Semester 1 Final Review

Captions:

The Minnesota white ducks are preparing for their big debut on the United States Aflac commercial. Though over budget the commercial came out a success.

Benjamin Patel is waiting patiently on a dark beach in Venice to discover whether he has been kidnapped or staring in a febreeze commercial. Luckily for him it was only a commercial and will be starring on T.V.s all around the world.

Rules of Photography:

1. Rule of thirds: A guideline for off centering the subject of your photo. Imagine the screen is spilt in thirds horizontally and vertically and consider the line intersections as good places to place your subject.
2. Balance: The arrangement of shapes, colors, or areas of light and dark that complement one another so that the photograph looks well-balanced, not lopsided.
3.Leading Lines: A line that provides a way into the picture, allowing a simple and easy path for the eye to follow to the main subject.
4. Symmetry: Studying the strength of a photos line, geometric shapes, and balance to create symmetry or a pattern that allows for better composition of the photo.
5. Viewpoint: Changing how the subject is viewed in order to tell more about what's going on in the photo.
6. Background: Creating a simple background to avoid distraction from the subject.
7. Create depth: Using the scenery, such as hills or mountains, to add depth to the photo.
8. Framing: Creating a natural frame around the subject to draw more attention towards them.
9. Cropping: If your subject is small or lost in a photo filled with other subjects, crop it to allow the viewer to know what the focus should be.
10. Mergers and avoiding them:Mergers are things that fit half in the frame and had out. A merger could also be similar colors or subjects interfering with each other. To avoid merger make sure that all of your subject fits inside the frame and that the subject sticks out easily.

Aperture, SS and ISO:

Aperture adds dimension to a photo through adjusting the blurriness of a photograph background or creating more focus on a subject.

Shutter Speed adds a dramatic effect by either freezing an action or adding a blurriness to it.

ISO is adjusting the level of sensitivity to light is available for your camera.

Photoshop:

It is okay to adjust the lighting or levels of your photograph. Photoshop can also work as a great tool to add different text or clip outs into your photo. However it is not acceptable to completely change the way that your subject looks, especially if using a human subject.

Portraits:

Environmental portraits take place in an area that is important to what story or message your trying to get through to your viewer. The background does not become unnoticeable and plays a big part in your photograph.

Formal portraits typically take place in a studio. They are set up and the subject is usually looking directly at the camera.

Informal portraits also focus on a main subject, but the subject is typically completely an action, looking away etc. But the overall photograph of the subject is able to tell more about the subject.

Photographic Terms:

Magazine Covers FINALE

Portrait Magazine Cover:

Self Portrait Magazine Cover:

Magazine Covers

Self-Portrait:
For some reason this photo looks slightly blurry when posted on my blog but normal on the student drive...

Portrait:
*Turning this in now but may change later. Taking photos at night was pretty difficult so I may switch back to photos of little boy from previous blog.*

Portraits & Self-Portraits

Portraits and Self-Portraits:
Self Portrait:

For some reason this photo looks slightly blurry when posted on my blog but normal on the student drive...

Portrait:

Top 100 Photos of All Time

Photo 1: Surfing Hippos
1. This image caught my eye because it is a lot more vibrate than some of the other images. I also really like photo of the wilderness and to here stories about different species of animals.
2. The description underneath the image talks about photographer Michael Nichols and his travels to Africa. The summary includes details of how the photographer came about the hippos, and how uncommon it is to see them swimming in the ocean. The image brought awareness to human's destruction of wilderness and in turn influenced people to build more national parks.
3. Attached is a link of Michael Nichols talking about his secrets behind capturing the beautiful photograph.
4.

The Famous Image:

Another Photo by Michael Nichols:

5. Michael Nichols:

    Born in 1952

    Born in Alabama

    Study Unknown

Photo 2: Muhammad Ali vs. Sonny Liston
1. This image caught my eye because of the strength of Muhammad Ali that is captured.
2. Neil Leifer was a photographer for sports illustrated, his job was to capture a good photo of Muhammad Ali for the magazine. Leifer was able to capture a great photo of Muhammad Ali defeating his opponent of the night, 34 year old Sonny Liston. This photo was praised for the way it captured how strong and poetic Muhammad Ali was.
3. There is an additional video attached that describes how historic the Muhammad Ali vs. Sonny Liston fight was. There are many additional images of crowds of thousands of people getting ready to watch the championship fight. This gives additional information on the history behind the photo and why it is considered to be one of the best of all time.
4.

The famous Muhammad Ali photo:

Additional Neil Leifer Photo:

5. Neil Leifer:

    Born: December 28, 1942

    Born in New York City

    Studied photography at Henry Street Settlement

Photo 3: Oscars Selfie

1. This image caught my eye because I automatically recognized it and all of the celebrities in it

2. I read about how incredibly popular this photo became because of social media, and has more retweets than any other image ever. I also read about how this was very good advertisement for Samsung because the selfie was taken on one of their phones.

3. There is an additional link of Bradley Cooper, the man who took the image, talking about how crazy it is that the photo went so insanely popular.

4. 

The Famous Oscar Selfie:

Another image taken by Bradley Cooper:

5. Bradley Cooper:

    Born: January 5, 1975

    Born in Philadelphia

    Attended Georgetown University

Photo 4: Famine in Somalia

1. This image caught my eye because of insanely thin the two women in the image are. It's pretty disturbing and I chose it so that I could learn more about it.

2. James Nachtwey desperately wanted to go to Somalia to capture images of how disrupt and damaged Somalia was. He could not find anyone to hire him to go so he decided to go by himself. He then brought back very saddening images that helped to bring awareness to the situation and in turn influencing charities to help donate and try to bring peace back to Somalia. 

3. Attached is a video of the story behind James Hatchway's Somalia photos. It described why Somalia was in such a great famine and why James wanted to go to capture theses haunting images.

4.

The Famous Image:

Another James Nachtwey Photo:

5. James Nachtwey:

    Born: March 14, 1948

    Born in Massachusetts 

    Graduated from Dartmouth College

Photo 5: Falling Man

1.  This image caught my eye because it is a photo of someone falling to their death, and I was interested to know more about the history behind it.

2. The summary following the photo talks about how it was taken the day of the 9/11 attacks. It also talks about how the image captures the tragedy and the desperateness that people felt on that day. The man in the image is unknown but the image depicts an overall meaning of the uncertain war and destruction that America was in.

3. There is an attached documentary short that describes the tragedy of 9/11 and how the photo of The Falling Man came to be. The documentary shows me a part of 9/11 that I had not even known about, all the people that were so desperate to escape the burning towers that they decided to jump out and plummet to their death.

4.

The Famous Image:

Other Richard Drew Photo:

5. Richard Drew:

    Born: December 6, 1946

    Born in New York City

    Study: Unknown

Promp Shoot #3

Tiny:

Circle:

Fashion

1. In photoshop the editor elongated the models face by stretching her neck and thinning it out. Then they dragged down the middle section of her face to create a longer forehead, as well as dragging down her hair to make it longer and match her longer neck. Finally they made finishing touches by making her eyes larger and contouring the outer parts of her face and cheek bones.

2. In the second body evolution video the editor took a photo of a women body and started by making her appear taller by raising her shoulders, stretching out her legs, and raising her feet higher. They also made adjustments to the size of her by "erasing" part of her stomach and legs to make her appear thinner. They also added a layer of whiter coloring to make the model look all one color.

3. For this last video they took a photo of a larger woman and made her thinner in photoshop. The editor started by morphing the women and making ever section of her smaller than it was before. They then added some sharper line around the edges and rounded some sections of her body in order to make it look more realistic.  They also made her hair longer by dragging out some of the pieces that were already there. For the final touches the editor made the lighting higher to hide any weird edges or any stretch marks that were on the woman's body.

4. I understand wanting to get rid of some maybe textured surfaces or adjusting the lighting to create a more contoured look, however I don't think it's okay to completely change a person's entire appearance. I think that photoshop changes like the one's in the video's add on to the ongoing struggle of teaching women that they have to look a certain way in order to be considered beautiful. Instead of completely changing there appearance I feel that photographers should focus on capturing the natural beauty that the model already posses.

5. I believe that no matter what women is modeling it is never okay to completely change there appearance. However I think that manipulating a women's appearance in a photo that is advertising loving yourself, or embracing a beautiful part of yourself is very hypocritical and could be considered "more wrong" than in another campaign.

6. I think it is okay to change some weird textures or lighting that may have been created while in the photoshoot process. If there is a small change that the model maybe prefers to make, like say a weird breakout, I think that in that situation it would be okay to fix in photoshop.

7. Photojournalism is more focused on the art and communication of news or stories through photography, whereas fashion photography is more focused on advertising or displaying a piece of clothing. Fashion photographers are more focused on making the model so beautiful that it enhances whatever it is that they're wearing.

8. Photojournalism is way more focused on capturing reality as how it is. Fashion photography likes to morph reality, and make reality seem better than it really is. Due to this idea of making reality better I feel that fashion photography is way more likely to get crazy with the photoshop changes and model transformations.

9. Obviously one of the main reasons you are showing us these videos is because we are getting into our portraits unit. On top of that I think this kind of shows us not to get too crazy with focusing on how perfect our models look in our photographs. After watching all of these videos people are shocked that some photographers would go so far in editing the way that a model looks. It snaps us back into reality that you don't have to go crazy with focusing on making our models look a certain way and instead focus on the story that wants to be told about our models.

10. To be honest I'm not really sure why any of these videos aren't about men. I could definitely go on to argue that women are held to a higher standard and have a more unrealistic expectation of being beautiful, but I'm pretty sure that photos of men probably get photoshopped all the time as well. But I do understand that women are much more focused on making every aspects of themselves look beautiful, even if that means completely changing the way that they look.