Photographs Not Taken: A Collection of Photographers' Essays

http://www.daylightmagazine.org/store/photographs-not-taken

I think this would be a great investment for any of you guys who are photo majors, it's only $15 !
It seems like it would be a useful tool to help us better understand how to talk about photographs, which will help in the long-run in our careers. I know I struggle with talking about images in a well informed manner, so I just thought I would share this incase anyone is interested in this cheap resource.

Ellyce final

I have been having a very difficult time finding images that echo the aesthetic I am attempting to create.  The images that I am posting here, I have only chosen because of their spots of red, though my red will be created in the darkroom, not necessarily in the negative.

As for color, I think that I will be printing my images on the slightly cool side, but mostly just ranging from more neutral to more cool as well as from naturally saturated to very light.  I will burn in areas with the safe light and the cyan filter (to get red) as well. 

My model is wearing colors that are either primarily allied with the background or primarily complementary to the background.  In using those colors I hope to highten and lower tension throughout the piece.

I have had some difficulties in working with my model simply because of how uncomfortable she is in front of a camera, but I hope to get some good shots nevertheless.

final colors stuff

My final is going to be an investigation of sites, post-human interaction. This goes further than abandonment; the confusing, bizarre leftovers of human interaction with a place is what I wan't to focus on. I'm going to be shooting in overcast conditions or under shade. I don't want any direct, harsh light on my subjects. I'm going for a bleak, cool feel in my photographs. Very neutral in color, alot of greens and blues.

Here are some examples of inspiration for my stylistic/aesthetic approach for my project.

Alec Soth

Alec Soth

Ed Panar

Alec Soth

final project

For my final, I'm wanting to do a series of pictures that focuses on the dimension of things, and photograph them in such a way that create a very tight and chaotic composition so that the outcome is this "layered" effect. So far I've mostly been taking pictures of groupings of buildings around the city, looking for pairs that either have the same color scheme or contrast one another.
It's sort of difficult because most of the buildings are the same color and don't appear to be two separate structures once I zoom in, or I'm finding myself running out of areas to take pictures in. I think in order to complete 10 rolls of film, I might have to stray away from photographing just architecture.
I took a few pictures of the lake the other day when it had these different stripes of blue going across it, I might run with that...
Here's a few poor examples of (sort of) what I'm thinking:

FINAL PROJECT!!!... maybe...

   I still don't really know what the hell I'm doing for my final project. I've had several ideas, but I'm worried that they're all too ambitious for the amount of time we have left this semester. So, all this weekend I was dazed and confused about what to do for my final. But then all of a sudden, I remembered my horrible high school art class. It sucked. I remember one project we had to to a self portrait of ourselves inspired by a random artist, and mine was Roy Lichtenstein. I instantly remembered his "pop art." They were bright and certainly "poppy." The scenes and the women portrayed were always dramatic, and the color was just the same. I would say that most of his pictures were bright, primary colors. It made me think of doing portraits in a similar way. 

   So I went to the fabric store and bought background for my photos, yellow, red, and  blue. I figure that with each colored background, I can do a makeup look that is either allied and matching the background, or complimentary to stand out from the background. 

   I also want to create a 2D/flat look to my images so they almost look like they were drawn or painted. I was thinking, possibly, drawing lines on my photos to give a comic-like feel to them.

Roy Lichtenstein Examples

Prior to shooting film, I always test with my digital. I started with a blue background and did a makeup look in allied colors. To achieve a 2D/flat look to the photo, I used a macro ring flash, which evenly illuminates the subject, and eliminates almost all shadows (Except for the neat shadow-halo around my subject)

I played around on my computer trying to figure how to make my photo look like a cartoon/comic just to see what it could possibly look like. This photo is going in the right direction, but I was hoping to find something that would give a more illustrated effect with thick, black lines. 

...I still might change my project...

Final

I decided to switch my midterm for my final project. I’ve wanted to pursue an idea of photographing people’s shoes for a while now. Although shooting people’s feet may sound a bit unusual, I have a feeling that it has potential for some fascinating results. You can tell a lot about a person by looking at their shoes. Not only style and personality, but also the adventure of what was, where they have been, things that still linger and waiting to be re-discovered. My aim is to capture the wear and tear, the memories and the hidden story behind every step. In order to do this I will be riding the El train and shooting from one spot while aiming at the shoes directly in front of me. This way I will be allowing the people to tell the story instead of intentionally searching for it. I found a couple of examples that show the vantage point I want to shoot from as well as a photographer (Walker Evans) that captures not necessarily the point of view but the candid shots I would like to take.

Photo Final

So for my final my idea was to do a series on abandonment.  I was going to take pictures of abandon buildings, whether they are new or old, homeless people, couples, ect.  My original concept for the lighting of this series was to have really direct afternoon lighting which would give a lot of harsh shadows, thus creating more emotion in the picture.  Unfortunately I found it is not supposed to be very sunny recently, so instead I have decided to use very flat lighting, I though this might also add to the dreary emptiness I will try to portray through the pictures.  A majority of the colors that will be used will have very earthy tones, and dull colors, which the lighting will help emphasize.  Within some of these dull colored pictures I wanted to have small pops of color that will be incredibly noticeable when first glancing at the picture, the idea that less color is more.

Final

For my final I am shooting at my family farm that has been in my family for roughly 200 years. I'm working with fairly warm light, and am going to make that more expressive by printing my photos warmer. I have a couple work prints for you guys to look at in class tomorrow, but here are a couple [not great] examples of what I'm aiming for!

Final project

I decided to bring throughout my project different types of gestures or faces from people showing their natural personalities. My models are going to be posing naturally, creating very unstaged photos trying to make a very realistic scene.  The purpose of this project is to show the beauty of people by showing their natural appearance to appreciate the details of their faces and experience the depth of their emotions by looking at their eyes, wrinkles, smile, gestures or any kind of descriptive manner that can speak for them by just looking at the Photo.










                          

Final

For my final, I have chosen to photograph around my grandmother's house.  She is moving and before she packed everything up, I wanted to take some photos of all the memories and trinkets she has around the house.  I decided not to turn the project into a narrative of her move but rather a narrative of how elderly people live.  I think the style of her home and all of the antique items give it such character.  I included her in a few photos but overall they are mostly of the things in her home that make it her own.

Melissa Kaseman did a series of photos on an elderly couple and the things around their home.  Unfortunately I cannot save a photo from the website but here is a link to the site:
http://www.melissakaseman.com/

Her series called "With Wayne" featured on the site is what I hope to accomplish with my photos.

Final Project

For my final I am showing the femininity and masculinity sides of female models. I am using 4 different models, each representing 4 different looks, 2 feminine and 2 masculine. The focus of these photo shoots is about the fashion, use of color and the shape the clothes make on the models. Inspiration comes from America's Next Top Model 'Ladies Look Like Dudes' episode.

Color

My final project is about showing off your inner-child. My models will be dress in bright colors and patterns doing things most of us did when we were younger. ex: going to the playground, building a sandcastle, blowing bubbles, etc. I plan to have my photos as saturated and as bright as possible. My inspiration is Willy Wonka(the original version)

Final Project

For my final project I am going to be taking a series of photos of one model that have a dreamy feel. I am going to explore the idea of not only shooting her but also the setting I pick. Zooming in on other aspects of the shoot. I am also going to play around a lot in the dark room. I am going to experiment with intentional color casts and printing light to add to the dream like quality I want the photos to have.
Here are two examples of the feel and color cast ideas I am aiming for.

Uses of Color

For my final since I am working with portraits of mouths and I am working very closey to my subject. Color is really important for me to keep in mind because I will be working with a variety of skin tones. Since I am working with skin I plan to make the subject in the photo the main color source. Almost like black white and one color. For example, since I started my project one of my friends choose her personality as overdramatic we decided to work with blood. Since she has very far skin we worked with white makeup and had dark red blood streaming down out of her mouth and on her lips. So the subject, being the blood would also be the color in the photograph, red. Here is an example of something similar to what i’m working with. You can see the red is the expressive color which the portrait works with.

Also I am trying to keep in mind lighting. Lighting is what is going to create the all over tone and color to the portraits. I will be working with natural lighting because I feel natural lighting is the most beautiful. But not just beautiful as they are difficult. So in order to block out harsh light, I am going to have my models face away from the light. This will create a cooler feel to my photos which is a big goal of mine! For example, the girl in the red coat is a portrait I picked because she is in natural lighting and outdoors and facing away from the sun so there is a light glow on her face and not harsh sunlight.

The next examples, like the girl with the fuzzy hat is what I picture my tone to be like. Very unsaturated in the skin and clothing but the lips and neckline pop with color. My portraits will involve props to help with being expressive so I hope to have saturation but spaces where their is pops of color. I also love how the tone of this photo is super allied at the same time, I want the lighting and skin tone of my models to be unified and create allied colors like in this photograph.

Last but not least, the photo with the mouth and neck are a beautiful shade of cyan but just enough in a way to make the red in the photo to pop. This is an example of how cooler lighting makes the subject and props glow. If my photos do not turn out with this blue-ish glow, I am strongly considering adding cyan to my photos to make them have more tone, depth, and color. I feel it will add more to the skin tone like in this photo.

For my final my I will focus on taking photos of places that have a connection with my subject. My color palette will consist of warm hues with occasional pops of color.

great!

http://pascal.fellonneau.free.fr/EnglishVersion/Candidates/index.html

inspiration, kinda sexy, dynamic tone/color use on the body:

bill henson here

Midterm Proposal

I have always liked to experience events where there is always a story to tell through photographs. I enjoy documentaries, stories where there are so much to see and learn about society, such as violence, poverty, intuitional witnesses and family disintegration. Therefore I have chosen the idea of going to a tattoo studio to photograph the artists and also their art. The reason that I decided to do this project is because one of my classmates has tattoos all over his body and I have always believed that there is a strong definition behind their tattoos symbolizing their personality, belief and struggles about life.

Composition strategies

I am trying to approach symmetrical and asymmetrical balanced images depending on the silhouette postures or posture. I won’t probably use straight or horizon lines just because the objects are going to be human bodies. I will be taking the image using narrow and wide depth of field, it depends on the effect that I would like to project in the photo. There would be a different vantage point, how I said before it depends what is my focus point in the photo. There are not going to be borders in my prints.

Quality of light

I would like to work with natural light giving a better color tonality; I also want to put effects of soft shadows in the photos trying to highlight the silhouette of the image.

Color Theory

I would love to get a very strong diversity of color tonalities of the artist’s tattoos and their work. I am also thinking to blur the background sometimes to highlight the tones.  

                                                                                                     

photographers we looked at in class today

Here are some links to the websites of and info about the photographers Lisa mentioned and discussed in class today

http://www.vivianesassen.com/

http://jakestangel.com/

http://www.tanyabonakdargallery.com/artist.php?art_name=Uta%20Barth

http://www.artic.edu/aic/exhibitions/story/dicorcia.html

http://www.sfmoma.org/exhib_events/exhibitions/438

http://sarahhobbs.net/home.html

http://www.manhattanrarebooks-art.com/ruscha.htm

http://www.edruscha.com/

"Blue" paper

Here are the questions you should address in your three page paper for next week:

1. Moments where blue is used in subtle and obvious ways, what do these uses communicate (discuss three examples)?

2. What colors set up a transition to blue? What colors follow the end of a blue sequence? What tension/energy/ideas do these juxtapositions create?

3. When is blue being used emotionally? Symbolically?

4. Does blue ever represent largely different emotions at different times? Or is it a reliable and consistent signifier of similar ideas?

Proposal

My idea for the midterm was an idea that I've had with me since last semester.  I was planning on making it my final project for this class, but I figured making it my midterm project would be just as good.  I got the idea from Photo 1.  My teacher had given us an assignment entitled "Out on the Street".  For this assignment we had to go around and take pictures of people on the street, but in order to get these pictures we had to make sure to approach them and ask them if they wouldn't mind their picture being taken or not.  It was an assignment that would get us to be comfortable in our art and get used to approaching people and stepping out of the comfort zone that beginning photographers usually put themselves in.  It was probably one of my favorite assignments in that class and one of the ones I did the best on.  My prints were good and everyone seemed to like them since I got lots of positive and enthusiastic feedback on them.

My teacher brought it up to me after the class critique of that assignment and told me how I am a really good street photographer and how I showed that I really moved away from what I was comfortable with and broadened my horizons.  This was my first stab at street photography and because of that project I really grew to like it. She saw this and suggested I make it either my final or midterm in color photo.  She said that maybe it would translate even better and have more meaning with color added to the picture because with color you get so much more information, so that's what I plan on doing for the midterm.  I want to take another shot at street portraiture photography and see how big of a difference it really is from when I did it in black and white.

Strategies for this project is close to none.  I plan to just go out and shoot, asking people if I can take their picture and have them either look at the camera or look off into the distance, maybe even ask them to go back and do whatever they were doing before I approached them.  There isn't too much technicality that will go into taking my pictures.  Though it sounds kind of simple, I'll make sure that it won't just be point and shoot.  I will line the person up in the frame a certain way and try my best to make sure that each picture I take is consistent throughout.  I hope to achieve repetition in how my pictures look.  Either they will all be off-centered a certain way, they will all be from the chest up, or they will be centered perfectly. I hope to shoot each picture in a way that would make the prints look visually appealing when presented.

I will be using available light when photographing.  Whether it be daylight when shooting outside or fluorescent light when I am shooting in a building, I won't toy too much with my lighting situations.  I will just use whatever is given to me.

I have made the decision to shoot in the Wicker Park area which is where I shot this assignment before in black and white.  I found many, many people dressed in quirky, odd colors.  I think it is because that area is filled with many artsy people.  And now I hope to find those same bright, vibrant color combinations when I go to photograph this time around.  I will take pictures of people whoever I find interesting or whoever intrigue me by what they are wearing.  People that pop out because of bright colors or maybe even dull color combinations are what I will be showing in my pictures.

Proposal

Project Idea

Throughout my time at Columbia this past year I have been enduring a great deal of stress and anxiety. My problems with procrastination just add to the problem. It’s eating me up inside, and every day I’m feeling a great inner-tension. I want to attempt to explore this tension that is making my insides wrap around each other.

In this exploration I will channel my inner unrest into a series of still lives. These still lives will consist of normal objects, sometimes including human interaction with them. But, through careful selection, I’ll be deliberately placing my objects into the still life in order for them to interact in a way to recreate this terrible tension and anxiety. I’ve had a photograph I’ve wanted to take for a while in mind; a cut of meat which is being cut with a steak knife while on top of somebodies hand, this will take place on top of a bright yellow surface. I do have some concerns/questions with this project. I’m worried I will run out of ideas to recreate this tension out of. Also, are we limited to shooting on a 35mm film format?

Compositional Strategies

I will approach my images using mainly symmetrical balance and other times no balance at all in order to create an elevated sense of tension between objects. Deep DOF, most photos will be shot straight on at the subject. I will be using tight compositions in order to allow the subject to fill most of the frame. I feel like I can’t be that specific in this area of my proposal, because I can use many different compositional strategies throughout this project as long a they lend themselves to the particular photograph. I do understand that I will also be trying to create a common aesthetic throughout the series.

Quality of Light

Photographs will be shot using a high powered, Vivitar 285hv flash, mounted my cameras hot shoe. This method of using light will give the images more contrast and make them more confrontational.

Color Theory

I’ve been reading a bit about color psychology and along with carefully choosing my objects for these still lifes, I will carefully shoes what colors interact within the objects and the background. I spy a lot of yellow.

Ellyce's Midterm Proposal

First I would like to say that I will not be in class today, but I hope it goes well for everyone present.

Now on to my proposal.

My hopes for my midterm project are simple.  I would like to photograph my next door neighbors, their relationship with each other and with color.  I will use only available light from the windows as well as the lighting in their home.  I have noticed in the time I have known them that they have a very interesting relationship with color, both as individuals and together as a couple.  The man is a nerdy Caucasian lawyer with glasses and an inhaler.  His clothing is often monochromatic, although he also often does legal observing for the Occupy Chicago movement and for this he wears a bright green ball cap.  He calls it "green hatting".  His entire persona changes when he dons his green hat and I would like to explore this.  On the flip side, his girlfriend is an African-American woman who does work with her church and also with under privileged youth.  She has an immense relationship with the color blue.  She tries to make a point to wear at least one blue thing every day, and when she's not wearing blue she will mention it numerous times in a conversation and it will make her feel less like herself.  In addition to these obvious color relationships, as a couple they have had to deal with societal views of their racial differences.  The girlfriend has spoken candidly with me about the difficulties that have arose from this divide and I hope to explore this in my images as well.

I am going to attempt to take all of my images vertically in an effort to limit what is in my frame without having to disturb the natural surroundings of their home very much.  I am not going to limit myself to a shallow or deep depth of field as that will be one of the tools I plan to use to draw attention to either their connection or separation, depending on the image at hand.  I will most likely utilize asymmetrical balance and a normal perspective.  I think I will print these images with no borders.

As I said before I will shoot using mostly available light including window light.  I hope to get a chance to shoot at cooler and warmer times of day so I can use the light as one more thing to draw distinctions between the two characters in my subject matter.  I feel that I will utilize generally soft light though it may have some directional tendencies, it will not be "directional light".

I plan to use a mostly allied color palate for the shots of the individual subjects.  For the shots with both subjects I want to incorporate in both of their "key" colors.  In addition to the blue and green, I will use black and white prominently in this project.

Midterm idea

As I said in class, for my midterm project I am thinking of doing a photographic comparison/analysis of rural, small town, life versus the fast paced urban life of Chicago. Moving from an extremely small town to Chicago was major culture shock (in a good way) for me and I constantly find myself comparing things here to how they were where I grew up. I would like to do a comparison of some things such as the main street in my town versus a main street (Michigan Ave) in Chicago. I would also like to do comparisons that aren’t so obvious. I’m still working on compiling a list. I think it’s interesting how many similarities and differences there are between city and rural life; the similarities aren’t so much downtown, but in the neighborhood I live in. I live northwest of downtown in the neighborhood of Ravenswood. It’s a much different environment than downtown, but still the city experience. It is much different than I expected it to be, living in Chicago. When I used to think of Chicago I would simply picture the skyline and thought that everything in or around the loop was all there was to the city, but now I know much differently. With my project I feel like I would need to decide if I’m going to focus on life downtown, or in my neighborhood. I feel like in my neighborhood would be best because it’s where I live and I’m comparing it to where I used to live, but downtown would have a more dramatic contrast. However, I think focusing on the little details (such as spacing between houses, things like that) of the difference of my neighborhood and where I come from would help me to narrow and focus the project. This is one of my worries of this idea for my project. I feel like I have so many ideas of things that could use for comparison, that I’m not sure if I would get the message across because it’s so broad.

For this project I would want my shooting to be done under overcast, flat light. I feel this would give the same feeling to all of the images and not allow for any in one place or the other to “outshine” the other images with dramatic light. Flat even light is the easiest to control and have constant, and in a project where a comparison is being made I think it’s important to have that constant. I also tend to like images that are a little more flat and focus on things that aren’t super flashy or dramatic. I tend to be drawn to more mundane or worn-down things, and I think flat light goes well with that idea.

I’m not quite sure how I will approach this assignment technically; but, however I do it I would need to keep it the same for both places that I’m shooting. I usually tend to use shallow depth of field in my images, however if I’m going to be shooting buildings, streets, or landscapes in this project I will have to use a deeper depth of field. I tend to have my images balanced asymmetrically, and would like to continue that with this project. It might be harder to have direct comparisons this way, but I feel it will be visually more interesting and could add something to the work conceptually.

Color theory wise, I’m thinking that I would try to ally the colors to each other within the two different places. With the flat light the colors should remain fairly constant saturation wise, and I would like to try to have them all connect and feel cohesive through color, rather than having them be a stark contrast to each other.

All of this is a fairly rough draft of some ideas I’m having. I would really like to hear your guys’ feedback and get some ideas to focus my project further, or figure out if I should change it completely. Narrowing it down is my main concern with it. I feel like I tend to have ideas that are too broad to be compressed into the project, get the correct message across, and feel cohesive.