Photo Illustration

So.. I went through a weird process to end up with the image I have. My first thought when Erik was explaining the assignment was a play on “honey” and “honeybee.” I was going to put the head and arms of a housewife (or a friend playing one) onto a honeybee. Then I tried to find photos of honeybees online.. and I realized that wasn’t going to look good. SO then I thought, well, why don’t I body paint someone to look like a bee, and I can take photos of them doing “domestic” activities, and it will get the same point across. So.. I was looking online on how to body paint without killing somebody, and I had a volunteer.. but I again realized that with the time constraints, and my schedule this week, I didn’t think it was going to work out very well. Which is how I came across my concept..

I’m going to show you my illustration before explaining because I guess I would like to see if you can guess what it is before I tell you..

So while I was looking for body painting ideas, I came across this animal lip art. You can find the artist or whatever you call her here: http://viridis-somnio.deviantart.com, Paige Thompson. She’s 21 and was, to my knowledge, the first to do this concept (basically painting lips to look like animals). It’s kind of cool. So I was looking at them, and at first wanted to do a zoo, so I took photos of my friends lips as pandas, hippos and crabs (why crabs would be in a zoo, IDK, just thought it looked easier than the jaguars to make). I also made this whole zoo scene, but in the end the thing was way too complicated. And this is what I came up with. The crabs are my friend’s lips and the “people” are my other friend’s fingers. I don’t know what I would call it.. crabs gone wild.. and I don’t really know if it’s much of a critique on society or anything, but I was kind of thinking, like the fear people have of oceans sometimes. Idk my mind went to my sister, she won’t even go in past her feet because she’s terrified of “sea creatures,” which I think of as a bit ridiculous. Anyway my understanding of this assignment is that we could let our imaginations run and this is where mine went so I hope that’s a grand enough explanation!

It was fun to make because, well, my friends were into the idea of getting their faces painted, and it ended up being something that would be kind of fun for Halloween, if I remember it in the future. I also got the chance to work with PhotoShop in a way I hadn’t before, learned about adding curves to specific layers, lassoing off pieces, all that stuff, it was really helpful for me, honestly! I added a grain feature because I thought it looked kind of “sea-ish” and made it blend a bit better. Welp. I know it’s not perfect, and very obviously photoshopped, oh gosh hah, but it was my first try!

Oh, and the beach scene is just from here: http://www.beachwallpapers.in/bulkupload/New_beaches/Beautiful/Free%20Beautiful%20Beach%20Wallpaper%20For%20Desktop.jpg

Anna

News & Sports

Two topics this week, so dual post.

Starting with news- I put this off and put this off and ended up rushing in the end to get enough photos. This one, of my friend Laura at Fieldhouse during a profit share, frustrates me because I couldn’t figure out the lighting at the place (it was like 8:30/9 and very little light outside). I do like the bit of light from the lamp and I think it has a certain mood but I also don’t like the huge lump sitting on the table that is just pitch black.

Sports-wise, I took photos at an ultimate frisbee practice (the women’s team). It was really fun, actually, they were super nice about it and were actually pretty into having their photo taken so I didn’t feel as creepy as normal, ha. This one I’m posting because it gave me the most trouble to “get right”- I was trying to do one of those shaded by the sun shots, but didn’t realize spot metering for the sun would be so difficult. This one turned out best of all of them (I took like 10 trying to get it right) but it’s still not the contrast I would like. But I like the action in it and am happy with it for my first try! Luckily for the rest of my photos, they practice from 6-8 PM so lighting was primo, which was really nice.

Portraits

I really enjoyed this week. A lot! So, kudos after the weather fiasco, haha.

This is a photo of my poppa, Bob, in the CWE. I think it’s so perfectly him. We were taking a walk, and he forgot his hat and coat, so he grabbed my mom’s scarf. I said I needed to take photos and his first response was to wrap the scarf around his head, ham it up and say “look- I look just like the National Geographic girl!” Idk, I thought it was funny, because we just talked about that photo in class. Short entry today. Late for class. Oops.. here you go!

Weather

Rawr so weather, yes, this was another week where I struggled to get photos. I just didn’t know what to photograph. I’m thinking this will be a common theme come Tuesday, because St. Louis weather decided it wanted to behave this week. The one time I pray for rain, ha. And I’m so awkward. I won’t get close enough to strangers for anything to make much sense as a photo. Everything is so zoomed out. Something to work on. Or you could just have us take pictures of dogs the rest of the semester.. I do have two very photogenic pugs at home..

So anyway, I went to Forest Park today in a last ditch effort and managed to get four workable photos. The one I’m going to blog, though, is from the other day (my fifth). I managed to get out during those random hours in the afternoon when the sun was halfway shining. Worked out well because my friend from home was in town, and every time she is we try to go out to her family’s old farm near Highland and mess around taking photos. She likes to be artsy so most of them were her doing but I did snag the camera and take some of her, and this came out.

I might be stretching a bit to call it a “weather” photograph.. but it was ‘blustery’.. which you can see in her clothing.. and regardless the whole reason we could be out was because it wasn’t deathly cold. The whole house/farm is really cool because it’s really old and has all of this random equipment and everything is rusty and falling apart (they haven’t farmed in decades but I think some random guy might rent the fields). Tons of stuff to look at inside but none of it related to weather. The grass is also weirdly green there.. and all of that is unrelated. But there it is. I like the windmill. Kind of dig the balance of the frame, but I wish she were more engaged. There were some photos of her spinning around and doing all of this stuff, playing with the wind kind of, but they turned out blurry/tilted/I don’t know what I was doing but I wasn’t being very careful. Oops.

Mood

Frankly, I didn’t enjoy this assignment. I think it’s probably because I wasn’t very good at it. Hah. Anyway, I came up with five images I’m not crazy about but they had to do because the time is up!

Here is my “mood” image:

It’s pretty much the only one I took that would count for mood, and I don’t even know if it does that. Idk, it’s kind of dark, and I shouldn’t have used such a low f-stop.. and like all of my photos this week it is of inanimate objects. Can’t say it’s my favorite image I’ve ever taken. But it does have a sort of eerie mood. Smoke rising. Whatever.

Until next time. Hopefully it will be better!

POV assignment

I took my photos for this assignment at a chapter meeting for my sorority. The lighting was kind of weird, because it was in the lecture halls behind the BSC, but I ended up with some pictures I really like. I kind of forgot what it felt like to feel like a total creep photostalking everyone- although it makes it a lot easier when you can say “it’s for class!” I had trouble deciding which 5 to use, because the assignment was so broad.. I’m better with ‘stories’ but tried to balance it between zoomed in/subject matter/etc, Idk. I’m happy with them, in general.

The photo I’m going to critique is one that I like for its color, but have some problems with:

I like how the blue really pops in this photograph, and becomes the focus. I underexposed a bit to get it like that, like we were told in class, so it made the desks seem more yellow than they are (is that why? ha).. and I would have preferred them to appear more white.. but I think the blue is more important than the white. I wrestled with whether or not to crop the left side of the photo just a bit, to take her a little more out of the center, but at least for now I would prefer to leave my photos as they are. Makes it harder to justify just ‘snapping’ them in the future. I do think a different angle would have produced a better photograph, possibly a little more from her front, so the chairs weren’t just straight with the side of the frame. If it had more of a sideways angle.. I would like it more. I do prefer her face to not be showing in this case, so that is a positive. Anyway, I decided to use it because it is different than the other photos that I made, so I guess to avoid turning in a one-note assignment. And I’m happy with it overall, just with I would have gotten more of a dramatic angle!

Anna