Self Portrait and Portraits Part I

My favorite tips are:

Alter Your Perspective

Experiment with lighting 

Go with a Wide Angle

Environmental Portraits Pictures

I like this photo because it makes me feel like I am sitting on top of the basketball back board looking down on the player.

I chose this photo because I thought that it was really funny with the camel and the man making the same reaction because it shows that the man has humor.

Photography self Portraits Pictures 

   

I like this picture a lot because its something you wouldn't expect.And also I like how in the background you can see a lot of buildings but at the same time the reflection of the woman's leg.

This one I thought was interesting because I liked how the photographer captured the action of the feathers and a lot of photographers don't have action they are just focusing on the subject of the person. 

Casual Portrait Pictures

I like how the photographer captured the little boy and his tiny hands gripping the flower and how the background is blurred out.

I like how the background is not prefect and there is not much green and everything. And I like how realistic it looks and that they (the photographer) turned the scenery to something beautiful with the couple under the tree.  I like the lighting.  I also like it's not your standard pose.

My portrait assignment plans:

I don't know who I am going to take pictures of. The places I might take pictures of is maybe on Bowie campus like near the B Hall or maybe in the courtyard or maybe ask permission to take some photos at the YMCA of maybe a girl holding a volleyball getting ready to serve that hard spike.  Also another thing I want to do for a place is maybe go to Zilker Park during sunset  on a weekend and maybe ask one of my friends  to look at a certain way where you can see half their face with the sunset shinning on them.What I really want to try and capture during  portrait plans is the action. I really want to try and achieve this because I like challenges and I would like to challenge my self. What I will do to make my shots successful is to try I different angles of the subject and try to do some blurred backgrounds or do birds eye and of coarse some action. 

Prompt Shoot

Cold 

 Electricity 

 Purple 

Funny Captions

Billy Smith, at the Houston Zoo, attracts lots of female monkeys.  Billy, who has been single for 90 years said the only chicks that would accept his personality are monkeys who have a brain the size of a raisin.


   
Eunice and Ernestine Johnson are seen here escaping from the Oak Hill Nursing Home in Boston, Massachusetts.  They were last seen leaving the Good Luck Bingo Parlor on stolen scooters.




Alice Barr, who lives Las Vegas, NV, enjoys a surprise 100th birthday party from her family.  She recently found a pack of cigarettes and tried one and got carried away.  When asked why she started smoking now, she said "YOLO!"

Rules of photography II

Theme: Marine Animals 





  1.)   Rule of thirds 




 2.)  Balancing elements




 3.)  Leading Lines 



 4.) Symmetry and patterns 



5.) View Point 




 6.) Background




 7.) Create depth





 8.) Framing 




 9.) Cropping 





 10.) Mergers and Avoiding Them

Mural project

1. The theme we could do for the school is pictures that have things that are the inspirational and what would encourage students  to do good deeds . Something for off campus could be like memories  that are inspired by the students and what are some of their memories that are special to them that only they would know.

2. I think we should open it up to both camera and phone

3. I think  I would like to put the mural up under the big tree in the center of the courtyard so that students could get inspired.

Great Black and White Photographers Part 3

                                  
    Picture 1                                                                                     Picture 2



1.) I chose this photographer because I like the nature and close up photos of the plants.I like how the background is nice and clean  and its not distracting so it makes you focus on the main object its self. Also I love how he got all the details and texture .

 Picture 1
 I see in  the pictures background that it looks like the night had swallowed  it whole and turned it dark and mysterious.The inside looks like there is a small dark hole getting deeper. The veins that are coming out of the flower and are on the petals look like the texture was from a bug's wing.

I can't smell the freshness from the flower, only the dead that has been taken over. Also I feel that it smells like the outdoors with the dustiness that makes me sneeze. Even though the freshness had escaped from that flower I still think a little of it had been trapped so there is a faint smell of its existence.

Sometimes in the faint distance I can hear a plant life being taken away.The plant whining, "Why did you pick me? I was perfectly fine out in the field, minding my own business soaking up the sun ?" or "How could you?"

It's like I can taste the expired candy that does not have any flavor. So it's just bland. It makes me think that the outside is beautiful, but worse on the inside. Basically a stale cracker.

I feels like when I touch the flower it will then be disintegrate by my hands. It would also feel light as a feather that had slowly been dropped.When I would crush the flower it seems like it would be like tissue paper.


Picture 2
I see that the leaves are all curled like pipe cleaners when you bend them. Some of them even look like they are shaping into hearts. I see the veins that are running up and down the the stem of the plant.

I can smell nothing since it's nothing compared to flowers that have a scent. I think it's the same as picture 1 because they both are dead and dusty. In a way it smells similar to an old library.

I hear nothing that's a signal that the plant is alive. But I can hear the cracking sounds since the leaves are so dried up like prunes . The only I thing I hear is a lost soul making its way up to the sky.

It tastes like overcooked bread sticks. It tastes like the dried out turkey from National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.The crunch in every bite that you take.

I feel like it could be one of those plastic plants that you buy for home decoration. Or the stems feel all hairy and fuzzy like if you didn't shave your legs. I feel like the higher you go up the stem it will break apart like twigs.

To get recognition of my photographer
I would do a poster with some of his photos also hanging off the poster.  Not all at an up and down format but some at angles.  Make it into a collage.

Abandoned Theme Parks

The park I would like to go is Chippewa Lake Park, Medina County, Ohio. I chose that park because I liked how from the images of the entrance with the vines and plants have over taken it provides a interesting background. The image itself with the plants makes it look more dramatic with feeling. Its something different and i like how the roller coaster is not completely destroyed including the Farris wheel.Also i think some of the photos could be really good in black and white.

The places I think photographers might like is 

• Graffiti downtown in Austin
• Line of old pick up trucks near Grandfalls Texas 
• Gum wall in Seattle
• Bridges in Portland Organ 
• Coast line of Organ
• Air plane graveyard outside Tucson,AZ
• Neon graveyard in las vegas

 Image of  Neon graveyard in las vegas

I think this place would be a great place to take pictures because of the uniqueness of just random things that you wouldn't expect. Also if you wait when night comes they plug some of the signs in and its pretty cool seeing them lit up. Photos I would take is lots of angles and close ups and down the middle like the picture above. Whats interests me is they turned a graveyard for signs to a museum that its not something you would think of in everyday life.

I would need a parent and a plane ticket to get to Las Vegas plus a taxi cab. Then I would need a hotel room since it would take more than a day.  Money for food while traveling.  A backpack to carry my camera and lenses.  a tripod.  Battery and back-up battery and memory card.  Laptop to download the photos and flashdrive for backup.  Check on the hours the Neon Museum is open and maybe permission to shoot before or after their open hours.  Would like to shoot in early morning so have better lighting and no people in the shots.  Or evening/later afternoon/evening for good lighting. Then at night when some of the neon is lit up.

Nick Brandt (Africa)

 My first reaction was that the lion in the photo that was in black and white was how on earth did Nick Brandt get that shot of the lion.  Did he photo shop it? Then as I kept reading, it felt like my mouth had dropped when he explained in the article that the photo was real and that he spent eighteen days waiting for that lion to do something interesting rather than just sleeping. Also how did he have the patience to wait 18 days for the lion to do something. Another thing that i thought was interesting was that he never used a zoom lens he moved in closer to the wild animals.

   

I loved this photo the most because I am a big fan of elephants.  As a child my mom would make up stories with a little girl name Grace, since that's my middle name, and a baby elephant named Effie who would always be going on a adventure.  When I look at the photo of the elephants, but mainly the baby one peeking from behind the mother elephant, it reminds me of when I was little and my mom told me the story.

The  type of rule of photography is lines plus and simplicity. It's lines because the elephants are lined up in a row and they have lines on them like their trunks, legs, ears,body. Next there is simplicity in the background because there is nothing that's busy in the background.

The type of camera he uses is a Pentax 6711 and he only uses two fixed lenses.  He doesn't use a telephoto lens because he wants to get close up to capture their personality and soul.

  The reason for taking these photos is to capture the wildlife in their natural setting before it's destroyed by man kind.

   Nick hopes that the people who see his photos will be moved and inspired to help the wildlife from becoming endangered by donating money to charities that can make a difference with the environment and animals.

Nick describes Africa's beauty when he says, "There is also something deeply, emotionally stirring and affecting about the plains of Africa—those vast, green rolling plains punctuated by graphically perfect acacia trees under the huge skies".

6 Photoshoped academic photos

The original image is first and then the photoshopped image.

                                                                     

         

                                               

                         

Great Black And White Photogrophers part 2

Karl Blossfeldt

Karl was born on June 13,1865 in Schielo a village that is in the Harz district of Germany.  He grew up in the mountains of central Germany.  He later moved to Berlin.  Before he was a photographer, he studied painting and music at the Institute of Royal Arts Museum in Berlin.  Once he was done studying he then taught plant drawing and modeling at the same institute for over 30 years.

During his lifetime period he was a sculptor, teacher,and artist but mainly he was known for his photography by doing close ups of living things and plants.  He once said that "the plant must be valued as a totally artistic and agriculture structure."

In 1926 the owner of a gallery put his work in an exhibit in Berlin. A few years later he wrote a book containing 120 of his pictures under the title 'Urformen der Kunst' (Art Forms in Nature). Before his work became famous in the world he basically had to train himself.  He used a camera that he made himself so he could magnify the plants in his pictures.

He was one of the few photographers in that time to become famous before he died.  Later on he died from a tumor when unfortunately the tumor spread to  his spine and paralyzed him and then caused his death on December 9,1932 when he was only 67 years old.


My favorite pictures are





Sources
http://www.tamoneillfinearts.com/blossfeldt-biography/ 
http://www.ehow.co.uk/list_6821403_10-karl-blossfeldt.html 
http://www.art-directory.info/photography/karl-blossfeldt-1865/
https://www.icp.org/browse/archive/constituents/karl-blossfeldt?all/all-years/all/all/0
http://www.famousbirthdays.com/people/karl-blossfeldt.html
https://learnodo-newtonic.com/karl-blossfeldt-facts

Academic Shoot reflection and critique

 1).The challenge that I had for the rules were that I had trouble in the culinary class trying to get the chef making something because all the students circled him watching him and it was hard trying to find a opening.


2)  The technical aspects I had for this assignment was different angles but mostly I took random photos that stood out to me and was not thinking about the rules we had to follow, only how many photos can I take.

3. If I had the chance to do it again, I would take many of the same photos, but move my body to get more angles of the same shot.  I felt uncomfortable asking the students who were surrounding the chef to move so I could get a few more shots of him working.  Since it's their class to learn in, it felt rude or awkward so I didn't.

4. I liked my lemon shots and the tomato rose/lemon plate shot plus one of his cutting board with lots of different foods and different cutting methods.

5.  Lines will be the easiest to achieve because I already like/look for those.  Rules of Thirds because I am thinking about it now  and I wasn't before.  Also now know to look to avoid mergers.

6. I think balance is still the hardest to achieve because of distractions in the background.

7.  I still have a problem with framing and identifying or seeing opportunities to create frames.

Blog I'm critiquing
http://faithsphotojournalism1blog.blogspot.com/
1. Balance - I liked seeing through the kids who are lined up with their backpacks.
2. I liked the simplicity of her Rule of Thirds photo with the girl writing on her paper.  The green background and highlights in her hair added to the photo.
3.  For simplicity, it was distracting how the frame on the flag was cut off so I saw it a bit as Avoiding Merger.