Unit 4: Blog Entry
1. Minor White
White was born in Minnesota, and began his art career in 1937 when he began photographing landscapes in Oregon. His style mimicked Ansel Adams' in the way his photography was both symbolic yet simple. In 1946, Ansel Adams offered White a teaching position at the California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco. He continued exploring "equivalency", where an image serves as an idea or emotional state beyond the subject pictured. Near the end of his career, while serving as professor of creative photography at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), he produced his most powerful piece, Essence of Boat, depicting a broken boat half covered in snow, symbolizing the end of his life and career.
2. Cindy Sherman
Sherman was born in Glenn Ridge New Jersey in 1954, but did not show an interest in photography or the arts until she was exposed to it in college. After studying photography at Buffalo State University, Sherman and several other artists formed Hallwalls, an independent artists' space where she and fellow artists exhibited. Sherman is known for her self portraits, that place her in the role of other women at the time and comment of social justice issues. her most famous photographs of this type are the United Film Stills. Her work transformed in the mid 1980's, shown in the Disaster and Fairytale series; which for the first time, did not show herself as the subject. She is currently living and working in New York city.
3. Man Ray
Ray was born in 1890, and grew up in Brooklyn as a Jewish immigrant from Russia. His early influences were Alfred Stieglitz and Robert Henri, who helped him grasp the early concepts of art.
After exploring Dadaism, which challenged existing notions of art and literature, and encouraged
spontaneity, Ray moved to Paris where he created some of his most famous portraits of the artistically and literarily elite. Endlessly versatile, Ray also experimented with fashion photography during his years in Paris. In his later career, he continued to display his work all around the world and died in 1976.
4. Jerry Uelsmann
Uselmann was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1934. Throughout his career, his photography has had surreal and mystical themes that contain deeper meanings and have an eerie theme. Despite the impossible scenes he creates with his photos, he does not use photoshop; and instead layers his photos in the darkroom, using up to 7 or 8 layers when a photo is completed. He is an accomplished photographer and has received a Guggenheim fellowship in 1967 and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in 1972. He has thought at the University of Florida since the 1960's and currently lives with his wife, Maggie Taylor in Florida.
Unit 3: Blog Entry 1
1. Get on their level
- I crouched down to capture this level shot of this cactus flower in Zion National park, Utah. I like this angle a lot because it creates a more engaging and personal view of the subject.
- Another part of this technique is to focus on one element in the photo and leave a blurred background to create even more of a centered focus around the main subject.
- With this photo in particular, the blurred background is also visually interesting, and although it is blurred, the viewer can still get a sense of the immense beauty and size of the canyon, while focusing on something as small and numerous as a simple flower.
- The colors in this photo also add interest. The overpowering browns and greens are balanced with the sharp and enhanced yellow of the cactus flower.
- Source: (Mallory McMurray)
2. Use a plain background
- By setting the building and the plant life on the left side of the image against the plain background of the sky, it makes the main subjects on the image stand out even more.
-Although the background is not exactly one universal color and is kind of alike a gradient, it still provides a background that allows the viewer to focus on the subjects.
- This photo in particular was taken during golden hour at the Arizona State University Campus.
- Source: (Mallory McMurray)
3. Use flash outdoors
- By using flash outdoors, the photographer is able to create a well lit photo even when the he does not have full control of the lighting.
- Using this technique gives the photo the best of both worlds; a well lit model as well as the natural beauty of natural lighting.
- Source: (Bob Lai)
4. Move in close
- Photographing a subject up close can eliminate a distracting background and allow the viewer to focus all their attention on the subject; because that's all there is to see.
- When photographing a subject this closely, the photographer can also focus on texture, pattern, line, shape, and other elements of photography.
-With this photo in particular, a not so interesting subject like a car's wheels can be focused on and made interesting because of the circular pattern of the bolts and the sleek lines of the spokes.
- Source: (Mallory McMurray)
5. Take some vertical pictures
- Taking vertical photos can add variety to a photographers collection and take advantage on a landscape that is more visually interesting going up and down than horizontally.
- This photo of a canyon in Zion National Park, Utah not only takes advantage of a vertical angle, but also line and shape. The curving lines on the rock shaped by water lead the viewers eye to the back of the photo, while the pop of green color adds color and more visual interest.
- The glassy surface of the water also acts sort of as a mirror, making the cave walls appear even longer then they actually are, and stretching the photo even more vertically.
-This photo is also an example of the first technique discussed here, "Get on their level."
- Source: (Mallory McMurray)
6. Lock the Focus
- Capturing this photo was difficult because the camera's auto focus setting wanted to focus on the background, rather than my dog Lola, the subject.
- By holding down the shutter halfway however, I was able to lock the focus before capturing the image, giving me the result I wanted.
- This is one of my favorite pictures of my dog because of the contrast in the yellow and green colors, and the way I was able to enhance her eyes in photoshop.
- Source: (Mallory McMurray)
7. Move it from the middle
- When taking this photo, I had the opportunity to center the two roosters, and have relatively the same background.
- By moving the subjects of the photo to the left however, I took advantage of a rule of thirds composition, making an ok photo pretty interesting.
- I also brought out the colors in this image a lot, almost to a surreal level, to add more interest through color.
- Source: (Mallory McMurray)
8. Know your flash's range
- In a scenario as important as wedding photography, knowing the limitations and abilities of your camera is crucial.
- Although the photographer was far away from his subjects, he made sure to be at a distance where the flash would still light up his subjects and still capture a great deal of the interesting background.
- The colors in this photo also add interest, the pop of pink on the brides wrist offset all the dark grey and white tones.
- Source: (Simon Burt)
9. Watch the light
- I took this photo during golden hour, when the sun is setting but still provides enough light to not need flash.
- I took this photo from an angle where the sun would shine through the sculpture, illuminating it and adding a golden tone to the entire image.
- There are also several elements in this photo that compete with, but do not overpower each other. The palm trees, the sculpture, and the sun itself, all become areas of focus for the viewer to look at, but each holds equal importance and weight in the photo, creating a balanced composition.
- Source: (Mallory McMurray)
10. Be a picture director
- When taking photos of people, it's important to be clear and precise in your directing.
- I tried taking a friend's senior portraits once, and I realized that is the most important but also one of the most difficult parts of portrait photography; directing your model to interesting and flattering photos takes practice and patience.
- With this photo, I simply asked the cop to look relaxed and composed while watching over his city.
- Source: (Mallory McMurray)
