Oldest Family Photograph

This is the oldest family photograph that I found. Since my grandparents live in France, I had them find this photograph and send me a digital picture of it. It is probably not the oldest family photograph that we have, but since we didn't have a lot of time to find one, this is what I chose. This photograph is from 1944. It is of my great grandparents on my mother's side, Paule and Pierre. The two year old little girl is my grandmother, Marie Blanche Casablanca. This was taken after they moved from Algeria to Paris, but before moving to a small mountain village in Corsica. In this picture, my relatives are in a park in Paris, that weirdly enough, I recognize. I don't know who was taking the photo, but my mother told me that it was probably taken using a nice American film camera. At the time, they could only use black and white film. I think that the photograph was retouched later on by my grandfather, Hervé. It was funny to find such a nice family photograph, because it's like the ones we would take today, but from the 1940s. It was weird for me to see these "ancient" pictures, because I haven't been told very much about my family on my mother or father's side. I didn't even know my great grandparents' names or history before this assignment.

Old Process, New Artist

Process: Cyanotype The Cyanotype was first introduced by Sir John Herschel in 1842. The new process, however, produced by Mike Ware, is more effective. The Cyanotype process uses a solution of iron compounds contrarily to the black and white photography that is set in silver. The photograph can be taken with a camera and then turned into a negative to start the Cyanotype process. The Cyanotype process starts with mixing Potassium ferricyanide and Ferric ammonium citrate (green) in equal parts. Then, you must put objects or negatives on the material to make a print using UV light (the sun, for example). After the exposure, the material is put in water and a white print emerges from a blue background. The final print dries and you are done! This is a Cyanotype made by Sir John Herschel. There are many new artists that use this old yet unforgettable technique for modern photography. One of these great photographers is Edwin Meeuwsen, a photographer from the Netherlands. He has a lot of photographs of animals and focuses on subjects from his travels. This is one of Edwin Meeuwsen's many beautiful cyanotypes. It is also one of my favorite works of art, because it perfectly contrasts and compares the old process of cyanotypes with a modern subject. This is another beautiful image of his, created after travelling to Japan. I love the simplicity of this photo. It is clear that there is a story behind the photo, and it brings out the culture of the young lady. Sources

Final Portfolio

Stop Motion

        For this project, we had to use creativity and technique to create a stop motion animation. I really enjoyed this project, because I got the opportunity to use other skills such as drawing and incorporate them in my video. Overall, I am happy about how my stop motion turned out.

My Stop Motion Drawing Video

Utopia and Dystopia Pre-Work

For this project, we had to create a video that represents Portland in a utopian manner and one that represent the city in a dystopian way. We had to be observant and creative for this project. This wasn't my favorite project, because it is more raw than most of my other works and I prefer taking photographs than videos.

Utopia: A place or world where everything is perfect. In other words, this is paradise.



Dystopia: A place or world where everything is bad, corrupt, and imperfect. This is basically hell.

Magazine

For this project, the goal was to use all of the information and techniques that we used to create a full scale magazine. We got to chose the magazine theme that we wanted and we had a bunch of creative liberty. I loved the commercial side of this project and the creativity that that entailed. It was an extremely fun project!

(Clara)

(Left: Greta, Right: Clara)

(Clara)

(Left: Clara, Right: Greta)

(Greta)

(Clara)

(Greta)

Project 8- Portraits

For this project, we had to shoot both Fine Art Portraits and Commercial Portraits. It was interesting to learn the difference between both styles of portrait photography. This project also took a lot of creativity and technique. I've always loved portraits, so this is a really fun project for me. I thought I would prefer taking Fine Art Photographs, but I actually loved shooting Commercial Portraits. 

Fine Art Portraits

Commercial Portraits