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!