SleepOli's Rabbit Hole

Created for my photography class but looking forward to record my life and share some of my ideas on here!

[sleepyoli]

Final Project ! A big thank you to both subjects! Thank you for being so kind and patience with me.

[sleepyoli]

Favorite and Least Favorite

My favorite photos would be the beach series by Rineke Dijkstra. I really enjoyed the special atmosphere Dijkstra created use large-format film camera and flashlight. Without much noise, Dijkstra shows the viewers each and every little details of the subject without hiding anything. Shooting in different places and time but the outcomes are very cohesive in many ways. Dijkstra creates a small world of photography that represents the much bigger world outside. Some of the photos I may dislike in the series but when they put together, they do make a strong voice. So I really like the series of the photos.

[sleepyoli]

Review of diCorcia's photo and series of "head"

I really like diCorcia’s photos and how lighting is applied to the photos. Most of his photos has a cinematic setting and no matter which picture I see; I often feel like there is a very interesting story behind the photos. As he said in the video, “Life is a performance”, everyone is playing a role in diCorcia’s photos. People in the photo are in the spot of light in that performance and being a protagonist in the photo just as how they are protagonist ibn their own life. The lighting changes from photo to photo. Some of them are soft and give the viewer of feel of home and some of them are sharp and have a high contrast and the subjects really stand out from the photos.

In the series “head”, diCorcia’s uses flashlight to capture people in time square. This series of photo to me is more related to documentary photography. Similar to Dijkstra, diCorcia uses flashlight to highlight the main object, but unlike Dijkstra, diCorcia mostly uses black as his background making the subject even more prominent and powerful in the pictures. Using the black background, most of the photos have a shallow depth of field which help the characteristics of the subject to stands out better. By using the dark background diCorcia successfully avoid the noise and the overwhelming information in the environment and present the photos more staged-like than street photography.

[sleepyoli]

Review of Dear Stranger by Yokomizo

Different from Dijkstra’s work, Yokomizo’s project Dear Stranger is less staged and shooting in a more out of control situation. She is shooting subjects who are inside their rooms and posing for her from the windows. Even though she has less control over the light settings and many other things, subjects are in their most comfortable environment. The camera brings us into the private life of the subject and shows us the interaction leads by the subject instead of the photographer. For this project, I think individuals has little impact but when all the photos put together with a description of the project, the project tells a powerful story. Viewers view these pictures in a more artistic way superior to the technical terms of the photos.

[sleepyoli]

Review of Rineke Dijkstra work

Most of the Rineke Dijkstra work uses a soft lighting. She did really well on restoring the subject’s natural skin tone and chose a background that form a contrast to the subject’s skin tone and help the subject to stand out even more. In most of the pictures, Dijkstra always choose a clean but informative background, meaning there are just enough information to know more about the subject but simple enough, so the subjects stand out even more against the background. In her most famous beach series, she uses flashlight to highlight the subject and sharpen the subject even more from the background. The lighting for the image still stays soft and create a special atmosphere around the subject which implies the story behind each photo.

My favorite three pictures from the beach theories are Brighton, England, August 21, 1992, Brighton, England, August 21, 1992, and Hilton Head Island, S.C., USA, June 24, 1992. Taken in the same year, but these three pictures each has a unique characteristic and when put together, they offered us a glance of the variance of culture in different parts of the world.

The picture taken in England features a young girl with a light blue swimming dress that covers the girl from shoulder to feet. The color of the dress is similar to the color of the sea and sky in the background and the wet hair gave the viewer the feeling of the girl is the daughter of the sea.

The picture taken in the Belgium, the girl in the picture is a little older than the girl in the England and maybe just enter puberty. The color spectrum of this picture is leaning towards the yellow side which suit the green-yellow swimming suit the girl wears which covers much less of the body than the girl in England. The girl also shows more confidence when pose in front of the camera.

The third picture which is taken in the U.S., features a girl much older in age, maybe in her twenties. The lighting of this picture is brighter than the previous two. The girl is wearing an orange bikini and is both confident but shy when showing her body in front of the camera.

The three pictures are very unique individually but when put together, they show the different stage of girl’s life and also how the culture might affect them in their personality and clothing choices.

[sleepyoli]

First week for project Dear Friend, Dear Stranger

Thank you both for being really patient with me!

[sleepyoli]

First week for project Dear Friend, Dear Stranger Thank you both for being really patient with me!

[sleepyoli]

Assignment 4

Larry’s text resonates with me deep inside about the idea of family. My perspective of my family has been constantly changing over the years, but in another sense, they have not changed at all. Being the only child in the family makes me receive all of the love in the family. In my childhood, I always thought I have a perfect childhood and a perfect family; however, that perfection has been faded away as I grew up. The word “perfect” has connected to “fantasy” when you grow older and learned that nothing is perfect in this world. I started to learn about my father’s smoking problems, the fragile relationship between my parents, and many trivial goods or bad things about them. The disconnection to the family occurs after the first year I studied abroad in the U.S. When I returned home after a year’s studying, I learned that my parents sold the house I grew up in and moved to a new location. My parents may have not changed at all, but the idea of home changed completely for me, and the original idea was sealed in the memory of childhood forever. When I was in the house, I feel the same thing Larry felt that the house was all about me, but it is no longer that way. Until now I realized that it was also an opportunity and a window for me to learn my parents about who they really are as independent individuals and also the connection between them, among us, which we call “family”. My perspective towards my parents and the house might have been changed over the years, but as Larry finally reaches the realization at the end of the writing, I too realized that the one thing that has not ever changed is my love for my parents and their love to me.

It is always different between what you want to photograph others may be very different from what they want to be photographed. This point was being illustrated by Sultan, as well as that people’s personal experiences, their background, offer them different perspectives towards the same photo. The prior point was presented in the conversation when Sultan’s dad was trying to explain to Sultan the philosophical meaning of the portrait of himself while sitting on the bed being photographed. The latter point was made in the argument between Sultan and his dad over a picture of Sultan’s mother. His dad thinks Sultan portraited his mother as an old woman which is disrespectful because to him, the woman in the picture, is his wife.

Meyer’s voice set a peaceful with a touch of sadness tone underneath the whole video. The narration brings the viewers into the perspective of the photographer to interpret and feel the pictures from inside out. Without his voice, the connections between each photo are lost and some of the photos may not make much sense without knowing the story behind them. It is definitely hard to watch people suffering from sickness, however, the pictures were showing us the love between Meyer’s parents and the love between Meyer and his parents.

The most interesting thing I have found in all these photos is how the viewers are involved in the photos as they were there when the photos were taken. Looking at the photos, I feel like I am not a stranger to the photos anymore but feel being invited to see the life of their family. The least interesting of these photos is some of them are taken in a certain perspective that shows the relationship between the photographer and the subject but the relationship is sometimes very hard for the viewer to understand the relationship, which sometimes leads to a hard time understanding the true intention of the photos.

[sleepyoli]

camouflage

[sleepyoli]

The idea behind this contact sheet was the life of fried rice. It documented the born and gone of a beautiful(and tasty) plate of fried rice. From the cold rice in the fridgerator, it gives people energy and smile. I love food. (For some reason, I mess up the number of picture taken in this roll. I swear it was indicating 36 pictures on the camera but turns out short. I put in the other two picture left from the other roll to make into one contact sheet and I am glad I did that.)

[sleepyoli]

This is one of the 10f*10f assignment. I chose the location near the golf course. It was a beautiful place with flowers, shrubs, trees, bees, fruit, rocks, and the sky. So many things to take picture of!

[sleepyoli]

First Contact Sheeet(Well, first comlete contact sheet) ! This is a composing contact sheet project which we should make one picture composed of the thirty five pictures we took in one roll. However, it was my first time shooting and I had some trouble in the beginning and at the end. I took too many test shots before the real shooting, and when I rewind the tape it broke. Even worse, I opened a little gap to check on the tape in the end so the last few pictures are damaged in different degrees. When we develop the pictures, the fixer seems weak, so the whole contact sheet turns out foggy. The fogginess acts as a filter which add another layer to the pictures. After this one turns out, I kinda like it because it fits the situation when I took the pictures. I was in the glen near the river, and the sun was right above me. The water vapor forms some kind of mist that help soften the sunshine. I really like this exercise which offers me another perspective when I take the photos.

[sleepyoli]

Mental Level of Photography

Last week, we have talked about the depictive level of photography, flatness, frame, time, and focus. We also talked about how photographers use lenses to create a new world that is close but also apart from the real world. In this chapter, we are looking at how photographers come up with the idea of their worlds and how do they present them to the viewers. I feel personally connected to this chapter because I have always been interested in psychology and the ideas and thoughts behind a piece of art are something worth looking into, and this chapter also includes how we operate in a psychological way, mental refocus of things we saw, and the neuroscience behind it. Thank you for the interdisciplinary of studying at Hamilton College, I am able to connect my photography class to my psychology class. Everything is constant at a certain point in time, but we still observe them differently because our perspectives are different. The perspective we often talked about has little connection with the physical level of things but is deeply and mentally connected to the person who is looking at it. People have different perspectives because of their experiences, cultural background, emotional state, education, and etc. Perspective makes the diversity of art. When we compose a photo, we see the things we want to see and either leave the things we do not want out of the frame or hide them behind some other object. Photographers communicate and present their world to the viewers via photography. They often focus on the point they want to stress and obscure other things. One thing I have noticed among the example photos provided in this chapter, photographers often focus on a black space to open up the space in the picture and increase the depth of the mental space of the photo the viewers may feel, opposite to using white to create a shallow mental space.

[sleepyoli]

Depictive Level of photograph

If the physical level of the photography created elements in a photo, the depictive level of photography creates a world in the picture. Previously, I always think photographer uses their camera to capture a moment and a fragment of this world. This is partly true, but now I believe that photographers created a new world for us through his lens.

The picture is in two dimensions, but the depth of the photo gives it another dimension. The photographer defines the sense of space of a photo by changing the depth of the picture. If depth set the space for the world in the picture, how the photographer frames the picture created the boundary for the photo. This boundary does not necessarily mean limitation. Sometimes it might mean an extension to the world outside of the picture, how the world in the picture immerge in the world we live in. Frame also redefine the space in the photo. The distance between each subject and the relationship between each subject is redefined by how the photograph frame the picture. There is no eternity in the real world, but eternity might exist in the photo because the shutter captures the exact moment and lock it forever. To me, a photo is more than an exact moment but a short period of time. A good photo offers an infinite opportunity for imagination. It shows you a short period of time, a story that is made up by the viewer’s mind. The main character of the photo, sometimes, is selected by the photographer by focusing on it to offer the most details to the viewers.

A photo is a world created by the photographer where there is protagonist and a wonderful story that is lock in time.

[sleepyoli]

Final Product-Camera Obscura

The blanket was a final attempt to cover some light shines from the gaps between the plastic bags. We are still not satisfied with our final product(we found out the window we used yesterday is facing west, that might be the problem we cannot get any light). This windows is facing south, but still, the sunshine comes in in a weird angle and not strong enough(or the room is not dark enough) to project a full image.

[sleepyoli]

Record a half-failed Camera Obscure

We tried to turn our room into the camera obscura as instructed. The end result was not as good as we want. We spend more than one hour on it and sticking all the black plastic bags on the window and make sure they blocked all the light is not an easy job. We have seen some image on the side walls and on the ground instead of on the wall a little far away back. We think the sun is the problem. It was cloudy and the sun's position does not help us at all. The time is limited but tomorrow we are gonna try to do it again. Best luck to us!

[sleepyoli]

Some thoughts on the "Nature of Photography" Chapter 1 and 2

Sorry in advance for my poor writing skills. I am trying to improve my writing. Please excuse my grammar mistakes and any tips on writing are welcome! The content is just some of my thoughts so any comment on that is also welcome!

Photography is used widely in people’s daily life. It can appear in different forms, colors, and styles. The diverseness of photography offers an opportunity for individuals to accomplish a different goal through the lenses. Some people make art with photography, some people use it to keep records, and others may use photography to pass on their ideas and emotions. It seems to me that photography always serves a purpose. It is difficult to define a picture as good or bad but to feel with our heart.

“On the print is an image, an illusion of a window onto the world”. Photos offer a perspective. When we look at a photo, we are looking at the world through the window created by the camera. The window can travel through space and time. When we look at the photo, we align our eyes with the photographer's lens and become part of the scene.