Blog Prompt #20

Blog Prompt #20

1. Describe some common aesthetic aspects of “news”-related photographs.

News related photographs often focus upon the faces and persons in the event. They capture a period of time, rather than creating one. They are often dramatic and draw reactions from the viewers.

2. Describe some common aesthetic aspects of “snapshots”.

Snap shots are very candid looking. Slightly blurred, weird focus and time catching.

3. Describe some common aesthetic aspects of advertisement photographs. Fashion photography? Product photography?

Fashion photography is all about the dramatic. High contrast and placed lighting help to make the pictures. Product photography often places the focus right on the product and has a medium contrast. Everything is clear and recognizable.

4. Describe some common aesthetic aspects of film or movie stills.

Movie stills are crisp and full of action and movement. 

5. Describe some common aesthetic aspects of yearbook photos and/or senior pictures.

Yearbook/senior photos are very face centralized. They are clear and put focus upon the subject. 

Blog Entry 19

Can you think of anything that:

1) should not be photographed? Why?
2) cannot be photographed? Why?

and

3) you do not want to photograph? Why?


1. There are a few things that a majority of the human population could most likely agree shouldn't be photographed. To list a few, child pornography, real life death (unless given complete consent or in the case of police work), and human and animal abuse. These things listed are not only illegal, but in most cases, morally wrong. I also believe that anything violating a human's rights should not be photographed. 


2. It's easy to say what can't be photographed. You can convey feelings and ideas in your photographs, but no one can truly capture the true emotions that a person feels inside.


3. There are a few things that are obvious I would not like to photograph, if you consider my opinions in the first question. I also would not like to photograph any kind of extreme pain or suffering because I feel I would rather be working to console rather than to capture. 

Recreation of the "Biting Pear of Salamanca"

In this image, I chose to create a recreation of a popular art piece on the internet. The art piece features a pear with large creepy teeth being photographed photographed by a small animal. I chose to do a technology parody of this by using a Ipod touch for the biting pear, with a big smiling image on it's screen, and using the memory stick for the animal. The memory stick can "capture" the files upon the itouch. My peers thought it would be nice if the background contained a little more information.

Zoom
In this photo, the viewer is gazing up at the corner of a building, and the angle abstracts what they see. My peers liked the composition, but felt that I could darken the bottom and create more of an dark to light effect going dark on the lower part to a light on the higher part. 

Landart indoors

In this image, I create a landart piece indoors. Whenever I walk down the staircase to the door, I always see piles of leaves that have been blown inside. I decided to use this to my advantage and arrange a few of the leaf pieces into a heart and leave other pieces on the ground to create a blowing effect, which helps to lead the viewers eye across the page.

For this final image, I photographed branches in front of a cloudless sky to create a very high contrast picture. I left the thick parts of the branches up top, in order to lead the viewers eye down the branches and to the bottom left of the image. My peers liked the way that the gradient in the background went from dark on the left to lighter on the right.

Gabriele Basilico

Gabriele Basilico is a Italian photographer and was born in 1944. He studied architecture in Milan. He photographs mainly cities and industrial landscapes.
In a majority of his photos, Basilico positions himself high above his landscapes. His photos are crisp, with a high contrast that holds onto your focus.
In Napoli Vesuvio, the above photo, there is a heavy contrast between the sharp crowded city, and the fuzzy mountain and sky. What I assume is a long, white building, captures my attention and move my focus from the bottom of the photo to the top of the photo.

Blog Entry 16, 17, 18

“Landscape photography is the supreme test of the photographer—and often the supreme disappointment.” ~Ansel Adams

Landscapes are often some of the hardest for me to photograph. When I was in Austria, there were so many beautiful surroundings, but my camera did not do them justice. It is hard to capture the true experience of landscapes with a camera lens. Another factor is that the photographer gets to experience the view in person. Though the resulting picture might appear breathtaking to others, it does not always remain breath taking to the photographer. The picture could pale in comparison to the real view. 

“Photography, as we all know, is not real at all. It is an illusion of reality with which we create our own private world.” Arnold Newman

Pictures taken are always composed. The subjects within them might be acting natural, and even unaware of the camera, but the photographer places them within the frame and decides the moment to snap a picture. The photographer is also able to control the focus of the photo. 

“Photography can only represent the present. Once photographed, the subject becomes part of the past.” Berenice Abbott

Even if the subject within the picture is supposed to be set in the future, it was still a place, person, props that sat in a moment of time. 

Memory- Passage of time

The memory behind this piece was my first date with Michael. The bowling alley was always a place me and my friends would go to when we were tired of going to movies and wanted something else to do. Me and Michael chose the bowling alley because we felt a first date should be doing something where you're interacting with each other. I chose to have the subject blurry while having the bowling lanes crisp in order to show motion. The next thing that shows the passage of time was the two remaining bowling pins. Rather than show the image where they are all standing, it shows 8 of them knocked down.