Intro to Photography (Online)

[cyndiebundac-blog]

here are my photos for the Homage assignment

I chose to shoot in the same style as Cig Harvey. I was incredibly intrigued by her images in “You Look At Me Like An Emergency”, specifically Act I, especially the matching colors and tones. I was particularly interested in recreating the photos “The Meal Back Then” and “The Cut Apple and Gingham Dress” by playing around with what objects I had laying around and the different color backgrounds I could shoot with. The other photos that I took were influenced by Cig Harvey’s photos “The Summer Camp”, “The Orchard”, and an unnamed photo in “Pink is a Touch. Red is a Stare” (third from last on Cig Harvey’s website). Those photos were definitely easier for me to shoot since the aesthetic already matched how I usually shoot and edit.

[cyndiebundac-blog]

here are my photos for the translation assignment

i wanted to play around with photoshop now and manipulating my photos, as well as using some of my props. in the first picture, i photoshopped rain drops to the lamp. i also photoshopped the planet earth and moon in the second and fifth photo respectively. for the last photo, i cut out a heart in a piece of paper and held it up to the camera to get the bokeh effect to be heart-shaped. overall, i was going for a dark erethrial aesthetic since that’s what vibe my song choice gives me.

[lidlidilidisi]

Translation:

a burning hill - Mitski

“Today I will wear my white button-down

I’m tired of wanting more

I think I’m finally worn

For you have a way of promising things

And I’ve been a forest fire

I am a forest fire

And I am the fire and I am the forest

And I am a witness watching it

I stand in a valley watching it

And you are not there at all

So today I will wear my white button-down

I can at least be neat

Walk out and be seen as clean

And I’ll go to work and I’ll go to sleep

And I’ll love the littler things

I’ll love some littler things”

I chose these lyrics because not only do I love

Mitski but i also relate to these lyrics immensely. The lyrics talk about her kind of surrendering and kind of doing the things everyone expects you to do. In the song, she is pretending and acting as if everything is alright when it’s so far away form it. Lately, this song has been stuck in my head. I think I’m in a moment in my life where that song fits me perfectly. I’m finally seeing the way the real world works and I wonder, “Is this it?”. As someone who suffer from depression this song hits home. It makes me think about some of the lies I tell myself whenever It gets bad and I need to be productive. I chose to do portraits because I believe even with such simple lyrics , the song is extremely raw and transparent. She is opening her soul to us and letting us know how she feels and I kind of wanted to do the same thing while using minimal filter.

[lidlidilidisi]

Homage,

For my Homage project, I decided to research Francesca Woodman. Her work is incredible. Always super creepy and delicate. Most of her work was done in her studio and manly took pictures of women who were blurred, naked, clothed and mysterious. I think her work is causally creepy if I’m putting it correctly. Francesca had a way in provoking such a uneasy atmosphere with her photos. A lot of images were very raw. I really enjoyed this project. It took me out of my comfort zone and encouraged me to work in black and white. Francesca is not Alice because she committed suicide. Her images captivated a lot of the emotions she was feeling at the time. Those photographs are going to live forever.

[ta-gad-2401]

For this final assignment, I decided to pay homage to Bernice Abbott. I chose her because her work was very inspirational to me. I loved the fact that she went to all these different places and took a snapshot in order to show the true beauty and sometimes history of subjects. I’m originally from New Jersey but after moving to Philadelphia for school, the city has become very close to my heart. I wanted to show the beauty that Philadelphia is filled with. I believe Bernice did a great job of express emotion through her photos and offering some sort of story in order to affect her audience I also love landscape and architecture photography so this was something that I really enjoyed going out and doing. 

[ta-gad-2401]

For the Homage project, I am paying the Homage to Berenice Abbott. She began filming New York City and published Changing New York in 1939. Her project is inspiring me for this project. Changing New York records the atmosphere of NYC and the architecture of that era. She witnessed the growth of New York. Inspired by her work, I began taking architecture photographs of Philadelphia.

Through this work, I can also see the changes in Philadelphia and people’s lives. The reason why I used black and white photos is not only I like it, but also that black and white can highlight the age of the photos. Generally speaking, I really enjoyed this photo shooting experience.

[ta-gad-2401]

For my final project I chose to pay homage to Sally Mann. She is known for her low contrast black and white photos of her husband and children. Out of all the photographers I felt like I connected most with her. I’m married with two little girls, and I love taking photos of my family, so I felt that this was the perfect choice for me. I really enjoyed this project because it got me to pay special attention to the little moments that I may not necessarily think to photograph—like my daughters playing together, my husband doing yard work, my 2yr old playing with rocks or drawing on the chalkboard at her dance class. I will say that some of Sally Mann’s photos might have a little more dramatic or serious effect, so that is where I may have fallen short in really capturing her style, but all in all I think paid homage to her well.

[ta-gad-2401]

For my project, I decided to use Edward Weston as my intended style. I used Weston’s style in the sense of taking close up and focused images of complicated subjects in black and white. Although Weston’s style waivers and his subjects are vast, I decided to follow his style in terms of focusing on the detail of a subject and took images of mostly flowers and plants. I struggled a bit with these because a lot of a flowers beauty comes from its colors. However, I was fascinated with the detail of some flowers that I hadn’t noticed before because I was focused solely on the array of colors. This project definitely challenged me to funnel my creativity into a specific style of photography. I appreciated Weston’s style a lot because of how this made me focus more on the detail and intricacy subjects. It made me realize that there’s beauty and interest in so much more than the color of something. (I also added an image of my friend’s dog just for fun). 

[ta-gad-2401]

For my final project, I had a little help when it came down to choosing one photographer. There were so many and I loved all of the options! It came down to Richard Learoyd, who takes captivating photographs of renaissance-esque people. 

His photographs are so raw, moody, and mysterious. At first, I wanted to do the same exact things and get the same exact look at Learoyd, but I realized that my photographs are supposed to be inspired off of my photographer. I tried my best to get my models to give certain expressions that would give a moody ambiance. 

With some editing, I got the photographs to look a little more clear and darker, similar to Learoyd’s style. I was originally going to touch up the photographs to make the models look a certain way, however, I decided to keep all of the “flaws” because it was what gave it character. I thought it looked more beautiful with less editing so I tried to keep it to a minimum. 

[ta-gad-2401]

For the homage project I chose Richard Avedon, a black and white fashion photographer. I really enjoyed this project, was able to see a side of people that I haven’t seen before. Had fun with this one for sure. I’m really into black and white photography as well so that helped shape my decision on choosing Mr. Avedon. By far my favorite assignment all year ‼️‼️

[ta-gad-2401]

4/26

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4/25

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4/24

[ta-gad-2401]

4/23

[giovannaruggio-blog]

For my Homage project, I photographed in the style of Berenice Abbott, American documentary photographer. As a working New York women, I felt inspired by her and her photographs. Berenice’s best-known series titled “Changing New York” documents the architecture and shifting landscape in New York City. With the changing landscape, socially and physically, in Northern Philadelphia and it’s recent gentrification, I thought this was a great time to pay homage to Berenice and her famous series through my take on her photography. 

For the last week, I walked around North Philly with my camera and photographed any construction or signs of gentrification I passed. Berenice photographs from all angles so I had a lot of freedom with how I photographed. The most important part was in the editing to give my photographs an old film camera look. To make this possible, I boosted the shadows and decreased the exposure while adding some grain to the overall photograph. I love how the photographs came out and think Berenice would be proud of my series. 

[ta-gad-2401]

4/28

For the Homage project I decided to shoot my photographs in the style of Larry Sultan. I selected Larry Sultan because as I was researching through photographers his style of photographs stood out to me, especially the style of his project Pictures From Home. As I researched his photography from Pictures From Home I found out that his work “blends documentary and staged photography to create images of the psychological as well as physical landscape of suburban family life” (http://larrysultan.com/bio/). His project was created in 1992 and showed the psychological and physical landscape of suburban family life from the 90’s, so for this project I wanted to capture the psychological and physical landscape of suburban family life in 2019 while using Larry Sultan’s photography style. I tried to use his style to create psychological images of suburban family life by creating photographs that show the technology generation, which I believe is a big issue today and I wanted to capture those images. I used my grandma as my main subject, similar to Larry Sultan using his parents, and I wanted to show the generations colliding. Most of his photos from this project were in color but some were kind of dark because he used shadows and dark spaces, and I tried to do that as well. This project helped me understand that when I make pictures I prefer to make staged photography because for Homage that’s when I was able to capture the photograph that I envisioned, and I feel like every facial expression and prop placement was perfect and ended up as everything I wanted it to be.

[ta-gad-2401]

4/27