Genre Blog

My genre project is centering around street photography, specifically during the holidays.  Christmas (and Hannukah for Marlee) is literally my favorite time of the year.  I start listening to Christmas music as soon as it gets cold outside and I have a small, lit christmas tree in my room almost year round.  Anyway, street photography is often candid pictures of people in their natural environment.  I like it because it can often be funny or ironic and it captures the bustle of everyday life.

This is one of the few pictures that I have found that really embodies street photography and the holiday spirit.  This man is destitute and homeless and his face shows his pain...or he's Jewish.  No matter what, this is exactly the kind of candid shot that I hope to capture.

As I mentioned before, street photography is often amusing or ironic.  I love how the man in the picture is completely oblivious to the fact that he is the subject of a joke, and the photographer is the witty prankster.  This embodies the candidness that street photography often entails.  I think I'll have fun with this project.

Pinhole Camera

As my pinhole camera nears completion, I began looking for some inspiring pinhole photographs by other artists.  Pinhole photos are unique in that you get one chance to take the perfect picture.  The small, cardboard box can hold only one piece of light-sensitive paper so a certain image can only be captured once unlike digital or film cameras.  These pictures were interesting and beautiful to me.  I hope to emulate their beauty in my photographs.


This picture is great because of its simplicity and symmetry.  The colors contrast each other well and I like how the photographer has taken a simple piece of playground equipment and made it beautiful.


This is an example of a long- exposure pinhole photograph.  An otherwise simple or uninteresting picture has been turned into something completely different.  The light abstracts the object rendering it almost unrecognizable which makes the picture art rather than capturing something as it is.

Inspiration- Something You Drew

For this post, I am using something that I drew.  It's funny, a photo blog on a drawing, but whatever.  The word "drew" is in past tense so I went way back.  

I think that I drew this when I was in fourth grade.  I remember it pretty clearly, I just got a new pack of gel pens and I had also just found out about the song "One eyed, one horned, flying purple people eater" (top, left).  This drawing actually brought back a bunch of memories about a general time in my life.  I'm pretty sure that I was a huge tomboy and I really liked Star Trek: Next Generation.  Yeah, I know, I was awesome.  As you can see, this depicts the apocalypse (which might actually be happening right now outside of my window, I'll keep and eye out for the bright orange meteor).  Looking at this from an objective standpoint, the colors that I used are phenomenal, and I retain my love for pink and purple together.  This is a dark idea that didn't come from a dark place in my ten year old head.  I was looking for a way to use all of my gel pens and this is what came of it.

Inspiration- People

People inspire me all the time.  Miley Cyrus inspires me (because she is the perfect human being), my family inspires me, great presidents and athletes inspire me, but most of all I am inspired by the people with whom I spend the majority of my day...my friends.  I pride myself on being a very self-aware person.  I am self-aware that as a teenager my priorities are probably not in the correct order (friends, gossip girl, boys, food, sports, family...........school), but I like that order for now so why not focus on that instead of pretending that everything I do is to be just like my mom (I love you, Mom).

Priya; you made that face, let me take a picture of it and now its on the internet...deal. :*

 My friends are weird and we do weird things together.  Whether this may be hanging all of my bras from my ceiling fan or walking in a huge group to Lehigh Pizza on Southside...while I'm wearing an Elmo onesie, they inspire me to do weird stuff.  Additionally, they have probably been the most integral people in shaping who I am.  I came to this school as a shy second grader from Georgia.  I had zero friends and was a huge tomboy.  Fast forward nine years and I have developed an actual personality.  I've made new friends, I've broken up with friends that I knew weren't good for me and I've stayed friends with some of those girls from second grade.  Without these people I might be a lonely genius who sits around and studies all day, but gets a full ride to Harvard.  Or I could be an anorexic party girl who is popular, but doesn't really have any friends.  My friends keep me grounded.

Okay, I get it...puns are never funny.

They actually keep me really grounded.  The call me out on my crap...a lot.  They tell me when I'm being stupid or mean.  They often tell me that I am not funny and that they aren't sure why I actually have friends.  As friends, we can be real with each other.  I am definitely a big believer in not being best friends with someone unless you insult them constantly.  What kind of fun would a friendship be if you had to walk around on eggshells with them.  I get into intense debates with my especially bright friends on topics such as "lesser" being a word (it is, I win), or if the movie Titanic actually happened (it did not, Rose and Jack are fictional characters, there was no piece of wood that they both had to fit on...duh I win).  In the end we can glare at each other for a lunch period, but by the next day we will have forgotten about it and I'll be asking for a sip of their iced coffee before class.  In conclusion, my friends rock, they are hilarious and smart and make me the best person that I can be.  

Holga

Holga-ing has been a huge challenge for me.  I was not completely stable on physically using the camera and I wasn't really sure what Holga pictures were supposed to look like.  Also, I was thrown off by the lack of actual things on the camera- there was no focus other that this little dial you turned depending how far something was away from you, and then there was the "take picture" switch.
     Nonetheless, I tried my hardest.  The pictures that appeared after a grueling developing process (spending an entire 40 minutes in a dark closet can evoke some deep emotions) were not anything like these, but it's a learning process.

I like this picture for a lot of reasons. I like the angle that it was taken from.  It gives the feeling of laying down in a field of dandelions.  I also like the vignetting and the reflections of light in the lens.  This picture has some imperfections which, to me, makes it all the more perfect.  Imperfections are embraced in the world of Holga photography, and if there's one thing in photography that I'm good at it would be imperfection.

This picture is the epitome of a multiple exposure photograph.  Although it looks like the artist just stood under a bunch of electrical wires and spun in a circle (which is completely possible), the fact that this was exposed so many times and is still not too bright is an amazing accomplishment.  I also love that this very average situation was turned into a unique piece of art.  This is truly an artist making something ordinary into something extraordinary.

I think that this picture is really appropriate to end my Holga saga.  For the previous two photos, anyone would look at them and this "wow, this is beautiful".  But, this picture does not present its beauty up front like the other two.  It is what I would describe as situational art.  This artists has gone to a place, and in one photograph captured its entire essence.  In this photo, we see a bunch of greasy youngsters dancing the night away to the music of some underground band that has decided to situate itself directly in the middle of the floor.  The crowd is decked out in glasses, tattoos, beards and ironic trucker hats and in the corner we see a pair of grungy converse flailing around in the air.  This artist has captured a feeling and while the picture itself might not be beautiful, that feeling is.

Inspiration- In Memory Of...

Fred

This is a post dedicated to my deceased, furry companion.  I have included his eulogy:

Prince Frederick Von Bock Helvie

Born in a village in Transylvania, Frederick was raised by a small commune of hamsters.  He later used his wit and charm to secure passage on ship destined for the majestic land of Atlanta, Georgia.  There, Fred met a wonderful dog breeder who promptly auctioned him off to the highest bidder: a lucky three person family that resided in Eastern Pennsylvania.  Often called the "favorite child" by his mother, Frederick was cherished by his entire family.  He passed peacefully in the vet's office this summer from complications with an intestinal disease common in small dogs.  He is survived by a dog and two human siblings and his devastated mother.

Fred was my first pet (and the most photogenic) so I have a lot of pictures of him.  He was a simple little thing; all he knew how to do was give kisses and bark at anything that moved too fast.  This made him an ideal pet.  He was most peaceful when he was tired and this is a picture of him in his relaxed state.

Almost all of Fred's time was spent sleeping and in this picture I seem to have awoken him from a midday slumber.  Fred was an inspiration to me because of the joy that he got out of the occasional walk or a piece of ground beef that someone dropped on the floor.  I miss him everyday and hope that he is enjoying himself frolicking around in doggy heaven. 

Installation Blog

For my installation project I have decided to take pictures of people's faces, cut out their faces and insert them to holes on the sides of carefully and artfully selected trees on campus.  As the due date of this project (and all of these blog posts) nears I have kicked my work ethic into turbo gear.  As of yet I have nothing to show for my installation project, but here are a few that are exceptionally inspirational to me.

This is a piece of installation art created by French artist Guillaume Reymond.  This picture is end result of a piece called "TRANSFORMERS".  In this piece the cars and trucks move together to create this ragin' cool robot. I highly suggest watching the video because it is awesome. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epEjByo2G-M&feature=player_embedded#!

In this piece, an artist (Benjamin Verdonck) built a nest that protrudes from an office building just chilled in it for awhile.  I like this piece of art because it is practical in addition to being aesthetically pleasing.  If I was having a stressful day at the office and just need a place to blow off steam, a giant bird nest is probably the number one place that I would want to go chill. 

This is the best installation piece that I have seen so far.  It wasn't created by an artist with the intent to evoke emotions, it was created by an advertiser with the intent of selling a product.  Nonetheless this evoked many emotions from me and it evokes many emotions from passersby, namely shock, disgust, fear and an incredible urge to potty train a jungle cat. 

Summer Photos

       This summer I went to the beach, to a lake and on multiple college tours.  To document my thrilling experiences I utilized my super, high-quality (not really) phone camera.  For a lot of these pictures I was aiming for a candid feel.  I did, however, include a few pictures that I took purely because I wanted to document the insanity that is my life/family and which I thought turned out pretty good. 

I give myself extra-credit for this one because I took it out of a moving car.  The way that the clouds were moving made the shadows very prominent.

I like the repetition in this photo.  I also like the perfect shape of the circular, rolls of grass.

This picture would have been beautiful anyway, but I think that my perfectly- pedicured toes break up the simplicity of the flat beach and the rough ocean in a quirky way.

 I dug a hole so I could get this view of the shell, that's dedication.  This is one of the few pictures that I took with photo class in mind.  I used depth of field to get the focus on this beautifully patterned shell.

 This cat was taunting me with its ugliness, so I captured a memory that will haunt me forever.

 This picture was funny to me for obvious reasons ("chunkydunkin'" rather than "skinnydipping").  The old slats on the dock and the faded, dirty plaque give it a vintage feel.

 My five year-old sister started to collect shells, the contrast of the reflective water and the un-reflective rock drew me to them.

 Another creation courtesy of my little sister, I think that she really gets photography.  The repetition of the stems and the simple, trio of colors makes for an entrancing image.

 Carl begged me to document him performing the "flying eagle".  The simplicity of the background highlights the action that is happening in front of it.  The ripples in the water and the lush forest make a perfect backdrop for his ridiculousness. 

 Once again, "ridiculousness".

This is my personal twist on the classic baby in a diaper picture.  The way that he's rubbing his belly and his smug expression made this pose hilarious to me.  I also don't mind the background, even though it is somewhat commercial and messy.

 I saw this out of the dining room window of our lake house and immediately took a picture.  Its not very often that nature sets up something so perfectly that all you have to do is press a button, and capture it.  The contrast of color and the shapes that the light made in the sky was amazing.

 My 14 year-old cousin thinks that he's some kind of photography prodigy (he well may be), I raised him an abandoned pier.  I love the way that this picture captures the vastness of the ocean and a little sliver of sand and then the lush, greenery that building up to it.

 This is one of my favorite pictures.  Other than the fact that my brother is acting like an old lady, I like this picture because of the simplicity of colors and shapes.  The picture is mostly shades of grey and blue and there is the constant repetition of the wooden railing (in the chair and on the deck).

 As casual as these photos are, I think that they really reflected my summer.  The occasional planned picture surrounded by perfect, unplanned moments.