FINAL

    

Assignment 5

Mac and Cheese

Hall

Ceiling Fan

Blue Chair and Heels

Suburbia

Sometimes its easier to be away.  Sometimes, it’s easier to travel to a world like your own–but different on so many levels.  It’s like you’ve been there before, but this time its not quite the same.  There’s something different about it.  You cant quite figure out what it is, but you like it.

Editorial Eight

It is very important to have a good initial photograph.  For my final project, I had an idea of what I wanted to do with each photograph, but I didn’t know what I wanted to photograph.  And while making myself dinner, I realized that Mac & Cheese would be fun to photograph.  I took about 15 different photographs of my dinner, and the lighting was never quite right.  The lighting was a major issue it terms of blur and capturing an overall good image.  Because I had such a hard time capturing the image I was envisioning, my Mac & Cheese photographs are perfect examples of not capturing the best possible image.

This is the photograph I chose based on the focus and clarity, however, the lighting isn’t exactly what I want it to be.  The image has already been edited, and even with photo shop the photograph still looks yellow.  Is there any way to fix the yellow-ness of the stove while maintaining the rest of the image?

Editorial Seven

I decided to try to make my photographs look animated for my final project.  At first I didn’t really know where to start or if the photograph would actually come out the way I envisioned it.  This is the first image of the five in my series, and at first I didn’t really know how I felt about it.  I like it now.

I was told to step away from my work and go back to it at a later date, and now I understand why.  The image looks more like what I hoped it would look like now, than it did when I was initially finished with the image.  I think the photograph is doing a good job portraying the idea I wanted to get across.

Photographer Report- Julie Blackmon

Julie Blackmon was born in 1966 in Springfield Missouri.  She began exhibiting her work in 2004 and establishing her career.  Since 2004 she has received several awards and nominations, many of which pertain to her work in Mind Games and Domestic Vacations.  Mind Games is a collection of children photography in black and white in outdoor scenarios.  The settings of the photographs along with the colors, or lack thereof, almost ties the entire selection of photographs together.

       

Domestic Vacations, however, was in a sense inspired by family gatherings.  Julie Blackmon’s own family may play a role in the images she chooses to capture.  She is one of nine children, and has three children of her own.  In Domestic Vacations she chose to explore the lives of her family at home, as well as the lives of her sisters and their families.  Julie Blackmon describes the images as both “fictional and auto-biographical”, as they are meant to reflect their lives “imagined and real.”

The combination of imagined and real as described by Blackmon in her Domestic Vacations statement can not only be seen in the images captured, it is also experienced when viewing the photographs.  In “Flying Umbrellas,” for example, have that sense of realness and imagination Blackmon described in her statement.  The scene photograph is seemingly real, aside from the flying umbrellas.  Blackmon’s juxtaposing description of real and imaginative, can be seen throughout all of Domestic Vacations. The chaos and madness of family is portrayed in these images, while demonstrating the calming effect a family can have on an individual.

The almost serene yet complex nature of this photograph perfectly depict the ideal of family, Julie Blackmon was trying to explore.  Combining these types of emotions and thoughts, Blackmon is describing most families in a real and imaginative way.  Her new work, also demonstrates the chaos common in most families while focusing on the actual family in the image.  Her newest work is very similar to Domestic Vacations.  Blackmon uses similar lighting and color schemes in her photographs.

    

These two photographs for example, are very similar, but are from two different collections.  Candy is from Domestic Vacations, in which Blackmon tried to play with the the idea of family and the chaos behind it.  In her new work, Queen, the same chaotic feeling is presented in a more subtle manner.  Julie Blackmon, continues to photograph families and children.  She has permanent collections in Cleveland, Seattle, Chicago, Houston, Rochester, Toledo, Oaks, and Little Rock and is a Gallery Artist of the Catherine Edelman Gallery.

Sources:
http://www.edelmangallery.com/
http://julieblackmon.com/index.cfm
http://www.ba-reps.com/artists/julie-blackmon#image_277200

Editorial Six

I’ve been looking at Julie Blackmon’s work, and I’m really considering trying to recreate one of her photographs for my final project.  Most of her work includes younger children, however, I wanted to play around with the idea of having the children grow up.

This photograph for example, titled Chalk, was really interesting to me.  In this collection of images, Julie Blackmon photographed several different children, in their “natural habitat.”  I think it would be interesting to try to recreate this photograph with a different model.  I think using an older “child” would be interesting to see.  I often feel as though the child in us never really grows up, and that could be portrayed photographing young adults in childlike situations.

I’m still not sure if this is something I want to pursue, but I think it would be interesting to see.

Superhero Trading Card

Front

Back

Editorial Five

I found a photograph that reminds me a lot of a picture my mom took sometime last summer.

  
Do you see the similarities?

I think this photograph says a lot more to me than it would to anyone else.  I have two sisters, and this reminds me of what we do on Sunday.  The photograph is titled Saturday, and while my sisters and I typically lay around on Sunday, the photograph is very representative of my life.

Editorial Four

I recently saw a photograph that was a compilation of over 75 different photographs.  Before realizing it was several photographs I noticed it was somewhat odd–like there were different vantage points with the photograph.  I didn’t realize how difficult it would be to compile photographs until I started working on assignment three (superhero).

It was hard to figure out how to use multiple images to make one final photograph.  Layering was extremely difficult at first and working with multiple layers got really tricky.  It wasn’t until after I learned how to merge the layers that the process became much easier.  Can you imagine trying to move 15 layers of purple crayons?

It was quite difficult, but I figured it out and in the end, I think working with PhotoShop isn’t  too bad.

Superhero in the works