Shooting Exercise 6: Portraiture

The purpose of this assignment was to begin to look at my photographs in a series rather than individual   shots and gain confidence behind the camera, while still using shooting and editing skills.

Determination and Focus

Kairos Cross

Shoes

Shoes

         

Left to Right: High School Ring, Ring Made Himself, Ring Grandfather Made

Easy-Going

Funny

Shooting Exercise 5: Black and White

The purpose of this assignment is to shoot photographs in color and edit them in Photoshop using black and white adjustment layers.

In-Class Exercise 5: Black and White Adjustment Layer

The purpose of this assignment was to find color photographs from previous shooting assignments that we thought would translate well to black and white and edit them with adjustment layers in Photoshop. We were also allowed to use the Photo Filter adjustment layer.

Shooting Exercise Four: Considering Color

The purpose of this exercise was to focus on color with lighting and mood.

Red/Yellow

Green

Fuchsia

Golden Yellow

Light Pink

Red Orange

Brown

In-Class Exercise Four: Dodging and Burning

For this assignment, we used the dodge and burn tools in Photoshop to make edits to two different photographs. Below are the original and edited photographs.

Original Photograph

Edited Photograph

Original Photograph

Edited Photograph

Shooting Exercise Three: Point-of-View

The purpose of this exercise was to use point of view and shoot different photographs of the same subject.

In-Class Exercise Three: Analyzing Photography

The purpose of this exercise was to learn how to think of photography in a more critical way.

One day in class, we were able to visit a photography exhibit by one of Carroll University's photography professors, Jen Moon. Her exhibit was titled "I've Been There: A Namesake Tour of Iowa." Jen's idea for this exhibit began because she is originally from Iowa. She moved to New York and then to Wisconsin, which were both life-changing moves for her. Jen realized that Iowa is a beautiful state and wanted to show it off by taking towns in Iowa that were named after the original towns, like Gaza, Rome, and Paris, and show that town off in comparison to it's namesake. Jen began by creating a list of about fifty cities in Iowa that she knew would be familiar to most people from their namesake and compiled mountains of research on each of the cities that were on this list. Her family was never a farm family in Iowa, like everyone believes Iowa is primarily made up of, and she wanted to show that Iowa is beautiful. She did this by photographing each namesake city with some element within the photograph.

I decided to analyze a photograph in the exhibit called "Turin, Iowa." This photograph was shot in 2011 and is about 20 inches by 20 inches. Turin is a ski village in Italy with numerous hills and also a holy city. Jen Moon depicted this city in Iowa with those similar hills, and added grasses, corn fields, and even a light pole to the mix. The foreground of this picture includes tall green grasses which sit in front of a vast corn field. The background shows a house off in the distance in front of rolling hills which have trees splashed on them. Majority of the photograph shows the deep green colors of nature, but the blue, cloudy sky and the white house in the background created a pop of color that draws my eyes away from all of the green. All of the textures from the different aspects of nature create a breath-taking sight for my eyes. I feel as though this picture was taken on a somewhat windy day with the way some of the grasses are bending. As I look at this photograph, I can place myself right next to Jen Moon as she is taking this picture. The words calm, peaceful, relaxing and serene come to mind when viewing this photograph.

One question I had asked Jen Moon during the visit to her exhibit was why did she decide to photograph Iowa. As she spoke about her life and the moves which occurred and what Iowa means to her, I could really feel the emotion and purpose of this project clearly. Jen has been working on this project for two years and has photographed thirty-eight of the towns on her fifty town list. She came up with an adjective to describe each town. Jen explained that most of Iowa is changing from rural, farming communities to more urban areas. She also told us that majority of the corn that is grown in Iowa is non-edible; it is used for making ethanol, cattle feed, and high fructose corn syrup. Jen really gave us a peak inside the state she grew up in during this short fifteen minute talk before we got to explore the photographs ourselves that day.

Here is the photograph taken by Jen Moon of Turin, Iowa (2011)

This exhibit really gave me insight into the world of photography and I cannot wait to venture out and explore other exhibits with a deeper set of questions to ask myself.