Monday, January 14, 2008

1st Nine Weeks Artists













1st Nine Weeks Artists



Sandy Skoglund
Born September 11, 1946. She is an American photographer and installation artist. She creates surrealist images by building elaborate sets or tableaux, furnishing them with carefully selected colored furniture and other objects, a process of which takes her months to complete. Finally, she photographs the set, complete with actors. The works are characterized by an overwhelming amount of one object and either bright, contrasting colors or a monochromatic color scheme









Cookies on a Plate- 1978




Margaret Bourke-White
(June 14, 1904- August 27, 1961) Grew up in the Bronx of New York. Margaret began to study photography as a hobby while a very young woman. She was most famous for her war pictures. Margaret Bourke-White is a woman of many firsts. She was a forerunner in the newly emerging field of photojournalism, and was the first female to be hired as such. She was the first photographer for Fortune magazine, in 1929. In 1930, she was the first Western photographer allowed into the Soviet Union. Henry Luce hired her as the first female photojournalist for Life magazine, soon after its creation in 1935, and one of her photographs adorned its first cover. She was the first female war correspondent and the first to be allowed to work in combat zones during World War II, and one of the first photographers to enter and document the death camps.. She wrote six books about her international travels. She was the premiere female industrial photographer, getting her start in Cleveland, Ohio, at the Otis Steel Company around 1927.








Fort Peck Dam

Duane Michals
(born February 18, 1932) is an American photographer. Largely self-taught, his work is noted for its innovation and artistry. Michals' style often features photo-sequences and the incorporation of text to examine emotion and philosophy, resulting in a unique body of work.







Madam Schroedinger's Cat in the Box

Arnold Newman
(March 3, 1918, New York, NY — June 6, 2006, New York, NY) was an American photographer of a Jewish decent, noted for his "environmental portraits" of artists and politicians. He was also known for his carefully composed abstract still life images.











Yasuo Kuniyoshi





Annie Leibovitz
Annie Leibovitz is a noted American portrait photographer whose style is marked by a close collaboration between the photographer and the subject. She is most famous for her portraits of celebrities such as John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Demi Moore, Whoopi Goldberg, and many more.





Whoopi Goldberg


Guido Harari
Guido Harari is an Italian photographer and music critic who combines the two. He creates a slideshow of pictures and then plays music in the background to give it a theme. In 1983-1984 he started his first exhibition with ambient music specially provided by Peter Gabriel and David Sylvian in Turin, Milan, and Barcelona.








The High Priestess of Rock

Loretta Lux
Loretta Lux (born 1969) was born in Dresden, East Germany and is a German fine art photographer known for her surreal portraits of young children. She currently lives and works in Monaco.
Lux graduated from the Academy of Visual Arts in Munich in the 1990s, and debuted at the Yossi Milo gallery, New York in 2004. The show put both Yossi Milo and Loretta Lux on the map, selling out and setting prices never before seen from a new gallery.
In 2005, Lux received the Infinity Award for Art from the International Center of Photography. The artist executes her compositions using a combination of photography, painting and digital manipulation. Lux's work - at once alluring and disturbing - usually features young children and is influenced by a variety of sources.






The Drummer

Walter Martin and Paloma Munoz
Walter Martin and Paloma Munoz are known famously for their photographs of snow globes. They portray scenes inside them which can either be humorous or frightening. Some of the scenes contain old ladies in them which is the main character. These photographs are blown up immensely and turn out to be very large. Their most famous snow globe photographs are the “Travelers Series”




Telescope snow globe

Saturday, January 12, 2008

Extra Assignment- Me

This assignment is an extra one that Mr. Hill threw at us. He told us to take 20 pictures of ourself from the same position with slight variations of facial expressions. This actually turned out to be probably my favorite assignment and the one i did the best on. Mr. Hill even liked all of mine and suggested that I sell these pictures to some death metal group so that they can use them on their covers, which was very funny to me.































































Assignment #16 Myths and Superstitions

The last assignment of the semester is Myths and Superstitions, and I tried to finish out strong. At first it was so hard to think of myths and superstitions without being like everyone else's, but then I realized that mine would just have to be more creative and better then everyone else's.












The myth for this picture is that if you open an umbrella inside, then bad luck will follow, as demonstrated in this picture. I liked this picture a lot because it shows the myth completely, and the bad luck about to happen with the subject about to step on the gardening tool. Also, what I like about this picture is the the tone of the color and the look on the jeans and door.






























The obvious myth in this picture, as described by the text, is "an apple a day keeps the Dr. away", and I feel this picture shows the myth very well. I dressed up as a doctor and i had my friend bite an apple and the actual image is the reflection in a mirror. I used my tripod and self timer for this picture, and i think it turned out well. I also left the red eyes because it makes me look evil to support that every time someone sees a doctor, that usually means something is wrong with you, but if you eat an apple a day you will be ok.





















This picture is actually one part of a series. They myth is if you pick up a penny heads up, you will have good luck, but if you pick up a penny tails side up then you will have bad luck. Well, this picture is showing the tails side and bad luck. While the good luck shows a pretty girl rather then a guy. I like this picture a lot because it entertains the viewer, and that, to me, is what photography is supposed to do, catch your attention and entertain you.

Monday, January 7, 2008

Assignment #15 Self Portrait With Text

This week's assignment is descriptive portraits. The real challenge of this assignment was to find adjectives that describe ourselves, without sounding too corny, cheesy, and obvious. Now that the semester is coming to the end, I felt I should work my hardest on these last few assignments to finish strong.












I think that my photos for this assignment turned out extremely well. When i had my friend take this picture, i didn't notice that it looked like i was looking at my soccer poster until i saw it on the computer. I decided to put the text "going places" on it to make it seem like I'm going somewhere far in soccer.






I like this picture a lot too, and i think suffocating is a really good adjective to use, because it looks like i am trapped and the bar is choking me. I think the black and white basis of the picture and the bold red lettering it really makes it stand out.

























Assignment #14 Duane Michals Narrative Studies

The assignment for this week is Duane Michals. Duane Michals photographs either consist of a series of pictures that kind of tell a story, or pictures with text that describe them. My mind was drawing a blank on what i could do for this assignment and i really didn't have any ideas until 1 or 2 days before the assignment was due.










I decided to do 2 series of pictures, in which the first one is a picture of me and a girl walking to a bench and eventually moving closer. I like what i did with the coloring because in the beginning it is black and white, then as it progresses it lightens up and brightens up the mood.






















































For the second series, i decided to do a snowball fight. In one of the pictures Mr. Hill suggested i do a separate picture with text describing an enemy, and i liked his idea, but i didn't have enough time so i just kept it how it was. Overall though i was still pleased with the outcome.




































































Assignment #13 Dude, Who Is That?

This week's assignment is called "Dude, who is that?". And i had a lot of fun doing this assignment except getting the makeup off of my face, that sucked. The whole point of this assignment was to either disguise ourselves beyond recognition or to change our personality so we are unrecognizable. I succeeded in people not knowing who i am in the African American picture.







In this picture i changed my race and personality. I used some makeup stuff from a friend to change my skin, and i covered my blue eyes with sunglasses to make sure that doesn't' give it away. I changed my personality to gangster by having my hat turned to the side, and by having a dew rag underneath it.





































In this picture i changed my personality by trying to be a religious child because of those who know me, i go to church 2 days out of the year. What i really like about this picture is how I'm looking up towards the light as if it's god's light.




























Mr. Hill suggested i collage my two previous pictures together to create a multi-exposure, so i did and it turned out great. The two pictures fit perfectly within each other, and i really like the outcome.

Assignment #12 Ecology

This week's assignment is Ecology, or otherwise known as the "trash assignment" according to Mr. Hill. To me, this is one of the most difficult assignments because everybody does the same pictures and it's hard to take 10 pictures of how we affect our environment without having some trash pictures in it.












This picture is supposed to be comical, yet at the same time supposed to show how bad our economy is becoming. About 3 years ago, gas was about half this price. And it's supposed to show how our government should have foreseen this problem and try to find new means of fueling our cars, trucks, and SUVs.










I think this is an excellent picture of quality, i really love how this looks in black and white, but some people might not see how this shows ecology. Basically, the reason the bridge is closed down is because of our affect on it, just the natural wear and tear on it, and the beating it took after so many years.







This is definitely my best picture of the assignment. I really like the color quality of this and the ripples of the water. It obviously shows us how people pollute our lakes and rivers by throwing their trash in, instead of recycling.

Assignment #11 Dramatic Lighting Self Portrait

This week's assignment is Dramatic Lighting of Self Portrait. When i first saw the examples, i thought that these would turn out great and we could have some fun with these, which i did.









I liked this picture a lot, because only a section of my face can be seen. I also liked how the way my eye looks, and it looks like all the shadows on my face r being sucked to the top left section. The saturated sepia looked also turned out very well.








This picture i was indifferent too because even tho i like the way my eyebrows r shown and how i have black holes for eyes, i just think that it could have turned out better.











What I like most about this picture, is the black and white effect. I was just overall happy about the outcome of this photo and especially how my eyes look in it.

Assignment #10 My Best Friend

The assignment for this week is My Best Friend. I decided to use Bob for this assignment because we are really good pals and he is just a good guy. For half of my pictures I decided to go to Gionino's Pizza because it is a fun place to hang out and for the other half of my pictures, i used a soccer theme because me and Bob play soccer together and we make a good team.









This picture takes place at Gionino's and as soon as i saw the jukebox i got an idea. Bob always makes fun of me when i sing and says "Dave, you should probably not do that ever again." So i decided to take a picture of me trying to sing and bob just shaking his head. What i really liked about this picture is the yellow tint and the wall design where it has all those dots, i think it really stands out.






This is probably one of my favorite pictures of all time. It shows the seriousness and sometimes rivalry of friendship and it uses the concept of symmetry which i really like a lot. I feel that making it black and white was a good choice.











This picture I also really like a lot. It shows how serious Bob and I are about soccer and how intimidating of a team we are. I didn't notice it at the time, but I am wearing light colors holding a dark ball, while Bob is wearing black, holding a white ball. That aspect makes such a difference in the picture for me.

Assignment #9 Scary Things/Places/Stories

Now entering the new nine weeks, i knew i had to step it up. The first assignment for this nine weeks is Scary Things/Places/Stories, and i really wanted to do well on it. I figured most of them would be black and white because color takes away from the mood, so me and my friend went around town trying to dig up something scary things.













This picture was supposed to look like I was dead and i have a blank stare on my face. I like how i am wearing black and just the vacancy of my expression looks.














This picture i thought was pretty creepy. I took this behind some abandoned store or warehouse of some kind and the bars on the windows reminded me of prison. Also, if you look closely, you can see a type of "face" with the windows, 2 being eyes and 1 being a mouth. I also used one point perspective in this picture for effect.


























This picture took place behind Curly's Ice Cream, which is now abandoned. I found a dead, potted tree with a lot of curling, twisting branches. I took the picture just as a backup, but it turned out to be one of my best pictures for the assignment thanks to Picasa.

Extra Credit- Focused Subject/ Blurry Background





The extra credit assignment is optional, but being the overachiever that I am, i knew i would do it. We had to take a picture of a focused subject with a blurry background and i think this picture fits that part perfectly. I had my friend throw the golden bird across the black fireplace background (so that the gold would stand out more) but the funny thing is that it looks like it's flying upward, but it actually is being thrown in the opposite direction. I don't understand why, but i think it looks better this way.

Assignment #8 Document A Trip

With this being the last assignment of the nine weeks, I figured I should try really hard to finish strong. I actually had a fun time with this assignment, I called up my two friends Shannon and Alli and they agreed to help me with this assignment, so we all met up at the park because there r so many things someone can do there.









This picture i like a lot. I had my two friends act like they are going to climb a tree on opposite sides. The fact that I used symmetry makes it even better and what stands out for me is the pattern the leaves make on the ground, I think it adds more detail to the picture.










































This is, without a doubt, one of the best pictures I have ever taken in my life. This picture turned out so well and I am so happy with it. My favorite features about it are the high grass, and the saturated sepia look. I love this color tone and I think I will use it more in the future.























This picture's main purpose is pure comical, but i think the quality of it is good also. I like the rock features that my friend is standing on and the tree in the background that is directly in the center of the picture. Plus, my friends' expressions are priceless and they make me laugh. It kinda makes you think "No, they're not gonna to do what I think they are gonna to do, are they?"

Assignment #7 My Living Space

This week's assignment is called My Living Space. I predicted a lot of one point perspective would be used for this assignment by taking pictures of rooms and hallways, and i was kinda right.








This is one of my all time favorite pictures and what made it awesome is when I rotated it upside down. I really like the color of the wood trip and floors but what I really like is how your eye is attracted from the bottom of the stairs to the hole in the ceiling. I like it because it's creative and a little bit crazy.





























What was really ironic about this assignment is that the week it was due, was the same time my family was getting new carpet put in, so we had to move all the furniture out of the living room. In this picture the couch is at the end of the hallway so it makes you think if that was on purpose. I like this picture because of the uses of one point perspective, the shadow at the end of the hallway of the lamp, and the colors on the right side of the wall and floor.




















I tried to use a low angle shot for this picture and I think overall it made the picture better, but still not great. I don't know why, but i just felt like I could have done better on this assignment and I wasn't really thrilled about this picture. Oh well, there is always next assignment.