Photograms

This assignment called for us to make "Photograms" (images made without cameras). To do this we played around with layering various materials in the dark room. We used different textures and exposed them to light from the enlargers onto photo paper. Together the materials the light, formed images and patterns on the paper; creating wonderful collages of composition and shape. This first image is made up of layered bubble wrap, string, tissue paper, shear fabric and the lid of a tumbler cup.

For the second image I once again used bubble wrap, string, tissue paper and shear fabric. However this time I added a foam circle and a thick piece of coiled rope. This photogram has better contrast than the previous one. You can actually see the whites, greys and blacks on the paper. 

This final image is more of a staged photogram. I created a scene out of the bubble wrap, shear fabric and string. The string was used to make balloons and I used cotton balls and a foam circle to make the clouds and sun. 

Surrealist Time Lapse

This picture is called "Dancing Man" because of the multiple positions the wooden doll is placed in throughout the photo. What I call "the dancing man" doll is actually called an articulated joint artist's mannequin. I found it in the classroom and made a background using an easel and pink tissue paper. I used a tripod to hold the Nikon D3100 digital camera I used in place while taking each individual picture. From there I used photoshop to place all the photographs together, creating a picture with movement. The aperture for all seven pictures is f.8 and the shutter speed is 1/15.

"Dancing Man"

This image was a beautiful mistake. While saving the finished photoshop image as a jpeg. file, I accidentally saved it as a jps. file and it changed the colours of the image and squeezed the pictures of all seven dolls together into a picture half the size. 

"Colourful Dancing Man"

Renaissance Mish Mash

This final portrait lighting assignment is the Renaissance portrait. The intention was to find a Renaissance period portrait and recreate it using a student from the class. Once again I used Cora as my subject and tried to use photoshop to place here face on top of the girl in the painting's face. I took this picture using a Nikon D3100 digital camera, and various lighting techniques to illuminate her face.

1/15 f.8

Madonna Pietra degli Scrovegni

The Renaissance was a period of classical art, musical and culture mainly between the 14th and 17th centuries. The masters of the Renaissance, Da Vinci, Raphael, and Michelangelo introduced new techniques in painting and sculpture. One of these techniques was the use of perspective. This changed the way people saw the world through art. Art was now used as a way of preserving the feeling of the time. High Renaissance, the period of the masters explored expression and light to capture the emotion of the scene. As well as the discovery of religion which influenced hundreds of paintings throughout the Renaissance time period. 

The artist of this painting is British pre-Raphealite painter Maris Spartali Stillman. Stillman is considered one of the great female painters of the Romanticism and Renaissance revival time periods. She frequently used Renaissance costumes and props in her art to re-create the atmosphere of the time. There is little known about her painting style besides the fact that she admired the Renaissance.

One of Marie Spartali Stillman's more famous works is Madonna Pietra degli Scrovegni. Now hanging in the Liverpool Museum of Art, this painting is a mixture of body colour and watercolour paints. The subject is a character from Italian poet Dante. She is descirbed as being a " heartless lady in green" holding a crystal ball with Dante's reflection.

Mixed Lighting

This third assignment in the portrait lighting project was mixed lighting. The objective was to take pictures that utilized both natural and artificial light. This first picture is of Cora sitting in one of the school's stairwells. The natural light from the window is the primary light source, but i was shinning an LED flashlight at her face, which brightens the photo. I used a Nikon D3100 camera to take this photo.

1/15 f. 8

For this picture I had Cora stand underneath a yellow wall lamp in another school stairwell. This stairwell is not as well-lit as the previous one. However the lamp still illuminates her hair, almost like a hair light. You can see the light from the windows in the bottom left corner of the image. I used the same Nikon camera for this photo. At the time this picture was taken Cora was eating gold fish crackers, therefore they are the reason for her funny expression. 

1/15 f.16

This last picture is taken in the same stairwell as the one before but with less of the yellow lamp above. Instead of having her stand directly underneath the lamp, I had Cora stand a little farther to the right, this took away some of the natural light, so I had to shine a flashlight at her face. That is what creates the slight shadow on the right side of her face. I once again used the same Nikon D3100 camera as the two previous photographs.

1/15 f.16

Playing With Light

For this assignment I played with different light sources and used light from flashlights and glow sticks to draw pictures. This picture of Cora was originally supposed to be her as a cat, however the tail was over-exagerated and I only had time to draw one ear. It ending up making her look more like a unicorn. I used a Nikon D3100 camera.

 20" f.22

This photo of Cora was my first attempt at using glow sticks to play with light. Although it looks blue in the picture, the glow stick was actually pink. I used it to draw a heart around Cora. She wasn't exposed to enough light to illuminate her face, therefore this picture is rather dark. I used the same camera to take this photograph as the previous one. 

15" f.22

This is my second attempt at using a glow stick to draw a heart around Cora. This time she was exposed to a brighter light source for a longer period of time, so her "kissy-face" is visible in this shot.  The shutter speed of fifteen seconds was not long enough for this picture because I am visible on the right-hand side. The shadowy figure is me drawing the hear around Cora; it took longer than originally thought to draw the heart, so the photo was taken with me in it. I once again used the same Nikon D3100 camera to take this picture.

15" f.22

This photograph is the most interesting one that I took. What started out as a picture of Cora with antenna like a bee, turned into a blended picture of the two of us. This occurred when I stepped in front of the camera to draw the antenna. Unfortunately the primary light source that lit up Cora's face did the same to mine, and our faces were mixed together, and the antenna was lost in the background. The same Nikon camera was used to take this picture as well.

20" f.22