BONUS

For this project, I had to completely change my idea from what I originally intended to do. My original plan consisted of creating a series of photographs focusing on silhouettes and the shape of light. I created almost 20 gobos for that project, but unfortunately I must have done something wrong, as none of them worked. So, I had to come up with a new plan entirely.

This project focuses on themes of light, color, and flowers. Each images incorporates two or all of these elements and hones in on them. The first two images focus on the pink background and the shadows created by the flowers. The plastic wrap casts a unique shadow on the wall, creating an interesting color. The natural shape of the flowers creates a detailed silhouette with many angles and curves. The next two images focus more on the flowers themselves and the way light alters the color. The two photographs following are more different from the rest of the series. One is a self portrait, which I debated including for a while but ultimately I liked it. The second image is a seashell. Although it is drastically different from the rest of the subject matter, the unique color of the shell was so mesmerizing that I chose to add it anyway. The next set of images changes subjects to focus in on the pumpkin. I fell in love with the color of the plastic wrap in these images. It created such a unique color, paired with colored gels, that I couldn’t decide on which image to include. The last set of images is more dark than the others, this time focusing on light and shadow. The shoe had a delicate touch to it, the light falling so effortlessly upon it that I didn’t have to do much editing. The second pumpkin went through many changes. Ultimately I ended up settling on the one with the white flower petals, but I decided to include the other two versions since I liked them so much.

Although this project went into a totally different direction than I had originally intended, I am still satisfied with how it turned out in the end.

 

When I was in high school, I spent a lot of time in my room, rarely going outside. I disliked the outdoors and avoided leaving my room if I could avoid it. Covid hit in the middle of my second semester at Stony Brook and all my classes went online, making me revert to my old habits. In my second online semester, I decided to take Intro to Photography, thinking it would be easier now that I was home and could photograph within my own home. However, every task pushed me to leave the house more and more. At some point I discovered a pretty cool place near my house that I never knew about. It became my favorite hang out place as well as one of my best locations for taking photos. I started leaving my house more often and I noticed that it improved my mental as well as physical health. I still visit that spot nearly two years later.

Description

For my final project, I want to make a series of images focusing on the use of color, shadows, and silhouette. I really enjoyed making the photographs for Project 1, and I absolutely loved the look of the first image, the silhouette of me illuminated by a green light. I also enjoyed working with the color gels, and I feel it can add a lot to this project. At the moment, I don’t know what the specific theme is, but I do know that I want to create a story through images, and I want all of the images to be interconnected. I want to emphasize the silhouette with unique shapes and angles. I’m thinking of dressing up my model in various outfits, some abstract and some practical, and taking photographs in the style of a shadow puppet play, where the figure is fully blacked out and the story is conveyed through the use of silhouettes. I want to show the model that I’m photographing transforming and morphing throughout the photo series, so the outfits will change as the “story” goes on. After learning about the use of color in Hollywood to convey emotion, I think I will go in a similar direction – utilizing the plethora of color gels that we have to give the image the feel of emotion. This will help contextualize the feel of the work without the use of movement or sound that a traditional movie would have. The project idea will change as I work on it, which, in my opinion, goes well with the theme of metamorphosis.

Outcomes

• Take a series of 24 (MAYBE) images, utilizing the studio
• Use a variety of color gels to convey the emotion
• Create a variety in the silhouettes through the use of costumes and props

Materials

• tripod
• camera
• lighting studio
• color gels
• several outfits (TBD)
• several props (TBD)

References

Karl Johnson is a paper cutting silhouette artist who creates amazing silhouettes from life in seconds. The way he’s able to look at a person and cut out an exact replica of their profile is amazing. I recommend looking at some videos of him working, it’s really mesmerizing.

Kara Walker creates intricate paper cutout puppets and turns them into artworks and short films. Her works are more caricature-like and focus on racial issues and social commentary. Through well designed silhouettes she’s able to tell a lot about a character without the use of movement or even color.

My last reference is less a person and more a form of art. Chinese shadow puppet plays are multi-man productions that tell mythical stories through paper puppets behind a silk screen with a light casting shadows onto the fabric. These puppets can get really intricate, and often live music accompanies these shows.

Project 1

This one sucks. I ran out of studio time and I was working by myself so I was exhausted and didn’t realize that i set the lighting up wrong.

 

 

extra. this one just looked cool.

Project 2

Project 3

Analogous Objects

Complementary Objects

Triadic Objects

Analogous Lighting

Complementary Lighting 

Triadic Lighting

Task 3

Omnidirectional Natural Light

 

Directional Natural Key Light

Natural Light Augmented by Artificial Light

Single Artificial Light Source

Multiple Artificial Light Sources with Divergent Color Profiles

Multiple Artificial Light Sources with Same Color Profiles

Experimental Lighting

Task 4

Rembrandt Lighting

Lighting Ratios

 

Low Key

High Key

Pack Lighting

Biography

Dorothea Lange, born Dorothea Margaretta Nutzhorn, was an American photographer. She was born in Hoboken, New Jersey, on May 26th, 1895. She is known for her photojournalism and documentary style works. Her most famous work is Migrant Mother.

At the age of 7, Dorothea contracted polio, leaving her with a permanent limp due to a weakened leg. Five years later, her father abandoned the family, prompting them to leave New Jersey and move to a low income area in New York City. This was also the reason she ended up dropping her father’s last name taking on her mother’s maiden name, Lange.

Lange began studying photography at Columbia University and later held multiple informal apprenticeships at various New York photography studios.

Her early work focused on photographing the upper class in San Francisco. However, once the Great Depression came around, she decided to start photographing the impoverished, migrant workers on the streets of California. Her work was the first in the field of “documentary” photography.

Lange’s photography brought attention to the suffering of the lower class, being used in newspapers that were distributed throughout the country. The photograph, Migrant Mother, brought attention to a specific camp in which this mother and her children were staying. In response, the government sent aid to these people.

Thoughts

Lange’s work really moved me. I found out about her a long time ago, but I never looked into who she really was. Her life and her work is inspiring, and the fact that her photographs brought about change gives me hope that maybe we, as artists, can do something similar today.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothea_Lange

https://www.moma.org/artists/3373

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1x2lvddQPimNuFeIs7jKAaNedzMd_JeL8?usp=sharing

Biography

Dorothea Tanning was an American painter, printmaker, sculptor, writer, and poet. Her works primarily focused on surrealism and the female form. She was born August 25th, 1910 in Galesburg, Illinois. Tanning never studied art, and as such was self taught. She started out as a commercial artist in New York, where she worked on her paintings on the side. The piece that first put her into the spotlight was her oil painting and self portrait, Birthday, through which she also met her husband, Max Ernst. Max Ernst was also an artist who focused on surrealism. The two of them fell in love over a game of chess.

The two later moved to Sedona, Arizona, where they built a house together and eventually got married. Not even four years later, they moved to France where they would both work on their art until Ernst’s passing, after which Tanning returned to New York. She focused on writing and poetry, and even earned an award for her poetry. She died on January 31st, 2012, at the age of 101.

Thoughts

I’ve always been interested in surrealism, but I never knew much about it. In a field dominated by men, Tanning stood out to me. Her works evolve throughout her lifetime, going from dream like to fragmented and abstract. I love how she never stuck to one medium, experimenting with every form of art. I also like how a lot of her works reference Alice in Wonderland, as it is a very surreal book on its own. I personally love her 1950s works, where there’s still some representative imagery but also non sensical shapes and forms. Her colors are muted but it works, and in some of her works, the use of light is perfect for focusing the viewer’s attention where you want it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothea_Tanning#Artistic_career

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2019/feb/08/dangerous-appetites-the-weird-wild-world-of-artist-dorothea-tanning

https://www.dorotheatanning.org/

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1kHDyF0yTdHXrFDtUIS6qxBKfvjkLMY7p?usp=sharing