Artist Statement

In my portfolio you will find all of my 2007-2008 work from digital photo class with Ms. Cook. It has my most successful photographs that may include Photoshop or not with an evaluation of my work. I feel that my portfolio is meaningful, and a great way to show off my work. Every time I look at it I feel very proud of myself. I feel it is one of my greatest accomplishments. The thing I have learned the most this year is how to use a digital camera. The class and the teacher have inspired me so much that I went to go buy a camera. I really love how it works. I think its one of the best technologies ever. I really learning how my camera works, and a lot of times I couldn’t wait to try it.

I feel I was most successful with my portraits project. I love how I was being creative and let the inner me come out. The thing I most struggled with was the Photoshop program I really wish I got the hang of it more. I feel I could have better skills if I knew more of Photoshop. But almost missing a whole quarter of school, by switching to Central I felt a little behind. I know I could improve a lot in Photoshop. I plan on buying the program also. Because of what I do know, I know I can better myself. I feel that I am determined to continue taking pictures and making myself a better photographer.

Some of my influences have been I. I can only influence myself when it comes to taking pictures, because it’s all my ideas. I have seen growth and improvement in my differentiate of my pictures. I found myself taking better ones. I think my art work is a great part of me. I also feel very accomplished.

Adjustment layers

Self Portraits

Going into this project I felt clueless. Not an idea in the world. Than I was going thru the books of portraits, and started getting many ideas. I had fallen in love with a couple of the portraits, and wanted to try them. Well I had a great idea with a rainy scene in the car, but then the camera died. So it didn’t go as planned. But even though I wasn’t able to use the similar ideas from the books, it helped me to get creative on my own. The one I think was my most creative was my rule of thirds photo. Because I have chosen a setting in the baseball fields in some ropes they use for conditioning. I wanted the ropes to be able to give it another look. Also I wanted a view from the ground up, and I love the way the grass is in the picture. It gives it all another perspective, which is what I was going for. The most difficult thing to do creatively was the poses. Therefore the poses can either make or break the picture in my opinion, which plays a major role.

Composition was fairly easily composed for me. The pictures that were taken were planned out. Except for my lines photo, I was just being goofy on the play area and it happen to turn out great. Except for my facial expression was extremely funny looking, but I think of it as a capturing the moment photo. In order to have a strong composition I made sure my photographer knew that I was the emphasis and knew what else was suppose to be captured in the photo. Some things that weakened my photos were maybe the lighting, if it was to bright outside. We tried messing with the iso, but other than that things went well. The photo with the strongest composition is my lighting picture. The reason for this is because me the emphasis is doing something out of the ordinary, which turns heads. Also the lighting was real good. I love how it’s coming from above me, and shining right to the emphasis. The one I would change the composition on is the meaningful picture with my brother. I feel us as the emphasis we could have done a better way to bring that out. We could have been further away and maybe had other people in it, but us being the main focus.

I feel the pictures were very well taken. My photography had the same mind set as I did as we were taking pictures. I feel that one of the pictures were a little pixilated, my lighting one was. I should have made the iso higher; I feel that would have helped greatly. The main technique we used was the iso button. It helped when we used it. I feel I have great understanding of the cameras we used. We didn’t have too much difficulties using the camera. The overall level of craftsmanship was awesome, and I feel that it made our pictures come out nice looking. Our strengths was the lighting and the area we were in, we were able to adjust. Our weakness in the craftsmanship was maybe making the darks look dark.

My overall opinion of the portraits was I enjoyed doing them and thought they were really fun. I think I did well at planning what I wanted and telling my photographer how I wanted it. I would so do a whole new wardrobe have money to go buy different items, to make my photo so much more creative. I have many great ideas I would love to accomplish. What I loved the most was trying to be creative and finding different areas to take pictures at. I loved that the most because I found out I am very creative. What I least liked was the fact I didn’t have any of the out of the ordinary clothes to be more creative. Because I feel that would of helped me out a lot more. During the summer I know I am going to have a lot of fun taking pictures. This project helped me to take pictures spontaneously and I want to use that to my advantage.

Shutter Speed

The two things that shutter speed effects is light and movement. Shutter speed is represented by fractions on the camera. The modes on the camera that allow for shutter manipulation is "S" for shutter speed and "M" for manual. The difference between shutter speed and manual is shutter speed offers more options. It can hold for 15 seconds and you can change the iso. You would want control of the shutter speed because of the movement that maybe your trying to capture of or of how much light you need. The photo on the left shows movement of Jorge breakdancing, and the one to the right shows a still pose of a break dance move.

ISO

In this photo we had our flash button on. The picture setting is in front of lights which you can't even tell is on because of the flash. You also can not tell that it is dark in the room, which it was.

In this photo we used the ISO 50 which is a mode that makes the photo appear darker, but it really captured the lights well, but the main focus was dark.

In this photo I used ISO 5000 which makes the lights show and also the main focus. This made the picture come out really great. The lights really stand out, because it captures the whole lights and the main foucs looks good also.


Overall using the ISO is a great source for taking pictures. It helps when you want to bring out lights and the main focus point. Using the flash also helps when it is dark outside, and you want to capture the moment.

Light Metering

In the first photo I held the shutter button half way down than took the picture and it captured the light of the computer and made the whole area around it dark, therefore I could'nt see George. In the second photo I metered from George's color skin and than came out and captured the photo. In this photo it captured all the lights and it also came out a little blurry. What is happening is the camera is catching the lights which it is most focused on. This is important because in times when it is dark and you want to capture something in particular if you use the metering your picture will come out better.

Personal Metaphor

“I feel liked I am trapped in a hour glass and time is passing me by”. That is my personal metaphor. I choose this metaphor because this is how I feel with my high school years coming to an end that time is just passing me quickly. I feel trapped in this whirlwind of time that I don’t know how to get out our make it stop. I am trying to express how I feel about my life at this point of time. The mood I wanted to capture was more of a confused mood. Like what is going on? The reason for that is because that is how I feel, as far as time just passing by.

The composition I have is I have a bush to the left. I also have a little centered bush with a shadow in the middle. To the right I have my hour glass with me trapped in it. I tried to give it the feel of it floating in the air with a dusty feel. But the thing I did wrong was put my shadow in the wrong place. My image does feel unified to me; because I live in the desert and that is were my life takes place. Having the hour glass placed in that area made it feel closer to home, and were all my time is passing me by at. Some may feel it isn’t the right place for the hour glass but I do, because it’s apart of me.

I feel I did well on my hour glass. I liked how it appears I’m inside of it. I also liked how I made the sand a different color and how I changed it to make it appear that it is falling down. The difficult thing was really trying to find a great background for my h our glass. I feel maybe I could have done my background better maybe add better shadows to my hour glass. I would maybe change my background to a different desert setting and also the color of the sand.

The Aesthetic Experience

As I laid down on the ground to view this cup of water put out in front of me, I felt like a fish grasping for air, wanting to be put back in my home, were I belong. I felt were I was I didn’t belong, and were I wanted to be was impossible. As the water changed to a red color it felt like a volcano erupted, as that happened I felt the pain that I felt during break. As a drop of blue went into the cup, every thing went dark, and it’s like everything I felt went chaotic like just different emotions flying everywhere, and I don’t know what I feel or how I should feel, it was just a whirl wind of feelings through my body.

Hybrid

An exercise borrowed from “I’ve Got a Human in My Throat” by Chris Johnson.
In preparation for our PERSONAL METAPHOR project we brushed up our skills combining objects together. Using layer masks and the clone stamp we blended this dog and bird together.

Movie Moments

Inspired by Cindy Sherman, a contemorary photographer who took photos of herself starring in movies that never existed.

Scream: Scary movie

Its about a group of high school students who are stalked by a killer. They have parties and try to stick together to try and figure out who the killer is.



In my scene I am the girl who gets the very first call from the killer, who stalks her. She is the very first one to die and to get a phone call.

Chocolate frog

For valentines day we turned frogs into chocolate. I thought this project was neat and very creative. I learned how to make duplicates and how to use the dropper to pick colors also.

Shadows and reflections

In these excercises we learned how to create shadows and reflections to help us create more realistic artwork. A new tool we learned was layer masks. The thing we learned here that can help me in the future by making my picture look more realistic with great shadows and reflections.

Program Covers

This is a project in which we created academic letters and graduation programs for our school.

Aged Photo

In this project we used one of our frame photographs to practice using photoshop to create specific effects.

Balance with Frames

We were given a frame and told we had to be in our compositon, it had to be black and white and it had to have balance.

I created balance by having two black frames on each side and one white frame in the middle while I was at an angle and more to the left. The outfit i wore also shown balance because it was black and white.

This picture shows no balance.

Random Object

We were each assigned a random object to photograph. We could choose to have it in color or black & white. We were to focus on "The Three C's

According to my peers, one thing I did well was having the doll in center on a tree. It was stated several times that the colors of the doll bring out the picture. One thing they suggested I work on was the background, because of the parking lot, and it took away from my focus which was the doll. I agree with what they said because I felt the background was a major flaw in the picture and could have been handled differently.

Egg Challenge

In this project each student was given an egg to photograph. We were to take a photo in both color and black-and-white. We were supposed to exemplify one or more of the following: Creativity, Craftsmen, and Composition.
I believe my (color\black&white) was most successful because...

my favorite project from last semester

This is a picture that shows emotion. Our project was to show emotion through our pictures by changing the color. In this picture I feel i was in a calm mood, therefore I used a yellowish color to show this emotion. The reason I like this photo is because I like how the dark lashes, eyebrows and hair are emphasized in this picture.

Last semester