PhotoJ

As the Spring "09 semester wraps up, I have taken a bit of time to reflect on what I have learned in these few past months. This class has enriched my knowledge about famous photographers of the past and gave a bit of insight on what the future of photography may hold. I will continue to practice the techniques that I learned as well as express my love of the subject by uploading pictures from time to time and hope to see others from the class do the same. Make sure to check out my Flickr account for more photo goodness!
Good luck to all who encounter a camera. It can become addicting.

PR Press

For my PR project, I chose to take pictures of a group in French 145 cooking an authentic four course meal for their final exam. The photos were then used in the final Power Point presentation.


Jerica is about to flip a piece of turkey bacon that will be used in their main dish, while Brittany finishes up slicing up the yellow squash.






Want to see more amazing food preparation photographs?

Photo Essay: Forgotten Treasures

My first attempt at choosing a proper subject for my photo essay was to photograph people in different types of relationships through interactions between family members, co-workers or friends. I thought that it would be interesting to capture the body language and facial expressions humans use when they communicate with people of these sorts because it is necessary to act a certain way on separate occasions. After thinking about this for a while, I decided that it would be very difficult to capture the true way that these people would be interacting because they would definitely see the camera, and once that happens, people tend to act in an unnatural manner in order to set a pose.

Then, I came upon the topic of optical lenses. After taking the pictures and uploading them, this topic seemed a bit boring because the pictures that turned out best only showed people that were wearing normal glasses. I had wanted a variety of glasses types such as those useless glasses with the slits, 3D glasses and such.

Finally, on my third try, I found something that would be extremely fascinating to me. I always notice objects (that not necessarily garbage) lying around my yard but never take time to investigate exactly what they are. Early one morning, I climbed down the stairs of my patio and set out on an adventure to my backyard. Things that sometimes end up in backyards also end up in my garage because the automatic door has been broken since before I moved into my house. What I found were many lost “treasures” of yesterday.

Two mismatched sandals lie unwanted upon the cold cement floor of my filthy garage. I often wonder who the owners were. Did a man wear these together, or do they each belong to a different person? It must have been one rough night!

Check out the rest of the neat objects I was able to salvage photos of!

Portrait

The objective of our third project is to analyze photos and determine what stories they have to tell. What is the underlying meaning? What is the message? We were to take four photos of people we didn't know and four photos of people we do know. It is important to make an ethical decision when choosing what to photograph. After reading Paul Martin Lester's article on privacy, I had a few thoughts of my own on the topic.

Many news stories would not be the same without photographs to back the information up or provide a visual aid. However, much consideration should be taken before photographing people in certain positions. It is interesting to see what goes on in the daily lives of people we may not personally know, but it becomes a different situation when we place ourselves in their shoes. My JMC 559, Media Law, professor gave a hypothetical example which displayed how a twisted story can come from one photo. Since it is perfectly legal to shoot a photo of activity occurring on private property as long as it is from a public location, a photographer decided to snap a picture of a famous sports player playing basketball in his yard with a few young children. The photo was then published along with a caption that hinted at the possible immoral things that he could be doing with children when he is inside the home. This often occurs with celebrities and can ruin their careers.

Personally, I was shocked when I read the section in Lester’s article about Roseanne Barr’s mother having a camera outside the window of her home and having to hide in order to avoid being taped. I believe that this definitely invades personal space and should be illegal. It really is a difficult call when it comes to photographing things of personal nature. One must decide whether it is ethical or in the best interest of the public for them to publish photos of touchy situations.


Can you guess which of the following people I know?
































































































Want more guessing action? Try these!

Document project updates

As a follow up to the completed document project, I thought it would be nice to share my results.

1. Over the course of two weeks, I arrived to an empty mailbox all but twice...meaning that someone else was taking in the mail! Ironic?

2. We only received four pieces of junk mail.

3. We received one piece of mail that belonged to an ex inhibitant of our home. The envelope was addressed to him and a guest. We returned it to sender.

4. I received a baby shower invitation, a magazine, information I requested about traveling abroad, and a small batch of bills.

For this document project, I believe that I will be photographing my mailbox and/or its contents each day. Through doing this, I will be able to make multiple discoveries. First, I will tell which day of the week my roommates and I received the most mail and what types of senders it came from. We receive a lot of junk mail, and it would be interesting to determine if we get more of that than letters of importance. My roommates rarely bring the mail in. This will give me a chance to see when they do so. We share a mailbox with our neighbors, so I will be able to figure out how often they retrieve their mail as well. Lastly, I will check the mailbox at different times of the day so that I can meddle with the lighting in the photos, as well as see approximately what time of day the mail deliverer comes around.


Over the two week period, the photograph featured in this posting is my favorite that I have taken.

Light Write

While creating these photographs, I thought about what types of emotions I wanted to evoke through my images. Along with this, I tried to think outside of the box as to what types of items I should photograph in order to convey these feelings to the viewer. I decided to go on an expedition searching for natural light outdoors. This didn't work out very well since the weather was often gloomy when I finally had free time to be outside. I tried taking pictures at different times of the day to meddle around with the use of deep shadows. I experimented by sing various types of lighting such as fluorescent, natural sunlight, candles, and even a glow stick-type lighting which was battery powered and found in the stems of a couple festive champagne glasses. I did not use a flash when taking any of the photgraphs as an attempt to preserve the lighting already present.

The characteristic Szarkowski brought up that I most identify with is
the concept of time because he brings up the fact that if a subject moves, it may, perhaps, cause the photograph to reveal things that never occurred, such as a double headed animal. Szarkowski states, "Uniquely in the history of pictures, a photograph describes only that period of time in which it was made." This relates to me because I normally take many photographs in order to contain my memories and look back at instants in time that I will never be able to retrieve.

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*The above picture is my number one choice. It is entitled, "Let's Get 'Em!" A pair of heels walkin' down my stairs. (Use your imagination.) I chose this as my favorite because I like how the light gradually fades from white to black, there is a pop of color in the middle, and the perspective is at an interesting angle that I had to snap a few times to get it just right.

**I have had multiple technical difficulties uploading my pictures and am still trying to figure out what the heck I am doing wrong. I've been making attempts for the past three hours and have even tried using my Photobucket account. Since my photos are posting here, I will place the other four that should be in my Light set onto this blog.

2. "Dead to Me"
A collection of one dozen dried roses sitting on top of my refrigerator.

3. "Grand"
A romantic grand piano I found hanging out in a beach house 30 minutes outside of Milwaukee. The sheet music for the song this is titled after was lying open.

4. "Ice Cube"
A crystal candle surrounded by holiday decor that is overdue back in storage.

5. "Hi, Skyscraper"
A very tall building in "the windy city."