Final Projects

I struggled with this project because I had hard time getting the darker pictures to look good. I also had a hard time finding times when the church was open to shoot. I was trying to make the pictures look creepy and dark.

Contact sheet for Narrative Social landscape.

Narrative social landscape update.

More churches in Durham. 

Class portrait.

Second attempt. 

So this is my class portrait of everyones faces meshed together. I am defiantly not proud of it and it is very scary but this was my first time doing anything like this. I really wanted it to be realistic looking but when I came to the realization that that was just not going to happen I embraced the fact that it was messy and scary looking. I let it look like a collage in every aspect. I believe it was described at jungle like during class so I embraced that and I definitely believe I succeeded in making it jungle like. When I do finally get the chance to do something like this again I believe I will have a better idea on how to go about it.

Progress on the narrative social landscape project.

When I actually understood what this project was about I immediately thought of religion. I have always been fascinated by religions impact on society and spiritual stories of any kind. Therefore for this project I thought it would be a good idea to document different places that represent religion or any other place that brings it into society.

september 11th

On september 11th when the twin towers where hit I was in school in 5th grade. I remember my teach walking into the class after recess and closing the door turning off the lights and explaining to us that the twin towers were hit by just one plane at that point. I remember not knowing what the twin towers were or what all of this meant however no one really did at this point anyway. We took time in the class to discuss the building and why or how this could possibly happen. There was a knock on the door and my teacher was informed that the second tower was hit by a plane as well. My mom had called the school and asked to come get me along with several other students in my class. However the school advised them to let us stay there so we did. We spent the rest of the day talking about the situation and the school made an effort to keep it as calm as possible.
I remember going home and my sisters already being home and my dad was home from work already. I remember barely understanding what all this terrorist attack talk meant. I remember thinking how scared I was that my neighborhood would be a war zone the next day. It was all crazy to think about but at the time I was young and it was a serious situation and I didn't know what to expect. My teacher talked about how it was the longest he had ever watch tv for the next day. He said he was just watching the news for hours along with the rest of the nation.

favs from social landscape narrative.

Social Landscape Narrative.

The temptation to look up what Social Landscape Narrative actually meant was very difficult to avoid however I did not do it and I followed my instinct  of what I believe it means. I basically took a straight forward approach to it. I captured a social environment of a college campus with all the hustle and bustle that comes with it. Then I tried to get the beautiful foliage of the trees and landscape in it too along with the narrative of an afternoon walking around a college campus. These were not my favorite photos I have ever taken however I do love all the colors.

Photos from the weekend.

Had a pretty lazy weekend however I did take an interest in an old piano here it is.

Why do people photograph???

I believe people photograph for many reasons. I feel like one reason is that sometime things or moments make you feel a certain way and people want to capture that feeling and if you take a picture of it you can give yourself that feeling again. Now that it is a picture other people can look at it too and get there own sense of feelings or relationship with the photograph. Pictures for me are a relationship and a personal way that I specifically see the world. It lets me be creative in the happenings of my life. Photographs can express so much and I like the fact that they can make you feel any emotion just by looking at them.

Inspiration

Well these days I am and have always been inspired by one of my high school teachers Kara Healey who is a photographer. I never really saw her work for a long time however I was around her and her artistic mind everyday for two years really. The way that she acted around art and the process of it really made me think and aspire to always have a creative thread running. She really created her emotions around the art world and her art work really reflected her as a being. This a personal more secretive goal that I have for myself is to have my art express the person that I am.

Creative Process.

For me I feel that I get inspired so easily weather it is from a song or a texture on a piece of clothing or the way someone approaches me one day. It could be anything really however I feel that I don't get blocks so much what I am more worried about it is the constant slipping away that happens once I start the process. Once I am inspired by something and then create around that inspiration. It is very easy for me to forget why I was inspired by it or it could be that I saw something else that seems like a better inspiration that makes me lose faith very quickly in my last. Sometimes I feel like I need to take a step back when I am stuck and go back to the place that I was so inspired by. This reminds myself why I started this process but also to really focus on the finish product of something.

Artist Talk # 2 ( Richard Fox, Michael McConnel)

This past wednesday I went to my second artist talk of this semester. It was another faculty talk which I like a lot because not only do you get to learn something from a professor that you may have had but also from an artist that you can learn from there work and there teaching skills. It is a neat way to learn about the art world and I am happy they do that here.

First Richard Fox spoke and I have never had him as a teacher however as I mentioned in my last artist talk lecture response I love painting so I was excited to hear what he had to say about his type of paintings. His perspective of paint is very unique. I had never heard someone talk about painting the way that he did. It was not so much about the techniques or the rules of painting, or the composition for him. Although I believe they thought about all of these things it was more of spiritual experience for him more than anything. That is what he wanted it to be and he tried really hard it seems to keep it that way. he talked about painting in such a way that felt so vulnerable to me like it was a really deep part of him that he was scared of but was on a mission to conquer in new ways all the time. I believe he mentioned being terrified of something that he loved when he talked about painting. I can relate to this when I paint I get overwhelmed easily if I try to hard to think about all the rule and things that I have learned about how to go about a painting however you cant let yourself get consumed with that and that was what he was trying to get across and just let it become a experience and not a test almost.

One very interesting part of his lecture that he said he almost didn't mention but I am glad he did because it was one of the coolest parts for me was when he talked about his struggle with horizontals and verticals in his paintings. How he wasn't sure what it represented but how he always saw it and struggled with the meaning of this type of reoccurring cross in his work and life. His paintings were so personal to him and I liked that part  of it. Because his paintings were so sensitive and important to him they because important to the audience too I feel. I was very intent on following his intuition when it came to paintings. He talked about how he would go to places to paint and then decide he wasn't ready to do it yet. I think this is very interesting that he has that kind of self awareness of his way of painting.

The next artist that talked was Micheal McConnell. I was very interested to hear what she had to say because I have her for my introductory class for sculpture and this was good insight to understanding how she works as an artist and maybe what she is pushing for us to do in her class. As I have learned from her class and now confirmed from her lecture is that it is all about the process for her and for sculpting. There is a big challenge with sculpture I feel to understand the material that you are working with and it take several tries to get it right. It comes down to grasping an idea and the textures and then working through the process of getting there. She talked about how she liked taking small to large something about how it is confrontational and really presents something to the table in a way. She takes the steps so she can understand her concepts. She will do things such as draw or do a wire structure or several versions of her final piece with the material. She thinks of her work as problems that have to be solved. I think this is how I think of all of my work I am sometimes overwhelmed with questions about my work but have to push through in order to find the answers.

I learned a lot from this artist lecture from very different types of work. McConnell's work I feel was very texture oriented and geometrical almost. It played a lot of of the different shapes but they all worked together in a balanced form. Fox's work was a lot more free and emotional experience to look at with his effort expressed all over the canvas. They were abstract pieces but also some where very literal. The paintings all shared a sort of over tone mood and style to them that united them.

Kings Architecture in class project

Homework # 8 The 7 Deadly Sins

This is my interpretation of the 7 Deadly sins. I had a hard time thinking of what I was going to do it was difficult for me to get passed the cliques and get creative with it or at least I think I got avoided the cliques. Anyway I decided to express the 7 deadly sins all through food to unify them and also transfer them all over to black and white to unify them. It is hard for me to use black and white because I tend to always drift toward color but I think it was necessary for this project. 

Wrath

Envy

Gluttony

Greed

Lust

Sloth

Pride

Chapter Summaries.

Chapter 1:
In chapter one it discussed the history of photography and how it grew from dark rooms to now how it can be completely digital. It discussed the different stages photography went through and how color photography came about. I also found it really interesting the part in the chapter where they were answering the questions about photography at the end of the chapter. I feel that they answered a lot of hard questions that are really important.

Chapter 2:
In chapter two it talked more about the composition of photographs and what thoughts should go into making them such as grabbing your audiences attention and thinking about what you want to do for your pictures before you do it. It talked about things such as the design principles witch are prevalent in a of different types of art but how it conveys to photography specifically. It also talked about the rule of thirds in  photographs and how to do the rule of thirds but also knowing how and when to break the rule of thirds.

Chapter 3:
This chapter mainly about the use of your camera. It talks about the basic uses of your camera and parts such as lens, mirror, digital sensor array and pentaprism. it talked specifically about digital cameras and what image sensors such as ccd and cmos and more which i did not know anything about. It discussed image sizes and different types of cameras that suit your interests in photography.

Chapter 4:
Chapter four was focused on exposure times and when is the right time to use a filter and what type of filter is right for you. When thinking about exposure time you have to consider the conditions of the elements around what your taking a picture of and edit your exposure time to that. It talks about some tools that can help you produce a better picture such as a light meter, gray card or a histogram. It also talks about in camera settings that can help produce the best picture under different light sources or conditions.

Chapter 5:
In chapter five it talks about light. It talks about natural light and times of day light. It talks about how the definition of good light is all dependent upon the photographers intent with the photographs. It talks about different seasons and weather conditions such as rain, snow, fog or mist. It talks about different light accessories that can create different affects.

Chapter 6:
In chapter six it talks about basically looking through photographers eyes. It talks about reading photographs and how that can help you make your own. It talks about the the digital world is pushing photography in different places for good and bad. It talks about how digital photography is altering views of photography and pushing the limits of what people think about photography every minute.

Chapter 7:
Chapter seven talks about time and space of photographs and how to work your camera to coordinate with it. It talks about shutter speed and how that can convey action in different ways such as a crisp action shot or a blurring action shot were there is a clear scene of motion. It also talked about filters that can help these types of pictures such as a radial blur filter. It talks about how to set your exposure so you can draw with light. I found the compound pictures part really interesting. I think that i would defiantly want to try it. I really enjoy series and I feel like this is very similar.

Chapter 8:
Chapter eight talks about the actual process of how the material world or literal world is taking in seconds and put into pixels into a camera. It talks about conversions of image files and the different types and shapes of pixels. It discusses resolution settings when it comes to printing and display. It talks about making prints and what it takes to make a good quality print. It also gives the definitions to the tools in photoshop witch is very useful to people like me who does not have that much knowledge of photoshop.

Chapter 9:
Chapter nine is talking about the final stages after taking the picture and doing the best you can in the action of photography then there is the finished product. I discuses repairing and retouching photos and deciding what is the best way to present them. I learned about dry mounting is and when it is good to uses it. It talked about long term storage and how that can affect photos.

Chapter 10:
Chapter ten discusses ways to see with a camera or in other words always thinking about what would make a good picture. Thinking about things such as angles and seeing dynamicaly. It talks about how to do selective focus. It talks about thinking about things such as colors: dominanant color, complementary colors, creating color contrast and cool and warm colors. When it is a good idea to use selective color and so on.

Chapter 11:
Chapter eleven is called thinking and writing about images. It talks about thinking about your subject and thinking about form and how to make the picture come together. Something new I learned is what a Matrix is. It talks about how to talk through your pictures basically like communicating cultural knowledge. It talks about how to write an artist statement and talk about your pictures in a way an artist would.

Chapter 12:
In Chapter twelve it disscusses how to approach different photographer assignments or projects that photographers may take on. It talks about doing research on your subject before taking a portait of them. It talks about narative subjects and different types of still lifes.

Homework #7, Horses Everywhere

For this homework assignment we had to go somewhere we had never been before basically an adventure. I couldn't think of anywhere for a while but then it hit me and I was off to see the horses. I didn't know weather or not i would be able to see them or get close i just walked over there for the first time and to my surprised I was able to get close and pat them and get scared by them. I am an animal lover however horses really intimidate me and I tried to show that through my pictures a little bit.