesting to see the journey that this man who died in 1969 did and who it looks today. The journey was 15,000 miles and it took him all over from Texas to San Francisco. I think the image of the two little girls with the American flag one there head is my overall favorite.

Girl Behind the Bottle

Woman with Three Kids

Red Rooster

Construction and Lighting Test for New York Theatrical Producers

Cigarette No. 37

The exhibition that I visited at the Museum of Photographic Arts was the photography by Irving Penn. My friend works at the museum and was giving me backstory on the images. The reason the exhibition is called Beyond Beauty because in his photos he added some ugly/poison in the images. In his photo, New York Still Life, there is a perfect still life that has a bug in the image. The image, Construction and Lighting Test for New York Theatrical Producers, Penn took a self-portrait to test lighting, but it has a dreadful skull on placed right on top of his head. These little things of ugly in such beauty are inspiring. It gives you a way of seeing things out of the box. In his image, Red Rooster, he has the ugliest chicken and it was actually an advertisement for neck cream. I liked how his images created a bit of funniness behind the images, like Red Rooster and Woman with Three Children. All of Penn’s images create a unique story. In his series of cigarette photos, he took something that is full of ugliness and just thrown on the floor and created a massive image that showed texture beauty. The last image that inspired me was Girl Behind the Bottle. It took an everyday wine bottle and it made its own image. The silhouette in the background was just as intriguing to me as the simple image of the wine bottle.

I did my best at taking photos around nine o’clock at night on Halloween. I had my mom do her best at writing words for the photos. She also drove back and forth multiple times in the road so I could get a few images. This was super frustrating for me at first but I kinda got the hang of it. I do want to practice a bit more though.

The story I related to was the teacher one. I want to become a teacher and be able to incorporate art into every lesson plan. I chose to create a still life that pictured an apple that can represent a teacher. As well as a few pens that add more to the image. I took these late at night and used my phones screen light (with all the house lights turned off) to get just enough light so the reflection was not confusing on the apple. 

Today we went to San Elijo’s town square. We worked with LED lights and the golden hour lighting. We walked around to take snapshots of other classmates and the landscape. I really liked being able to walk around the town and take photos that sparked our personal interest.