Final Emulation Project

I chose to emulate Barbara Bosworth.  She took a lot of pictures of nature and the beautiful natural light. She also took pictures of people interacting with nature. Many of her prints were sets of two or three that were connected together after printing.  I did a few of these, they were much harder than I realized.  I decided to emulate Barbara Bosworth because she captures things that a lot of people don't notice.  Like the way light hits a landscape, a lot of people don't take the time to look at that.  She also has to take her time and get the light just right which took a lot of patience.  I had to wait for the right time of day to take pictures. 
NOTE the first three are pictures of pictures and not as good of quality as the originals.  I will try to upload them as better quality when I get photoshop.

Dada to Digital

Photography over time has become a way to record the changes in culture that were hard to see before.  Photography was also changed by the cultural changes, especially during the major changes caused by scientific breakthroughs.  These breakthroughs changed the way people thought about the human race. Art changed in many different ways as people tried to adjust to this new way of thinking. Art also had to adjust to the invention of the computer.  Computers became a way to make new kinds of art, but computers are continuously changing and art changes with it.  Cubilism and Futurism were in part created as a response to the changes occurring at the time.   But the Dadaists decided to respond directly to the culture at the time.  They created art for the political effect it would have and not for its aesthetic appeal.  They ignored many of the rules if art followed by other artists and created something new.  After Dadaism came surrealism which was a little more like traditional art in the sense that it was made as a complete, finished piece of art.  They made people think through the subject of their art instead of the political message behind it.  Next came Pop art which showed the repetitive culture of the time.  Then art was changed again by technology as televisions became a part of art.  Art will continue to be changed by science and technology.  Today we face changes in photography because we are now able to store more information on computers and editing techniques are continuously improving. 

Karen M- UNH museum

Karen M’s photographs have an older feel to them. The dark tones and small size of the photographs also makes them appear older than they are.   One set had a lot of darker tones that made them moodier; the other set had a lot of contrast to them. It makes them two distinctly separate sets of prints. There are spots on some of the pictures from the printing technique that she used, this makes the pictures look older and also makes them more chaotic.  The subjects of the pictures are also chaotic; there was a picture of a pile of clothes and another of an unmade bed.  She took pictures of everyday things around her that were messy and disorganized. The people pictured are not in focus and the other subjects are not lined up as expected.  I think I like Her pictures better because they are small and they draw you in.  You have to get up close and take a good look to see them. 

Chapter 10 History of Photography

I would not want to be a photographer who used the daguerreotype.  They had to work with a lot of poisonous chemicals to make each image.  And each image could only be printed once so if they wanted another copy they had to go through the entire process again.  And the subject was always still, people had to sit still for a long time and they couldn’t hold a smile for that long.  There was only so much that they could do with the imaging techniques that they had.  Everyone still wanted to be photographed, before then people did not have portraits of loved ones that they could take with them.  The portraits they had were large expensive paintings that only the wealthy could afford and that could not be taken with them when they travelled.

Fortunately the calotype came out not too long later.  They could now print images on paper and make multiple copies.  Back then it was still a technique used only by someone who was trained to it.  Everyone wanted to get their picture taken but they couldn’t take pictures themselves like we can today.  It was roll film that led to the public taking pictures themselves.  All the pictures from my childhood were taken on a film camera.  It let people record times in their lives when before they had to travel to a photographer.  That is where candid photos came from; they couldn’t have a candid photo when you had to go to the camera to make a photo.  Now that photos were much easier to create, and less likely to poison people, other forms of photography could be made.  Since the focus did not need to be on how to make a clear reproducible photo there was more room for creativity in the subject.  It was less expensive so people could also photograph objects instead of just focusing on portraits.  

Chapter 9 seeing like a camera

An important part of taking a photograph is deciding how you want to frame the subject.  I sometimes wish that I had included more in my photographs.  I go into light room and with the picture on a bigger screen I can easily see parts I wish were included or things that were cut off at the edge of the frame.  Knowing that I am working on a computer and cropping is easy to do with a digital file I think I need to take a step back and include more in the frame of the photograph.  Then I won’t have to worry about cutting off part of the subject. 

I think I am looking at the background of the frame more often now since we started talking about it in the class critiques.  I try not to have the horizon line going straight through the subject of the photo.  I also have started to practice changing settings faster so I can capture what I see before it passes.  In the portrait project I practiced using a faster shutter speed to catch some candid shots of a moving subject.  I realized that working with an animal subject it was hard to catch them in the right spot.  If you took too long to change the settings then the subject had already moved and I could not get that same picture back.  I also had to make my subjects comfortable or they tried to leave.  I wanted to let them be themselves but at the same time I wanted a picture of them together which required me to balance moving them, which made them more likely to run off, and just following them. 

In my final project when taking landscapes I often used a longer depth of field like the landscapes in the book.  I also had to plan out when I could take pictures.  I didn’t have the best weather to work with but I still needed to catch the scene in good lighting conditions.  

Chapter 8 Lighting

This chapter relates to the classes when we set up the lighting sets to practice working with them.  I practiced using some of these lighting techniques when shooting the still life photography project. I tried diffuse light by shooting in natural light through a see through curtain.  I tried using back light using a flashlight; I also turned on another light farther away to help light the front of the subject.  It was difficult to get the correct settings of aperture and shutter speed to go with the lighting conditions when I was changing the light so frequently.  I did not use fill light when shooting the still life project but I did use fill light when I was shooting the class portraits for the amalgamation project. 

I usually prefer to use a harsher light when I shoot photographs of the landscape.  I like when I shoot landscapes when I can clearly see the shadows in the photograph.  When I take pictures of people I prefer to use diffuse light or fill light.  I prefer to use natural light for all of my photographs over artificial light.  When I use artificial light I have to worry about how close the light source is to the subject and what temperature the light source is.  I have to set the white balance myself sometimes because the automatic white balance does not have a setting that works with every light source. 

I don’t normally use the built in flash on my camera.  I think it makes the image look too harsh in the foreground and loses a lot of background information.  I could see from some of the pictures in the book that using the flash with another light source could change that.  I think using bounce flash instead could make an interesting portrait and it does not make the photo look as harsh as the built in flash.  

Back lit still life