Free Shoot 5

Response to Color Assignment

I really liked this assignment, particularly because I got to learn how to develop color slides and create scanograms. It's nice how this project didn't just involve photoshop and a digital camera.... it didn't even involve a digital camera... because it was interesting to see that many different technologies can be combined to create digital photographs. The process of developing color slides was exciting because I had only developed black and white negatives in the past.

I feel like I could have been more creative in combining the colors of the scanogram with the colors of the photograph in each diptych. I knew that I wanted to create simple images, but by doing that I feel like I gave up the ability to really play with the scanner and create diptychs with subtle interactions between the shapes and objects. The object and color connections in each of my diptychs are quite obvious, maybe too obvious. I liked the idea of scanning and photographing the same object, but by focusing so much on the objects, I didn't play with color as much as I could have. In the one diptych where each image was a different object, the pickles and blueberry, I didn't play with finding colors that went well together because I used objects that were practically the same color. If I were too do this assignment again, I would make more abstract and creative images. I would like to continue working with scanograms.

Free Shoot 4

Color Assignment

Color Slides for Scanogram Project

Remember This?

Reading about Gordon Bell’s SenseCam and archive, I thought it seemed pretty pointless. I doubt anyone will be interested in looking at so many photos of this one man’s life. I understand putting one’s old photos onto a computer so that they can be stored for longer than if only on paper but I can’t understand why Bell would want to archive thousands of photos from each day of his life. Maybe if the photos were put together into a quick movie, it could be interesting. But Bell has tried this and for some reason doesn’t like the results. Reading this article, I was reminded of my photos, and that I have too many of them so I periodically go through and try to delete ones that I no longer want because they take up so much space on my computer. However, I feel attached to my photos and that I may want to look at them in the future, so I never end up deleting that many. On the other hand, I rarely wish that I had taken more photos.

What is the point of Bell cataloguing such small details of his life if the collection has become like “a black hole” where “everything went in and nothing came out.” Why does he collect unimportant data such as every website he has visited? It seems like by having such a large collection, he makes it impossible to go back and find information when he wants it.

I would never want to be taking photographs all the time. I think that creating such a detailed collection of things and photos from one’s life would cause one to overanalyze oneself. Bell must always be choosing what to photograph, which photographs to save or delete, and what information to upload to his archives. Maybe his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren will enjoy his “lifelogging” but to me it seems like it would be quite unpleasant and a waste of time to so obsessively document one’s own life.

Free Shoot 3

Response to Looking Down Assignment

At first I didn’t enjoy taking photographs for the looking down assignment, but after I thought about it and took a bunch photos I was able to look for shapes and colors that caught my eye and began to appreciate the project a little more. I didn’t like being so constrained in what I could photograph. The photos I took were all pretty flat and didn’t have much depth. I wasn’t that successful with this project because I feel like I took simple representational photos of objects that interested me, such as the butterfly and slug, rather than taking interesting and creative photos. Also, I had trouble finding things on the ground that really made we want to take a picture. It was hard for me to find 40 photos that I really wanted to take.
Geotagging all the photos was my favorite part of the project. But that could have been done with taking photos from any perspective, not just looking down. It was nice to see everyone’s images together and compare how different people approached similar objects.

Color

I disagree with Andrew Maclean’s comment that “the world is in color, you have to work at black and white.” For me, color photography is much more difficult than black and white. With black and white, I only have to think about composition, contrast, lighting, and content. The addition of color complicates the task of taking a photo in a way that I dislike. I like the simplicity of black and white photography, and feel that color takes away from the simplicity that I enjoy. My favorite photographs that I have taken so far for this class are the ones where the colors aren’t bright or busy – the ones with only a few colors and the ones with solid blocks of color. Maybe my dislike of color is because I am more accustomed to black and white. Hopefully, as the semester progresses I will learn to appreciate taking color photographs.

Free Shoot 2

Looking Down

Looking Down

What makes a good photograph? II

A great photograph is a photograph that speaks to the viewer and makes that viewer want to look at the photo for a while. It leaves the viewer with questions and the desire to have a conversation with the photographer.

The following is a quote from the reading that I believe best describes what a good photograph is... "you can look at the photo for hours and still discover something new... it manages to show... something utterly mundane and transform it into high art." Evocative and mysterious are two more important aspects of a good photograph that are mentioned in the reading. Another good point is that it is often important to look at a series of photographs or a large body of work by a photographer in order to determine if the work is really great. It is sometimes difficult to judge just one photograph on its own.

Reading the comments in “What Makes a Good Picture?” I noticed that many of the answers mentioned that a good picture stirs up strong emotions. For example, Alexey Brodovitch commented that “a picture which affects you emotionally… makes a picture good” and Jacob Deschin wrote that “a good picture is felt rather than merely understood (intellectually).” These quotes me think about the differences between painting/drawing and photography. I feel that great photographs often evoke strong emotions but that great paintings or drawings don’t. I’m not sure why this is.

What makes a good photograph?

There are certain technical aspects of photography - such as focus and exposure - that are mainly objective, but for the most part whether or not a photograph is good is very subjective. However, as with all forms of art, once someone masters the technical aspects, he or she can then choose not to follow the “rules” of what is technically considered good.

I think one of the most important qualities of a good photograph is uniqueness. The photographs that I consider to be the best, and most enjoy looking at, are photographs that portray the subject in a new way or show me something I hadn’t before seen or noticed. A good photograph causes the viewer to look at the photo for more than just a quick glimpse.

Free Shoot 1