Final - "Abandoned"

Abandoned

                I grew up mostly in rural Carroll County located in West Tennessee. There are not a whole lot of activities for younger people in the area, so I spent a lot of my time exploring the area with my family and finding little interesting locations that are not really main attractions. However, they certainly become main attractions to me as I explore and learn what I can from the site itself. Different areas can have different emotions as well. Was it something that was once so lovingly taken care of and now lays in ruin? Or was it something that is just tired and worn out? What’s even more special is that it then becomes a part of my history.

                One of my biggest interests has always been history. I enjoy learning the history, but I enjoy experiencing it and seeing it even more. I have always wanted to share that excitement with others, so I chose to do so for this series. My largest influence for this project has been Christopher Crawford, followed by Troy Paiva, and then John Thomas Grant for when it comes to cemeteries and other monuments.

                To create these photos, I traveled to different areas of rural Carroll County where there has been manmade structures abandoned, neglected, or forgotten. I created a series of 10 photos using the best material I have shot. I have desaturated the photos in black and white to help create the moods that I am feeling as I was taking the photos and exploring the area.

Influential Artists for Final Project

Chris Crawford Photography

Alright. Click the above link to see photos from Chris Crawford's Forgotten Indiana series from whom I take much of my influence from for the series for my final project. He traveled in some of his favorite areas of Indiana where he is from, and photographed forgotten/abandoned/neglected areas that he knew had never been photographed before.

Lost America - Travis Paiva

If you check this guy out, you'll find some of what I'm looking for but not quite the exact same thing. He focuses on the eventually demise of some communities and areas of the west that were created in the 20th century and abandoned.

John Thomas Grant Photography

And this guy. We're kinda close on this one too. While he takes photos of gravestones that are rather nice and taken care of, there are a some of there that are more decayed and that's what I'll be looking for when it comes to gravestones. Check "Cherub with Wreath" for the idea.

Final Project - part one

Alright. For my final project, I have decided to go with Plan B. Plan B is called Abandoned.

In my corner of the world, we have Bruceton, TN. I doubt anyone has really heard of this town, because the town itself was once a booming industry surrounding the railroad. Essentially, the railraod has almost been abandoned. While the main part is still operational, most of the counterparts have been dead for many many moons. So, that was sorta the subject of my very first series posted on this blog.  For the abandoned series, I'm going to be exploring and photographing a larger area, to include but not entirely limited to, the Carroll County, Benton County, and Henry County areas. Thus, bringing me to my artist's statement.  Here ya go!

Abandoned

                I grew up mostly in rural Carroll County located in West Tennessee. There are not a whole lot of activities for younger people in the area, so I spent a lot of my time exploring the area with my family and finding little interesting locations that are not really main attractions. However, they certainly become main attractions to me as I explore and learn what I can from the site itself. Different areas can have different emotions as well. Was it something that was once so lovingly taken care of and now lays in ruin? Or was it something that is just tired and worn out? What’s even more special is that it then becomes a part of my history.

                One of my biggest interests has always been history. I enjoy learning the history, but I enjoy experiencing it and seeing it even more. I have always wanted to share that excitement with others, so I chose to do so for this series. My largest influence for this project has Christopher Crawford, followed by Troy Paiva, and then John Thomas Grant when it comes to cemeteries and other monuments.

                To create these photos, I intend to travel to different areas of rural West Tennessee where there has been manmade structures abandoned, neglected, or forgotten. I will create a series of 10 photos using the best material I have shot. I will be doing the photos in black and white to help create the moods that I am feeling as I am taking the photos and exploring the area.

Check out my next post for sites regarding artists that I'm using as my influence.

If my goal were to make the world smile, then everyone needs to check this out!

Oh. My. Goodness. You have GOT to check this site out. Our professor posted it for educational purposes, but I have spent the last two hours going through 60 pages of these photos. Some of them will make you cringe, some will make you laugh, some will make you sad because you know that you had to take the exact same photo at some point. Some may even make you want to notify the local authorities. Please do not view this site at work or in any situation where spontaneous, peeyourpants laughter is inappropriate!

http://www.awkwardfamilyphotos.com/

These are a Few of Their Favorite Things

Ok. these are a little late. And not at all my proposal.

Anyway, I went with a different theme, the best I could do in my situation.

There are 2 different models. I decided to get them to pose with 4 of their favorite things. I played with the lighting, putting it in different places and heights.

Group Pics

Whoa! This should have been up a while ago.

This is the original!

This is the black and white edit!

 Color edit. Not really happy on the lighthing and colors for this.

Pre-photo photoshoot

Here are the beginnings of the photoshoot for the project.We worked on some lighint and trying to see what works. I was working in a small space for this one, so I think a lot of the light seems very displaced. Definately going to have to find a bigger space. Proposal is going to need some updating.

Portrait of Michael

First picture taken in a portrait setting.

This is the original.

This is Color Edit #1

Color Edit #2

Black and White Edit

Portraits!

We're moving on into portraits in the class now. Basicly torso plus head shots. Generally nothing is shot below the torso level. So, I have some examples! Here is your basic setup for a shoot.

Your backlight is also known as a key hair light. It's meant to light up the back of the hair and to separate your subject from the background. 
Your Key Light is going to be the light that provides the strongest brightest light for your subject. 
Your Fill light is going to "fill" in your shadows without washing them completely out and allows for a little light to come in to explore the shadows.

Here we have some examples of the 3pt lighting setup in use. I will attempt to analyze each picture and figure out where the lighting placement is.

Whew! The great Google search for 3pt lighting that I can try to analyze is becoming difficult!

Here is the fist one that I could come up with.  You can see that there is a Key Light on this woman's right side, (our left). The shoulder and side of her face is very well lit. I think there is a fill light that is at a 45 degree angle to the left of her body, leaving some shadow, but not so much that we can't see her face. Now, I think there is a hair light behind her left shoulder that is gently lighting her hair and very top/back of her shoulder with light.

Onward!

ok, here we have the Key light on his left shoulder again. Filler light to his right, filling n exploring some shadows, and I think that the hair light is facing toward his torso.

Here is an example of a really good hair light. see how he kinda has a halo all around his head and shoulders? The light is directly behind him, pointing right into the back of his head, I think.

 

Ok, SO, this one isn't so great on the quality because it was such a tiny picture, so don't stare too long or your eyes will get stuck that way. I see the "Hair light" actually acting as more of a background light here, which makes her push out from thebackground the same as the hair light, but it just gives slightly different effects.

Here, we have the same basic setup again.. Hair light from behing and to the left of the picture, Filler light from the right of the picture, and to the right at a 45 degree angle in front of the couple is the Key light.

 This one was a little different. I think it's that there is extra light in the room, like a window or an overhead light, because that background is lit REALLY well. But again, another basic setup. Key light to the right of the picture, filler to the left, and possibly a very strong  background light.  

Assignment 2

Alrighty! There are the official pictures I have chosen to use for the D.o.f. and  motion series.

#1. The Brick Wall - I actually caught this one accidentally. I was trying to take a picture of something else and snapped this in the process. I really liked it anyway.

 #2. Taken at the museum, in the Nathan Bedford Forest state park. I really liked the way I was able to make the reds and black stand out in the photo. And I'm partial to checkers and chess.

#3. Taken at the Belhaven Vs. Bethel football game. I think I was using a shutter speed a little faster than 1 second, but somewhere between 1/2 second and 1 second. I liked that I got the field in focus but not the players.

#4.Belhaven vs. Bethel again, but this time, I was working on getting still shots. I particularly like that I got more than one person in motion here and there are all kinds of poses going on. Shutter speed was pretty fast, so I had to open the aperture up for this one.

#5.Fire Blur - I love sittin-fires. You know, the ones where you sit around a fire all night and talk with your friends and family and catch up? Yeah. Love them. So, I really wanted to try working with a small fire. I only left the shutter open for about a second here, maybe a little more. Believe it or not, the camera caught the colors just like that. I really liked how they were, so, I've done no color editing.

#6. Fire Still - Same fire as previous, but I speed the shutter way up and tried to open the aperture just a wee bit. Just enough that I didn't lose the glow from the fire.

#7. Nut on Stump - Working on some depth of field here. One of my first experiments with it, and this was one of the first ones that I liked. I had to do some work on the colors here because we hadn't learned about ISO yet. So, edited with some GIMP there.

#8. Swings - this may be my favorite one. I really like the colors and contrasts here.  I was struggling with getting things closer to the lens to blur, and this was my real breakthrough. Did a little bit of color editing here, but not a ton.

Out of  all, it goes between swings, fire blur and fire still for strongest for me. *sigh* I think I'll go with fire still....wait...maybe swings....no...go for FIRE STILL. I struggled with colors there. So, 1, 2, 3, GO!

2 Posts in one day!!

 Ok, here we have a before and after of some color editing of this checkerboard. I brightened up my greens and red and just little yellow. The first picture is extrememly darkish compared to the after, which is the edited.

I Motion + I Depth of Field = Today's Post

I really think I am going to use the one of the dancing students for a freeze of motion. I'll use another for a freeze, then two of blur. I will probably use the stump as well, for one of my depth of fields. I want to do two d.o.f.s where the subject is clear and 2 where the subject is blurred. These probably still need some work in color, but that will come in time as I'm still learning how to use the program, it's going to take me working on it some more. 

Extra Assignment

Reading through this article has put to rest some of the questions that I was afraid I was making assumptions about. I'm glad to have read this so that I may now see what the artist wants me to see rather than for me to have seen only what I wanted.  We can so easily take a piece out of context and misconstrue what the artist meant to have us see.
I feel that it was not right what happened to Doisneau because for one, they used his art without his persmission. I learned that early on, especially as a member of the DeviantArt online community. Using someone else's work without permission, even when giving credit, is a big no-no. Lots of people were ok with you using their art and giving them credit, but you HAD to ask.
Two, I feel that people in the picture were mistreated as well. They agreed to let Doisneau photograph them and then another person used the picture to make her look like a prostitute.That had to be really hard on both in the photo. I've learned that this is why its so important to check the context before judging anything. Not only does it afect the artist, but it could possibly affect anyone involved as well.

Lesson....learned? Working on it...

In class we have been hearing lecturing about depth of field and motion. I had a really hard time with this, epecially motion, because my camera was being difficult, more likely I was being too ignorant. Anyway, here is some of the better stuff I came up with.

The first picture and second pictures are the Renaissance Theater students performing on the square in Paris for the Arts on the Square celebration. They were doing choreogrpahy to a compilation of songs, and this was the best picture I took without the motion blur. The shutter speed was increased and that made the picture really dark. I tried opening the aperture, but I couldn't get a good picture quick enough without letting in too much light. Still playing around and learning.
Picture number 3 was taking in Nathan Bedford Forrest at the musuem there. The checkerboard closest to the lens showed up really well, while the background was blurred out, leaving a good portion of the picture out of focus.
Picture number 4 is in the same area as pic 3. Kara and I were working on trying to figure out how I could use my camera to get the different depths of field, and she placed this....i guess...nut like thing on a post and I tried some different things.