Tuesday, September 23, 2008

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!

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

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!

Friday, September 12, 2008

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.

Monday, September 8, 2008

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.

Thursday, September 4, 2008

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.

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Picture this

I went to Stephens Lake Park to take pictures for class. While I was walking around, I saw this little guy swimming by the bank and had to take a picture of him. Isn't he cute? I got up right next to him and he didn't swim away. I got lucky!