ART 163: Portraiture.

Well, I haven't updated this blog since before Spring break. I guess I was just doing too much over break to have enough time to update anything, though I have content to update it with (and plenty).

Now, for this assignment, we were supposed to do portraiture, but I decided to go in a bit different direction than the normal "studio" portraiture (as big of a fan as I am of that style).

 We started off inside, because it was snowing pretty fiercely outside. But the pictures weren't quite coming out the way that I wanted, so out of around 45 pictures, only these two (left and below) turned out to be worth saving.

I was trying to get some sort of condensed light from the light umbrella, yet I really need a new, more powerful flash to really get what I want.

These two are very similar, yet I couldn't decide between the two of them, because they are so ... intense. In the zoomed in image you can see a lot of snow caking on her face and eyebrows. I am very thankful to her for dealing with the below freezing, very fast wind conditions.








And now what I think to be the best of the photoshoot.
 

 

This one gives a great sense of how intense the wind really was. Because of the front-curtained  flash (look it up if you don't know what that is, it is a really interesting property of flash units). You can really see the vortices in the snow, how it was flowing around the model. All in all I would say an extremely successful photoshoot, though I only got 5 pictures out of it.

Excellent. 

Kevin 

ART 163: Modernism

Not to be confused with "Post-Modernism." This assignment focus' on a fairly 20th century interpretation of the term "Modern." It has to do with bold lines and patterns created by lights and shadows. I chose to do an interpretation of this sort of image by using many lines created by windows and shadows and electrical power lines.

As usual, I will start with the best few images, since that is under the project definition. 

 This one above is the most literal interpretation, at least from what I understood of the assignment, of the concepts of "Modernism." Strong lines created by an object and shadows and other things. As well, I feel that the dog footprints create some sense of movement through the frame. However, I don't like it at all. It doesn't speak to me whatsoever.

This next one I like quite a bit more. I love the depth of field that I was able to get around the window.



Speaking of simplicity, this one is even more simple than the last. While it is very grey in black and white, it was better than the boring cream color that the wall was painted. I'm not sure what I was going for in this frame, maybe a sense of intrigue as the viewer wonders what is in the window. I'm not sure.







This final one was more of an experiment in the technical aspects of my camera. This was at ISO 1600, with a shutter speed of 1/4000, in order to capture the falling drops. But I feel that it could actually work for an assignment such as this, with the lines in the background.

This one on the right is pretty much simplicity to the max. not much is going on, besides the double repeating pattern. But I like it in that aspect, and I feel it is very modernistic.









I also took a couple portraits that I found out could be considered "Modern"

Some of the "Modernist" photographers had some pseudo-portraits looking more at lines and colors, as opposed to the traditional portraiture.

And now, of course, the obligatory image dump.

Thanks for watching. I'll probably have a couple more pictures on here before too long.

EDIT: More pictures!

 This one takes on an almost 3D look. I wonder what it would look like if I had taken it with a D800...

 The colors in this one are crazy-go-nuts. As well as the bokeh.

 

These shots almost look tilt-shifted to me, at least a little bit.

 Fake HDR for the win!

 This one is probably the most "bokehliscious" (to use the DigitalREV term) shot out of the bunch

After going through these pictures on my much larger, higher resolution Desktop monitors, I have come to the conclusion that I am absolutely in love with my new 85mm lens. The Depth of field is phenomenal, as well as the quality of the bokeh! I was using a 3 stop ND filter for most of these images, and the just turned out to me amazingly sharp, with a depth of field that isn't possible without an ND filter. Some of the images look almost unreal because of said depth. If any of you are looking for an awesome walkabout or portrait lens, I highly recommend an 85mm.


Preow,

Kevin

ART 163: Surrealism

Yet another assignment post. I promise that I'll get something meaningful at some point here.

Our next assignment was to do something surreal. Now I'm not really sure what that means, so I basically went out with my Girlfriend, Brother, and Brother's Girlfriend to do some light painting. I feel that it is something out of place within an ordinarily plain scene (such as a landscape, as you shall see).

Also, this is going to be another one of those maddeningly long posts with pictures everywhere that don't have any rhyme or reason to their placement.

First off, the 4 images that I think are the best:

 As seems to be my thing, I went back to the Indiana Dunes late at night. However, this time it was RIDICULOUSLY windy and cold, so I didn't stay out there for a super long time.
This shot is probably the most abstract of the lot, almost like Light Graffiti. I like it (and it's also my new cover photo on el facebook)

 This one I also really like. Something about spinning and movement around a stationary object in a forest conjures up, to me, images from mythology about Will-o-Whisps that would lure unwary travelers to their demise. I love how the green vapor showed up in this one too, from the green glowstick.

I went to Target today to get Ice Cream (oddly enough) and ended up with Glowsticks.

 This next shot is another one that I am not too sure about, though I really like the light pattern created on the road, and the sense of movement from my brother, who is the one spinning around.

 This one above here is probably the most surreal, in that there is someone standing there, yet there is the odd colors flying by, and there is the subtle shadow cast by me. Now you have to realize that when I was framing the picture I couldn't see that shadow whatsoever, and it was only through my Camera at ISO 1600 with a 20 second exposure that I was even able to see it. Eerie.

This one is probably one of my favorites, after the first one featured. I really like the sky offset by the beach and the fractal form.

Anyways, now here is a huge image dump...

I'm sure that I could have something to say about all of these pictures, but I don;t really feel like it at the moment, as it is 2:20 am and I really should go to bed.

These last two pictures are just setting up pictures before doing anything. Look, Stars!

Now I'm going to bed,

Kevin

ART 163: Sense of Place

For our next ART 163 assignment, we were assigned to capture a place in 20 pictures or so. This is a sort of hard thing to really grasp, since we, as humans, create a context of the room in our memory, where we are aware of what is around the room we are in after a cursory examination, even if we can't see it at the time. For Example, I know that there is a backpack sitting under the table I am sitting at, and that there is another table right behind me.

But with a photograph, you can't know what is outside the frame. IT is hard to get an overarching sense of what the room/place is like from one, two dimensional frame. There could be a table behind the frame, yes, or there could be an 8 foot tall tentacled 3rd grade teacher. You just don't know. The purpose of this assignment was to try to capture that feeling of the room inside of a rectangle.

These next 4 pictures are the shots that I feel are the best, most representative:

So I chose the Manufacturing Lab here in Valpo. Lots of little bits and greebles.

These two shots: The one above is just sort of an overall shot, machines and such. The one one the right is one of the collection hoppers for metal shavings coming off of the Lathe. This is very representative, as it is the messy aftereffects of creating parts. You will always have stuff left over, to be recycled or discarded.

 I found this amusing. It definitely looks like a face to me. This is the end of an End Mill.

This is very representative of any place with large, powerful machines. There were warning stickers everywhere, and for good reason. I probably shouldn't have been in there when I was, but its fine.









All right, now these next... 18 or so are all here for archival and display purposes, so I won't say much about them:

Lots of caution stickers and lots of pipes.










Also it is ridiculously hard to get all of these pictures to work well together...

Good lord, pictures are WAY too hard to organize in this Blog system. Its annoying.

Anyways, I have been filming for the ASME TED skit for quite a while today. Lots of fairly unprofessional people, but its for fun, so that's fine. Still not quite the quality that I would want, in terms of acting, locations, lighting, and the ability for me to cut together scenes from different angles, but it is fine. My attempt to make a video last year was fairly pitiful, yet it still got some pretty good reviews from the Engineering department, and I hope that this one comes off better.

So now I need to pack all of my stuff up and walk back to my appartment from the engineering building, where I have been hanging out since about noon. Good lord I'm exhausted.

So I'm out.

Kevin

TV: The Newsroom
Movie: TED Skit
Music: "Shrines" by "Purity Ring"
Game: Skyrim, Dragonborn
Food: I have has a cupcake and 2 slices of Pizza today. No wonder I can't gain weight, I don't eat anything...