Assignment 4 Contact Sheets

Project 4 Rules

1. Focal length at 135mm
2. Focus as close as possible
3. Attempt to make subject unrecognizable or abstract
4. Cool color pallet
5. Shoot with natural light

Assignment 3 Image Vault

Chapter 3 summary

This chapter helps introduce you to Bridge, Camera Raw, Lightroom, and Photoshop. It was strange to me to read it in the order they explained it because brooks showed us how his workflow progressed. I think I like to take images to Lightroom first before ANY editing to create a DNG is completely free of editing and is raw in the purest form. Anyways, in the chapter we learn about Panels, Workspaces, Tools, Shortcuts, Modifiers, Menus, Features, Metadata, Collections, and much more. Although they didn't introduce us to every single function, they showed us where to find what we are looking for.

The reason Photoshop is unique is it's ability to create layers and filters. Photoshop is the only "destructive editing program" of these four Adobe programs, there are many things we can only do in photoshop. Bridge is like a glorified window browser that can work together with Camera Raw and Photoshop. Camera Raw and Lightroom are nondestructive in that when you make an edit, they edit layers and not the actual pixels, therefore any edits can be doubled, halved, and undone without any trace of an edit.

Lastly they talk a little bit about the workflow and how an image should go through all these steps from the camera to print, web, and / or presentation. Alltogether this was a bit of overview for me, but not bad if I might add. I will have to reread sections to better memorize the shortcuts to improve my speed in editing.

Lightroom Chapter 3 Summary

Assignment 2 JPEG Vault

Old Work, New Ideas

I believe myself to be a landscape photographer when it comes to my aesthetically pleasing shots; the photographs that I and others hang on their walls. I will never be satisfied with the quantity of amazing shots Mother Nature gives us only because I know there are millions more. I draw inspiration from places such as The Discovery Channel, National Geographic, NASA, Hubble, and much more. I love to travel and take photographs to assist my memory so I can’t forget these wonderful places that I have been and these amazing moments that I have experienced. This photograph was taken on the side of the road to Yosemite National Park. I want to go hiking there for weeks and take my camera as well as many other national parks. I like this particular photograph because as the background fades into the top of the image, it seems painterly in contrast to the bottom where the foreground is crisp. The overall feel is stunning for me. The blistering cold river flowing through these hard rocks where life has sprung, while in the distance, an enormous mountain of rock emerges from the forest and feels warm by the sunlight. If it were not for the foreground, I would believe that this image was computer generated for a scene in the Lord of The Rings or similar fictional film.

The one thing I believe I have not made a valiant effort in mastering or exploring is portraiture. I have stayed away from taking photographs of people, especially in a photo-shoot for an art class. I have taken photos for weddings, family portraits, and senior portraits, but only to find the aesthetically pleasing photographs. I would like to try and shoot people with the intention of making art. Teresa Hubbard and Alexander Birchler created a scene for a photograph named Untitled, 1998. This image is a great example of a type of photography that I would very much like to explore. They created a narrative with so many questions. This image specifically makes you wonder so much about her, the subject, the house, the yard, the past, the future, etc. There are other types of photography within the portrait that tell us about the person more than a normal dressed up “say cheese” type of photograph. I would like to explore that as well. I will have to get over my fear of dealing with people in front of the camera. For some reason, I just don’t feel comfortable telling people what to do for my photograph.