Clara's Photography Blog

Saturday, June 10, 2017

Photo Essay Emulation: A Girl and Her Room

For my fourth photo essay, I decided to emulate Rania Matar's well-known photo book, "A Girl and Her Room." Her book gives us insight into the lives of girls in the United States versus girls in Lebanon by taking intimate photographs of them in their respective rooms. These fine art portraits show so much more than just the girl and her room, but they also portray the girl's personality and identity. The portraits are very candid. I wanted to do something similar, because I've always thought that my room was an extension of my identity, which is why I've always spent so much time in my room. It's like my personalized world and everyone who enters my room always says: "It's so you!" This idea inspired me to see if this was the case for different girls as well. This photo essay helped me realize that each girl's room expresses her true identity through its color, what it holds, and how everything is arranged.

Tuesday, February 14, 2017

Photo Essay: Redefining Perfection

Tuesday, January 3, 2017

Examples of Light, Shadow, and Reflections

Shadows as main subject, Tyra Banks

Reflection, Matthias Vorlander

Back-lit Non-Silhouette, Sheen's Nature Photography

Silhouette, Naveed Mughal

Back-lit Non-Silhouette

Olivia Bee

This beautiful photograph was taken by Olivia Bee (Bolles), a well-known photographer and director from Portland. This photograph is a back-lit non-silhouette because you can see the girl's features perfectly, but there is clearly light surrounding her. I think that Olivia Bee probably metered directly off of the girl, because she is the only thing in focus, and the girl is perfectly clear. If she had metered off of the light or background instead, the girl would most likely be silhouette-like. The light would be the main subject and she would be dark. The picture is kind of monotone and very light. This may be because Bee overexposed the photo for effect and did some minor editing, but I believe that if she had metered off of the natural light source, the colors would be more vibrant regarding the light and sky.

Wednesday, December 7, 2016

Motion Assignment: My Photograph Trials

Panning and Total Motion

Slow Motion

Freeze Motion

Panning

Panning and Total Motion

My Heart Skips a Beat

Clara Debrun-Sittler, Total Motion

Clara Debrun-Sittler, Effective Use of Camera Shake with Film

Monday, December 5, 2016

Example of Motion

Types of Motion in Tennis:

Harold Edgerton

Heather by New Balance

These two photographs are both of women doing a tennis serve. They are of the same thing, but they are expressed very differently and give off completely different ideas. The first photograph is taken with multiple exposures to show all of the stages of a tennis serve whereas the second picture shows a woman frozen in motion. The background is blurry, but she is clear. I think that the first image is much more expressive than the first one, because it's more fine art and less commercialized. In addition, the photograph shows all of the stages of a serve and I think that that tells a much bigger story than just a girl frozen in action.

Triptychs:

Tom Spianti

This series of photographs is what we would call a triptych. Triptychs often tell a story or show some sort of progression. Triptychs can be very interesting with motion, because like I said, it shows a progression of action and movement. It almost feels like watching a movie that is stopped.

Neal Laver

This is a great example of a triptych with motion, showing a progression of events. I think that presenting motion this way is much more powerful than just having a singular image.

Saturday, November 12, 2016

Abstraction

In art, abstraction is using new techniques and methods to recreate an object or scene without having it be the way we literally see that object or scene.

Alex Matravers- Abstract

This photograph is abstract. In this photograph, Alex Matravers uses shallow depth of field to blur everything besides the focus which seems to be the center part of a ceiling light or fan. The shallow depth of field adds on to the abstraction of the photograph because it stops the viewer from being able to see and name a clear object.

Bob Doran- Experiment

This is another example of an abstract photograph with shallow depth of field in it. Here, there is also motion which makes the image abstract. I really like the way that we have to focus on the moving lights that probably represent an object or scene that we can't make out. The color really adds to the photo.