Artist Statement

This portfolio contains a variety of different photographs. Some are projects that my class and I worked on using Photoshop. These were most likely preparing us for a soon to come individual assignment were we would have to use the same technique using Photoshop. Others are to show something, while the camera is set on different modes. The rest are completely different. I feel that my portfolio expresses myself quite well, and I am proud of everything that is in it. Even though I know I could have done better on some projects I’m still happy with the way it came out overall. I have learned a lot of different things this semester. I know how to do different things in Photoshop. The things that I have learned are how to combine two completely different things, and how to create shadows and reflections. I have also learned a couple of things about digital cameras like how to work with ISO and metering. This makes picture look completely different and I am glad that I learned about it. I feel that I was most successful with the final project were we were to take artistic photographs in black and white. I am really happy with the way my photos came out and I think I was most creative in this project, so that is why I think it is most successful. The thing that I struggled with most was my personal metaphor project. I had a huge amount of trouble with this and I am still not satisfied with the way it came out. I could improve in the future by making better use of my time and trying better on projects until I cant try no more. I gave up really easy and I now know that it was an unintelligent thing to do and a big waste of time. I have seen growth and improvement in my artistic state of mind and I think I am beginning to get more creative and open to different things. I am very proud of my completion in this portfolio and enjoy the feeling of accomplishment.

Self Portraits

I wanted to express the feeling of melancholy and sadness. I do think that I captured this feeling visually, but not exactly how I wanted to. My ideas of how the pictures were going to be are completely different form how they ended. The photograph that I think is most creative is the element one. I chose to represent lines. The way I expressed this is by having lines across my face and also in the door behind me. The reason I think this is my most creative is because it is more unique than the rest of my photos and is more interesting. The most difficult thing for me on this project was having to make the photos completely different. I still think that they are a bit similar; this may be because I wanted to express the same mood. Creativity makes my self portraits successful because if they were not creative I would not be happy with the way that they came out.
I think my I have strong emphasis, mainly because there is not much going on in the photos. All of my pictures have been cropped from the actual photo, to give more value and strong emphasis. The thing that weakened my composition was the contrast. There is too much black and it makes the picture look dark. The portrait that has the strongest composition is my rules of thirds one. I am really proud with the way this came out and I think is has the best position. One photo that I could have improved on is also my rule of thirds, but for a different reason. This photo has the least contrast and is too grey. I could have worn a different color or maybe have a different background to change this picture.
I think the photos were taken quite well. I actually took two of them! My photographers did exactly what I wanted them to do and expressed the right feeling. The only thing I would change is the darkness. This is something that also affects my contrast. I used a camera technique on my lighting picture to crate more light. I focused on the brightness of my skin color to make my face the lightest thing in the picture. The strengths of my craftsmanship are that all my photos came out focused and the right color. A weakness is that they are simple and don’t have a special affect to them.
My overall opinion is that they could have come out more artistic but I think I did quite well. I think I did well at expressing my mood. If I had this assignment again I would think of more artistic ideas and make more contrast in the photos. My favorite shot was the lines one, that picture is artistic and has good contrast; I wouldn’t change anything about it. My least favorite shot is the light one, because it is very simple and quite boring. My final thoughts on this project is that I liked it, and it was a bit challenging but really fun!

Shutter Speed

Two things that shutter speed effects are light and movement.

ISO

In the first picture i used flash and this caused the picture to look really bright, and it's difficult to see the Christmas lights in the background. The second picture was taken with ISO5000 and this made the lights stand out and the person is also visible.t picture was taken with ISO50 and as you can see is extremely dark. The lights are visible but seem way to blurry and you cant even tell there's a person there! The difference between the three pictures is that flash just makes it bright but not great, and Low ISO is mainly used for too bright backgrounds not inside and the last ISO (5000) is made for this type of picture and looks the best.

Light Metering

What I did here was take two different photos using metering. In the first photo I focused on the computer screen. Once the camera had the focus I moved away from the screen to be able to have the girl and the screen in the picture. This caused the screen to be overexposed yet you could see the girl. In the second photograph I focused on the color of her skin so that it would make her brighter instead of the screen. It is important that you use metering to catch the light something gives of and it is better to have something unimportant over exposed and be able to see the emphasis than to have a whole lot of dark. Metering is good for pictures that come out really dark so that you can actually see something in the photo.

Personal Metaphor

I chose the metaphor “I feel curious like a raccoon” to represent how curios I always am. I wanted to capture a joyful, innocent mood because that’s how I see raccoons. I placed myself in the center to show strong emphasis. My background is quite boring, but this is only because there were a lot of different things going on and I didn’t want that. I feel that my composition is balanced because I show great contrast. I do believe that my image is unified but not a lot. I think I did a good job on making my face like a raccoon. The difficult part was trying to decide which parts to leave a lone and which to make different on my body. I could have made a lot of changes, such as make it look more realistic and a better background. I would defiantly change my background.

Aesthetic Experience

As you can see this is a photograph of water intertwining with the color green...in this project we were forced to make ourselves have an aesthetic experience while different colors of food coloring was being dropped into the glass of water. I couldn't really have one because i was busy trying to get a good picture shot and so i got this picture and i think its lovely! Now with this awesome picture taken I'm sure i can see the beauty in it and somehow connect it to that in life... but i'll write about that later!!!

Hybrid

In this project we turned a reular bird into a hybrid between a dog and a bird. We learned how to combine two different things in photoshop. I liked this project beacause it looks realisrtic and it was fun blending.

Movie Moments

Inspired by Cindy Sherman, a contemporary photographer who took photos of herself staring in movies that never existed. The movie that i and my partner created was titled Watching Him and the genre was Drama.

Chocolate Froggy

For Valentines day we turned frogs into chocolate. I thought this project was verry fun and enjoyed creating smooth texture and drippy chocolate. I also liked the fact that the frog looked so different from its original picture i was amazed at how much can be done to change a photograph. I learned how to crate shiny effects and drippy felling.

Shadows And Reflections

In these exercises we learned how to create shadows and reflections to help us create more realistic artwork. A new tool we learned was layer mask. the things that we learned here can help me in the future by letting me know how to make shadows appear realistic when starting from scratch.

Si se puede Project

This was a project similar to the graduation one, except this time we were only creating a front cover and in the graduation project we were creating a front and back cover on the same page, so this project was easier. We diddent really have to represent the school but i chose to because i had no other ideas and puple and silver do lok good together! It's really simple and not to complicated but i think it pretty average.

Graduation project

For this project we had to create a graduation cover for our seniors. I chose to use our school colors; purple and silver. I also put our school mascott in the corner and a student looking away, i chose this picture because it's as if he is looking into his future and he is a senior too!

Balance with Frames

We were given a frame and told we had to be in our composition, it had to be black and white and it had to have balance. I created balance by making sure the part were my shadow and body intertwine was in the middle therefor creating balance in the photo.

Random Object

We were each assigned a random object to photograph. We could choose to have it in color or black and white. We were to focus on "The three C's".

According to my peers, one thing i did well was placing the candles in an attractive position. The one thing i could improve on was to give more emphasis to my object and not so much in the backround.

The egg challange

In this project each student was given an egg to photograph. We were to take a photo in both color and black-and-white. We were supposed to exemplify one or more of the followings: Creativity, Craftsmanship or Composition.

I believe my black-and-white piece was the most successful because the contrast really stands out and both pictures are very creative!

My favorite project from last semester

This was my favorite project of last semester and the reason for that is because it was all my own idea! Everytime we have a project assigned to us usually we are told what to take the picture of and what to add and what to change, of course our picture always have our own little touch but this one is mine.
My social issue was about life and all the violence and hate it has...all the chaos and war. How awful it can be at times yet at the same time people are fighting to stay alive, don't get me wrong life is an amazing thing and i am very fortunate to be alive but the truth is i wouldn't really care if i were to die. I'd be at peace and i do belive in after life so after i die my life would be much better in my opinion.
Well..this picture is of me which was not how i planned but i think it came out much better than my original idea.

Work from Last Semester