Artist Statement

In my portfolio you will find a collection of work that I have done throughout my senior year of high school in my digital photography class. There are a variety of things that we have done in class. Not only have we worked with pictures but we have also done text effects. I really enjoy my portfolio. I think it shows the progression I have gone through. It’s cool to see how much better you get each time. Little by little you see a change here or there. Slowly but surely they add up though.
Over the course of this semester I have learned numerous things. I have learned how to blend and combine images, add shadows and reflections, adjust lighting in pictures, morph things and duplicate objects. I have learned so much. I love this class I feel like everyday I’m in here just helps me with the next day. It’s really fun. One thing I really struggled with was executing my ideas. I could not stick to one thing. Every time I tried doing something my mind would wander and want to do something else. I also had troubles transferring my ideas into actual work. I would come up with a picture in my head and it would come out completely different on the computer. In the future I can discuss my ideas with others. Seeing other peoples work and hearing their views really helps me come up with my own ideas. It gets my juices flowing.
Some of my influences have been the artists we have studied this year, my peers, my teacher as well as myself and family There is some work that I have done that I’m like I do not want to repeat that so it always makes me want to do it that much better. My peers have done amazing jobs. I have seen growth in like the emotion of my pictures. Before I feel like they were kind of just snapshots but now I feel like I can actually see some meaning actually behind the picture.

Adjustment Layers

Self-Portraits

Starting off was kind of hard for me. When I heard about this being our final project I had mixed emotions. I was excited because I thought it was going to be really fun to create four images that each had to capture a different part of myself. On the other hand, I was scared because I had no idea what to do or how to do it. I think my rule of thirds picture is the most creative because that idea was something that most wouldn’t do. I actually had taken that sheet to use as a background and I just started messing around with it. It was difficult coming up with ideas. That is always something I have troubles with. I like my self portraits because they are each very different but you can tell that they are related in some way.
In my composition I tried telling my sister how to take my pictures but that didn’t work too well. She would listen but she ended up moving things around here and there. All of my photos were set up. We just tried doing different things using the same ideas. To strengthen my photographs I tried using different colors. I tried being very aware of my surroundings so that I could contrast the values. One thing I should have done better was get rid of dead space. I had to crop my pictures in order to get rid of it if I was more aware of it then I could have eliminated that problem and my pictures could have been better. In my opinion, the strongest composition is in my rule of thirds photo.
I think my personal prop photo was too dull. I think our faces needed more focus. Our features are dark and in that area the picture looks dark as well so I think I definitely could have fixed that. I think overall I did really well. I think that there are a lot of different things that added umph to my photos. I think there is a lot of contrast in my pictures. I have black and white and there are a lot of shades of gray in between. I also think that the expressions were very real. They don’t look fake or forced.
I love how my portraits came out. Each picture is set up differently but you can tell that they all came from me. If I had this project again I would get more into it. I wouldn’t exaggerate but I would just do more things. My favorite shot overall is my prop photo because I super love my boyfriend and the picture came out cute. I really don’t have a least favorite photo. I just have a most favorite of the bunch.

Shutter Speed

The shutter speed effects how much light is let into the picture and the blurriness of the picture. It is represented as a second or a fraction of a second. The shutter speed can be changed while under the shutter speed mode and while under manual mode. The main differences are that when you are in manual mode you are in charge of adjusting everything and in shutter speed mode you can only change the shutter speed and the ISO. You would want to lengthen the shutter speed in the dark so that it would make the picture brighter. You would shorten the shutter speed in bright places so that it would let less light in. In the first picture I tried panning. Panning is taking a picture while following the object which is moving. In the second picture I had to adjust the shutter speed and the ISO to make the dark picture look normal.

ISO

I changed the ISO in these two pictures. For one I used 50 and the other one was set to 5000. I noticed that as I increased the ISO more light was let in. The last picture had auto flash on. I think it kind of drained the picture though.

Light Metering

In this assignment we focused on different things to see how the metering affected the images. In the first picture i focused in on the computer screen and it gave me a dark picture. The second picture I metered in on Michale's skin and it made everything brighter.

Aesthetic Moment

The cup was not empty, but clear at first. With each drop that was added to the water it would get more color. It's like people. When you are first born you really don't know anything or anybody, but each person that comes into your life adds a little something to your persona. They leave something behind. As more colors are added they all start to blend in with each other to make one solid color.Or, all the different traits blend in to make up the one person.

Hybrid

In preparation for our personal metaphor project we brushed up our skills combining objects together. Using layer masks and the clone stamp we blended images of a dog and a bird to create this hybrid.

Movie Moments

Inspired by Cindy Sherman, a contemporary photographer who took photos of herself starring in movies that never existed.

Movie Title:

Genre:

Movie Summary: Basically, there's a brother and a sister, Brandy and Chucky.They are at the mall and Brandy gets a phone call from an unknown caller. She goes out to the parking lot without telling anyone and her brother Chucky begins to panic because he doesn't know where she went. So he goes out and looks for her with no luck. While she is in the parking lot she is kidnapped by two bad guys, Mike and Mikey. They grab her and they throw her in the truck and take off and she wasn't found for a while. On her 18th birthday her parents found out that she was dead.

Scene Summary: In this part of the movie, Brandy was at the mall but is now leaving and heading to the parking lot. While she was there she got a phone call from an unknown caller. She was scared because she didn't know who it was or how they knew her but they knew everything about her.

Chocolate Frog

For Valentines Day we turned frogs into chocolate. I thought this project was weird. I learned how to make shadows and highlights though. It was funa learning something new.

Shadows and Reflections

In these exercises we learned how to create shadows and reflections to help us make more realistic artwork. A new tool we learned was layer masks. The things we learned here can help me in the future by advancing my skills in photoshop. I will now be able to add these things to pictures I have created and make them look real.

Program Covers

In class we were to create the cover for the NHS Awards Night and Induction Ceremony and also a graduation pamphlet. This was a bit hard because I honestly don't know a lot about NHS, so it was hard for me to come up with ideas for it. The graduation pamphlet was kind of fun because who ever does get picked will actually be the real graduation pamphlet. I think that's exciting.

Aged Photo

In this project we had to use one of our frame photographs to practice using Photoshop to create specific effects.

Balance with Frames

In this project we were given a frame. We had to use it in our composition. We also had to be in our photo, but not in the center. It was to be in black and white and we needed to create a sense of visual balance and one with no balance. I created an unbalanced photo by me being on the side and there being nothing on the other side.

Egg Challenge

In this project I was given an egg to photograph. I had to take a picture in both color and black-and-white and it had to show one of the following: Creativity, Craftsmanship or Composition. I believe my color was the most successful because it was original. However, I could have worked on the focus a bit more.

My Favorite Project From Last Semester

Using Photoshop we had to cross process the photo to enhance the colors. I like this picture because the colors really pop. I think that I did a good job of picking a picture with a range of colors.

Last Semester