Carl Van Vechten

Carl Van Vechten became famous for his photography starting in the 1930s. He began as a portrait photographer, but then transitioned to dance photography as well. He covered many genres of dance, spanning from the American Negro Ballet to a nine year old Balinese dancer named Ni-Gusti-Raka.
During that time period, black and white photographs were common. I believe that taking dance pictures in black and white intensifies the photograph and makes it more interesting to look at. Dance is an art, and black and white photos seem to be more artistic to viewers.
Van Vechten’s photographs capture the subject’s strengths as I tried to do with my pictures. In his photo, Martha Graham and Bertram Ross In Clymtemnestra (1961), you can see how strong the models’ poses are. I tried to copy both his and the photographer I did my report on earlier in the year, Lois Greenfield in my work and believe I succeeded.

Final Project

My theme for my project was "Injured Dancer". When dancers get hurt, 9 times out of 10 they will not stop dancing because they do not want to get behind.

Thank you Nicolette and Emily for being my models.

Playing around with my pictures

Possible Portfolio?

Playing with the light

I played with the light in different ways. We had two lamps and experimented different ways and with different backdrops. My favorite pictures are the one with Nicolette and the lightbulb and the one of Kirstie with the pink backdrop. 

Reflected light and diffused light 2

Proof that we actually did use a white board! Haha

Reflected light and diffused light

I took pictures outside with some friends. We used a white poster board to reflect light off her face. It turned out really well in the close up picture where she is looking up. 

Just messing around...

This is my mom and me. I messed with the levels and changed the background color. I have the original picture as my profile picture.

This is my cat Mai Tai. She likes hanging out in my laundry when it's fresh out of the dryer. I messed with the picture on photoshop to entertain myself.

Event

Since I had to work during the Citizen Jane Film Festival, I decided to take pictures of Sigma Sigma Sigma's Haunted Tour. It was at Stephens College on October 29th. My goal in taking pictures was to capture everyone getting ready.

My questions about the manual

What are metering modes?

Suprisingly, that's my only question

Group Assignment

I posted these a few days ago and they didn't work....let's try again! Courtney, Casey, and I went to a local coffee shop, Kayotea, and took some pictures.  They have a lot of antiques in the shop and there were some old guys playing guitar and singing.  We took a lot of pictures and I think that they turned out well.

They have salsa dancing at the Artisan every Wednesday night.

Due to a family emergency, I was not able to attend the meet and greet with Denise McGill.  I emailed her with a question, but she has yet to respond.  I guess I'm just going to write a little paragraph about her since I have nothing else...

Denise McGill graduated from the University of Missouri-Columbia with a degree from the Journalism school.  She also attended Ohio University's school of Visual Communication.

She has taken pictures on five different continents and has a broad range of specialties.  She takes pictures of weddings, special events, but also takes pictures of something that other photographers don't.  She goes to villages and tells the stories of people who would not otherwise be known of by people outside of the village.

Group assignment for using a manual camera:

We're taking our pictures Wednesday night at 8.

We're going to set up a shoot in one of our apartments or go somewhere downtown(like a coffee shop)

Edited

What's the word?

Although I can't say what my word is, I can say that this was an easy assignment for me!

Now...care to take a guess or two?

Landscape

I took pictures of the quad between Columbia and Wood Halls. It was a nice day outside and the lighting was good.

Body Part Pictures

I took pictures of my feet. They didn't turn out as good as I would have hoped. I don't have pretty feet, that's for sure!

It's my turn...

The assignment was for me to recreate the picture from the last assignment or at least 2 aspects of it.  I decided to take another dance picture and attempt to capture the emotion portrayed and to turn the picture black and white.  I also liked how Greenfield had her lighting so I'm going to try to play around with that as well....

I got my friend Clay to be my model. I like how the picture turned out!

Lois Greenfield

Lois Greenfield is best known for her dance photography. She has an amazing ability to capture a person’s natural movement.
Lois was born in 1948. She graduated from Brandeis University in 1970 with degrees in Anthropology and Film Making. After college, she originally wanted to take pictures for National Geographic due to her love of traveling and the community service projects that she was involved in. That dream didn’t last long.
One night, Lois was assigned to cover a dance concert. She didn’t know the first thing about photographing movement or the dance world. She learned fast, and by 1973, had mastered the technique and was well on her way to become one of the most well known dance photographers in the world.
Today, Lois has published a couple photography collections and is one of the most sought after dance photographers in the world.

They are called the Carmen de Lavallade collection. The subject is choreographer Carmen de Lavallade. Greenfield did a really good job capturing the movement of de Lavallade's skirt. The skirt creates lines that give the photographs more expression than if she would have been dancing in street clothes.

The central focus of the photographs is obviously the dancer. She is performing a West-Indian influenced dance where a story is told mainly using hand movements.

The value is extremely noticeable in the first picture. The light is coming from the top left corner and draws the viewer's eyes to her arms.
I wish that Greenfield would have gotten all of the skirt in the frame in the third picture. It would have given the photograph more of a symmetric feel.

Greenfield chose a good vantage point when taking the photographs. When taking dance photography, it is hard to get the subject centered because they move around a lot, but she was front and center when she took these.

The background also adds to the collection. The fact that it is the bare minimum makes the viewer focus that much more on the subject and he/she isn't distracted by other objects that could've been in the shot.

Overall, Greenfield did an amazing job with these photographs. I believe her goal was to capture the emotion and strength that de Lavallade portrays when she dances. She captured the dancer's spirit and then some in these photographs.

Fun with Photoshop

The assignment was to have fun with 3 photos on photoshop, and I have successfully completed that assignment...

On the feet picture, I used my magnetic lasso to go around the feet and then selected the inverse. I then went to the filter menu and chose to "Twirl" my picture.

On the flower one, I used my Magic Wand tool to select the flowers, then I messed with the color balance. I then selected the inverse and desaturated the background a bit.

On the leaves photo, I went to the filter menu and chose the Stamp option. Then I messed with the levels a little bit.

Oops!

I thought we only had to post one picture but it turns out that we have to post three...here's my other two!
I took the picture of the flower at Stephens Lake Park while I was walking around. I love yellow flowers, they make me really happy for some reason.
The other picture is of my coffee table in my apartment. I put different items on it that are a big part of my life. The guy in the picture with me is one of my best guy friends. I love sunglasses and driving my car, and the pad of paper has different things that my roomate and I have doodled when we get bored.