Top – <1>

Description: This is a picture taken while I was on top of this structure. In the image, I (the subject) am looking forward into the distant with a natural expression on my face. This representing freedom and hereafter which falls under nature as it is the human’s natural instinct to desire liberation within themselves.

Critique: To improve, the composition should be adjusted to a closer point where the subject fits most of them frame. Therefore, the audience will focus on the subject instead of the general background which delivers the message more efficiently.

Top – <2>

Description: This is a picture taken on Orrin of him gesturing a trending meme. In the image, the subject has their head turned to the side and showing their jawline while making a comical face. This is to tribute the internet meme culture through photography, which despite having modern aspects and elements, is still rather old-fashioned.  Such theme conveys happiness and a separation from reality because of its exclusive intent and message.

Critique: To improve, the subject’s face should be more centered and zoomed in to the point where the camera focus on the subject’s jawline. This can better the tribute of the Jawline Check meme which is the central point of the entire piece.

–Jawline Check Meme

Top – <3>

Description: This is a picture taken on Gene of him photographing someone else. In the image, the subject is exclusively shown in a third person perspective of a photographer. This presents a differed view of the term “photographer” as they are usually showcased through their own work but of someone else’s. The piece conveys the theme of plain and nature as it exhibits a naturally captured moments of what is usually a setup (photoshoots often requires setups and plans, even street photography).

Critique: To improve, the lens can zoom into the camera on the subject’s hands a bit more, best if to the point where the camera screen becomes visible as that will provide a vivid appearance of a “photographer” (referring to the camera).

(4) – Other

(5) – Other

(6) – Other

(7) – Other

(8) – Other

(9) – Other

(10) – Other

Artist/Photographer – Jamel Shabazz

Jamel is an American photographer born in Brooklyn, New York, 1960. At the age of 15, he started taking pictures of his families and friends which lead to him becoming one the most known street photographers of modern times. It is said that many of his earliest influences came from album covers that was passed down in his family through generations.

Jamel was chosen to be my inspiration because his works perfectly presented the elements I wanted to convey, happiness captured naturally and delivered throughly. When scanning through each different works of photographers down a list I looked up under “street photographers”, his works caught my attention quickly. Out of all the works, his, and only his was able to make me pause for a second as if I was taken out of reality and allow me to lay down my stresses for a second, appreciating his work before returning to the world filled with unwanted yet unavoidable anxiety. I then dug deeper into his works and eventually dedicated him as my inspiration because the subjects in his works are so animated that it almost becomes confusing as if they are actually there, present within the image in realtime.

Source: Studio Museum (Organization)

Image of Inspiration:

Rationale: This is a photo taken of 2 young boys off the street. The two subjects in the photo has very natural smiles, which brings true happiness to the audience’s hearts. Additionally, the slight tilt (visible through background) make this image seem more “on the spot”, live, and almost unreal, which brings the audience briefly away for a second to purely enjoy the happiness. There is also a variety of colors that differs but yet matches, corresponding with each other, providing the image with additional visual effects. Overall this image inspired me because it correlates with the elements that I intent to communicate, I personally belief I will be able to gain new ideas and strengthen my presentation in the final work through this inspiration.

Attention to Details:

-Eye contact with the lens

-Happy facial expression

-Creative and matching fashion (red and blue)

-Natural day lighting

Other inspiring images:

Images of Choice (On mind map/mood board): I picked out these photos because they best simulate what I intent to create, they do not necessary correspond to the elements near them but each element is involved and can be found in each photo.

7 Elements: Subject (Main), Theme (Side), Duration (Side), Lighting (Side), Composition (Side), Color (Side), Background (Side)

Theme: Joy, Natural, Humanity, Delight

Duration: Each photo shooting will be done within 1 min to preserve the “nature” part to it

Lighting: Mostly what fits the best in that situation, but preferably easy lighting so they look natural

Composition: Subject will take about 1/3 of the entire frame and slight tilts depending on the situation

Color: Bright and warm colors like red, orange, yellow, background colors will depend on the situation

Background: Walls or structures, landscapes if possible, but must look natural or at the very least calming

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Statement of Intent: I want my audience to experience a spry of joy that can set them apart from the stress of reality for a brief moment through the appreciation of live captured photos.

-I choose this as my intent because I am deeply inspired by the liveliness of street photography as it captures natural moments of subjects in random environments and portray a sense of nature, regardless of the background and theme. This creates a contrast from the reality we live in where stress is found anywhere and everywhere. Such causes inspired me to have the intent of taking my audiences into a “utopia” for a brief moment and let them “take a breezier” before returning to the stressed world.

Top 5:

Selection Rationale: I did not choose any image from the prior takes because as explained previously those takes all had some level/degree of mistakes that was overcame during this final take.

<Disappointment>

-This imaged is named “disappointment” because of the subject’s gesture. The prompt given for expression was: “you are witnessing your family in danger but can not do anything” where the subject gave a helpless and despair gesture smashing their fist against the table hating themselves for being “useless”. However to communicate stress on a further level, I named this image disappointment as if all the negative feelings were directed to/at the viewers as if the subject was blaming them (which naturally creates stress). The lighting was also done perfectly as I had the lighting shine in at a side angle where it not only shows a clear line of contrast but also makes clear of the subject’s expression. This contrast creates an additional layer of stress because of the shadows and sharp difference in brightness. Overall this is a quite successful piece, however I could improve by removing the light reflection in the background next time by finding a better location where the light would not reflect.

<Elder’s Sight>

-This image is named “elder’s sight” mainly because of the lighting and subject structure. I created a decent lighting contrast by shining the light from slighting down to upwards on the side. This caused half of the subject’s face to be covered while the other half is exclusively focused on due to it being bright and standing out. This feature will naturally lead the audience to focus on the subject’s eyes which then follows her sight down at the direction of the lighting forming this “sight”. Overall from the subject’s facial expressions and shadow comparison I was able to effectively and successfully demonstrate and communicate my message clearly. However once again next time I should find a more solid background or different location in attempts to avoid the reflection of my light on the background.

<Wise One>

-This image is rather different from the rest because instead of communicating extremely deep message, it is a general and formal presentation of an elder figure, hence named “wise one”. At the same time, despite the absence of deep meanings, stress is still effectively communicated through the subject’s facial expression of “concern” and “worry” while the lighting contrast also added the cherry on top of this stress cake. A point of improvement would be better framing where next time I would take more time to consider a more centered or meaningful framing of the subject.

<If Only>

-This image is similar to the first image, except this this one was taken at a closer distance (two separate takes). Because this is a slightly closer shot, it reveals a different layer of stress and emotion compared to the first. The subject in this piece more of “says” that “only if I…” in terms of regrets. Following the same given prompt as the first one, this is more of a self reflection which would pressure the viewers to think back on themselves generating more stress. The light was not exclusively done to add additional effects but was still carefully taken to create an additional layer of contrast for visual amusement and darken down the environment so the audience can “absorb” the emotions better. Next time to achieve greater heights, I would make sure I center the subject a little more for a better scale and capture of expression.

<Once Upon A Time>

-This image is the most exclusive one out of all the takes. also the only black&white piece I created throughout the entire photo shooting process. I called this one “once upon a time” to reference the “history” emotion that black&white photos bring. Additionally, “once upon a time” is a phrase that will bring memories of the audience’s “once upon a time” to them secretly and silently injecting stress throughout the viewing process. The lighting contrast in this case was more “straight forward” as it is mostly just a line straight down the middle. However I believe this line is a feature of perfection because it creates an “edgy” feeling to the entire image and adds additional amusement to the seemingly vivid picture.

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All Final Takes (excludes top 5):

Main Critique: Overall there was a significant improvement from the last take because not only was I able to nail the lightings but the facial expressions were also up to standards communicating stress through the subject’s gestures. Next time for improvement, I would experiment with different photo shooting locations and backgrounds as well as considering the usage of props.

Theme: Stress and Contrast

(Emotion + Lighting)

<Top 3>

Main Critique: Although the emotions and light are all up to place, the contrast could be expressed better as for right now it looks completely blend. To improve, I should add more comparison of the shadow to the background therefore creating another layer contrast so that the original lighting contrast would stand out.

1.

Success and Critique: I succeeded in creating the contrast of lighting on the subject’s face. At the same time because I darkened the entire image through editing, making the subject’s face look like it is floating which I find rather creative. However because I edited a bit too much, the contrast was reduced overall as the bright part of the subject now looks like there is a layer of darkness covering it. Next time to fix this problem I will try to achieve similar effect during the shoot instead of editing.

2.

Success and Critique: I was able to generate bother emotional stress and contrasted lighting. In addition, parts of the contrast also differed from the background therefore the entire image isn’t “all smushed together” into one giant block. However, for whatever reason the lighting on the subject’s lips looks rather unfitting compared to the rest of the face. The lips part looks like the shadowing was reversed (was not) and even quite disturbing. Next time, I will ensure I experiment with slightly different angles in attempts to avoid this problem.

3.

Success and Critique: This was an outstanding piece and it not only expressed stress perfectly through the subject’s facial expression but the lighting contrast coming in from the side also smoothened the presentation of my central idea. In addition, the accidental blur generated a gloomy feeling for the viewers as if they are thinking deeply about themselves inside a dream. Next time however I would do another retake after seeing the blur just to experiment with different effects and see the diversity of outcomes it can provid.

<Other Attempts>

Theme: Stress and Contrast

<Top 3>

Main Critique: Setting aside the successes, one major problem I identified with these pictures I took was that none of them communicates “stress”. This is quite a severe problem and is something I should definitely consider fixing because “stress” plays the major part in my theme. Something I should try is to change the model’s facial expressions. Currently the model looks rather more “curious” and delightful” than “stressed” and “concerned”.  Another element that can support my “stress” theme is the color tone. This can help by matching it to certain facial expressions and such to generate different feelings.

1.

Success: The way I used my lighting perfectly demonstrated the contrast of lighting I wanted and intended. There is an extremely obvious shadow on half of the model while the other half is light. I achieved this by shining the light from behind to the right, generating a “face” on the model.

Critique: Because of the contrast, It is difficult to capture her facial expressions, and this fails the point of “stress”. To improve I should try a different angle to create the “face” where the light is shine on so that while being able to see the “feelings” there can also be a visible contrast.

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2.

Success: The way of the model’s body expression communicates stress to some level. I achieved this by asking the model to be “thinking” and “concerned about someone”.

Critique: Because of the lighting, the contrast – although well done – ruins the general structure and makes the model’s face way too exposed. This disrupts the “concern” that was built up and looked more “accidental” in a rough and unplanned way. To improve, I should shine the light from the side and not directly down at the model.

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3.

Success: The contrast created was perfect. This lighting contrast exactly resembles my reference and intention while at the same time it also does not disrupt or block the model’s facial expressions, making them highly and clearly visible. I achieved this by taking a close shot at the model while having the light shine from the right side, bother exposing the model’s face and creating a contrast.

Critique: Because of the model’s facial expression, “stress” and “concern” was not communicated, “beauty” and “elder” was presented instead. This is at my fault because I did not specify the “thinking” which lead to this mistake. To improve, next time I provide with instructions, I will make sure to specify my intent saying something like: “please think in a concerned way as if your family is in danger”.

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<Other Attempts>

Photographer Yousuf Karsh- A Canadian photographer who found interest in photography after working for his uncle and then dedicated his entire life to the intent of photo shooting.

Yousuf mainly uses closeups and medium shots of his subjects while having their body turn a certain angle to the sides for his portraits. Although not purposely intended, the lighting he uses creates a contrast on the subject’s face of light and dark which matches my planned lighting.

Yousuf became my inspiration mostly based on the Einstein portrait. This portrait caught my attention while I was scanning through portraits because it is often used as a meme online. I then looked up the author behind this famous meme photo out of curiosity and found Yousuf. After brief research, I found Yousuf to be an inspiring and creative photography, especially due to the fact that he shot portraits for many famous figures such as Winston Churchill and Martin Luther King Jr. His use of “stress” (done through black&white photography) and lighting, also matching my intended lighting use (light and dark contrast) which greatly represents my subject matter.

Main Image of Inspiration:

Critique- This is a portrait of Albert Einstein as the subject where he is looking into the distant background while thinking and looking “profound”. Based on the black&white features, this photo is taken during the 19th century (modern, for people during that time).

-Noticeable lighting contrast on face

-Not looking directly at the lens

-Black&white

-Detailed feature of face and clothing

Other Images of Inspiration:

Photographer Steve Mccurry- An American photographer generating photographs based on the intention of documenting the cruel impact of wars all over the world.

Steve, similar to most portrait photographers use close up shots focusing on the subject’s facial feature while having their body facing a certain degree. Steve exclusively uses color in his pieces, having each of his piece be colorful yet carries “weight” as he communicates the consequences of war.

Steve is a significant inspiration to me because his creative and special way of communicating “weight” and stress in his photos by using a compilation of different colors deeply attracts my attention. Usually a variety use of colors creates joy and delightfulness in an image, however Steve is able to use the facial expressions on his subjects to contradict the “joyful” feeling of colors, creating a distorted contrast between the two. This evolves into stress and perfectly matches my subject matters as it is the exact message I personally want to communicate trough my portrait.

Image 1:

Critique- This is a portrait of an Afghan girl as the subject who is looking directly at the lens and seems aggressive. This is modern and taken in the 21st century, also being Steve’s most famous piece.

-Eye contact with the lens

-Aggressive look (facial)

-Contrast of red and green color

-Minimimal shade

Image 2:

Image 3:

Image 4:

Mindmap:

Moodboard:

Finding Focus:

The social issue that will be communicated through this idea is stress and concern. In the modern day and age, everyone in the society has stress and concerns of some level, rather it is as simple as to thinking about what to eat tomorrow, or as far as worrying how to submit an essay due the next day but has yet to be started on. Stress and concern creates a mixed emotion in the human mind and companies us everyday, exactly what I intend to demonstrate. I will achieve this through using mixed lighting and a heavy contrast to create the stress part. I will then use facial expression and body gesture to add concern and communicate my message.

Inspiration Image:

This is a stock photo of a “portrait” by an unknown photographer (was not stated). The way this was shot resembles the style I want to use. By having lights shine from right to left, it creates a contrast between the woman’s light up face and darkened face. Although the comparison is not very obvious, my style will portray this contrast to the extreme, which helps with generating the “stress”.

Statement of Intent:

I want my audience to feel the stress and concern society brings. I came up with this sentence because my ultimate goal is to express the concern society generates endlessly, reaching people all over the place. It is true that aside from my message, I do genuinely want the viewers to appreciate my piece as an art work just like any and every creator does. However, my intentions are well over focused on communication instead of appreciation, thus there is no “appreciating” seen in my statement of intent.

What is a Portrait?

Portrait is genre of art where a subject’s emotion, personality, trait, beauty, or appreciation is demonstrated through a physical image of the subject. Following this idea, selfies or photos of a certain body part could technically be considered portraits as long we they demonstrate the meaning behind it. Along side of this, portraits can be both single image or a sequel since neither ways of expression limits the presentation of the subject. However, whether if the subject has to be in the frame to be considered a portrait or not is quite a debatable topic.

With the subject being out of frame, it betrays the idea of showing the subject and its concept, but it is indeed true that even without the subject contents can still be present in many other forms. This also draws to the idea that there is no “wrong” in art, meaning that anything can technically be anything. Going down this idea, it is completely acceptable and okay to consider pieces without the actual subject “portraits”. Me personally however, do not really agree with this idea. Despite seeing all the possibilities, I still come down to the idea that art is only truly beautiful in its original form, and while moderations are completely acceptable and is creative, when it crosses a certain line the value of originality and similarity is lost. Therefore I do agree that pieces without the actual subject being involved should be considered portraits.

Some examples of different types of portraits:

Artist: Brett Weston

Brett Weston is an American born photographer who mainly took black&white texture photos. He played as a key influence in the f/64 movement where photographs were “characterized by sharply focused and carefully framed images seen through a particularly Western viewpoint.”

Broken Glass (1959)

This photo taken by Brett Weston deeply attracts me because of the black&white detail. The sharp and focused details on the texture of the broken glass creates a “clean” emotion. This emotion grants the satisfaction of “cleanness”, referring to the smoothness of the glass as if it was cut clean flawlessly. In addition, the dark color of the glass presents a great contrast with the background behind it which is white. This generates an additional focus on the broken glasses as subjects and creates an easy focus. Personally I believe this photo could achieve better effects if it had a bit more tilt. Dutch angels could definitely add structure to the dimensional aspect of this picture.

More Examples:

A common pattern we seen  from all of these photos is black&white. This creates a significant contrast between different subjects and puts a layer on the photo.

<798 Photos>

[Afternoon] – 午后

The sun shining down at the beautiful gallery wall. This picture is named “Afternoon” because of the golden sunlight that paints the wall in a heartwarming and comfortable way. The intent behind this picture is to bring a relaxing emotion to the viewers. This was done by using extremely warm color tone which provides with a sense of heat even in the coldest of winter. A dutch tilt is also used in-order to stack on the “relaxing” emotion. Different from the color tone however, the dutch angle does this by mimicking scenes in films where the camera pans in and out slowly creating cinematic shots. This worked significantly on this picture because it brings that feeling of “slow and steady” on top of the relaxation and doubles down on the viewer. I believed that all of this was necessary because since the main subjects is a gallery’s title, the photo automatically creates an “invitation” to enjoy art. But I believe that art should and can only be enjoyed in one’s most relaxed and calmed state. Therefore, I threw in all of these methods to create a clean presentation of a gallery, “inviting” the viewer to enjoy art. A more simple way of understanding this all could be: the photo pulls the viewer slowly towards the gallery warming and calming their sprits as they enjoy the true beauty of art. I would almost consider this a masterpiece of perfection, but I messed up the bottom right corner by accidentally having the other part of the wall in the frame. Personally however I believed this aided this image just in time since now thinking back on it, it would be too “dead” and “lame” if it was just a perfect rectangle with a sideways text in the middle. This “messed up” corner even helped with structuring the dimension of this photo better by indication through the corner that this image is tilted. The audience can receive a completely different emotion knowing this photo was tilted than to when they do not.

Original Photo:

This photo went through a lot editing before evolving to its finest. What I did was that I first lowered the brilliance to a certain extend that would match the warm tone and the shadows done through heavy contrast adjustments.

[Painter of Glass] – 玻璃的画家

“Paint splashes across the glass as he waves his brushes across the canvas, leaving behind an imagery sprouting into infinite chances for creativity.” That is the sentence I would use to describe this picture. I named this one the “Painter of Glass” because going from a painter’s perspective, this really seems like a new style of artwork where painters would have a piece of glass as their canvas and smear paint over it to create abstract imagery. The approach of this piece is to demonstrate the abstract and distorted view of reality by expressing a curious emotion that enables people to extent the topic of this image to their own imagination. In simple, this is an abstract photography that enables the viewers to take the meaning behind the photo to their own creativity and imagination, ending up as whatever they desire or wish. Unfortunately however, after some research it seems that glass painting in this form does not exist. Despite that, this photo used the blurring technique to a creative extend where I but a glass cup in-front of the camera creating this blurry shot that achieved my intent. The picture also represents lively hood through the bright and positive colors as well as endless possibilities through what I explained earlier. Overall this photo appealed really creative and fresh to me, definitely one of my proudest works.

Original Photo:

I put a lot of efforts lifting the exposure and brightness on this photo as well as the saturation to create the lively hood. However a certain point of improvement is the bottom part where in the final piece it still looks dark in a “dirty” way and slightly ruins the lively hood. Overall however this in my personal opinion is a magnificent piece of work.

[Across Time] – 时空裂缝

“时空裂缝” means “crack in time”, despite meaning differently from “Across Time”, both expresses the same meaning and emotion behind this picture. This photo is called “Across Time” because of the perfect contrast between colors. The left side of the photo is colored and looks “norma” or rather “modern” with all the glasses and statures. This represents the present, and is symbolized this way because only “modern” films and photography has colors. The right side of the photo is black&white and looks “old” with the factory bumping out smoke and “simple” color tone. This represents the “past” where it is often identified through black&white films or pictures. This hybrid of both past and present creates this “time traveling” theme. However because the image itself has no “time traveling” components that is usually represented by futuristic machines and such, I found that it would be perfect to name this picture “Across Time” where the two eras cross part in one picture seeming rather close yet completely separated by a division line that splits the difference. Therefore, this photo expresses a flashback like emotion where the audiences lingers their feelings between history. To conclude, this is a heavy edited work that I believed was relatively successful but surely relied on editing more than the taking itself.

Original Photo:

It is obvious that a lot of editing was done to this photo to achieve its final effect. The first step was that I lightened and saturated the photo to make it look more lively, I duplicated it into a black&white version before putting both together into one frame and doing a cut in the middle to make a perfect blend/combination. Something that I would definitely attempt to do better next time though is to saturated the left side (present) more so it looks more lively but I failed after multiple attempts to doing so this time. Next time I would seek for more help or suggestions regarding how I should achieve that “alive” effect and emotion.

Top 4: A tiled picture of a spray painted wall, mainly texture and dimensions focused.

Top 5: A low to high shot that looked like the 751 traffic stomps is holding up the sun like a pyramid.

Top 6: Texture photo that focus on the ground and the lines, splitting the image but focuses the audience’s attention.

Top 7: A in-complete “heart” spray painted across the wall, mainly focusing on the lines, color, and texture.

Top 8: A tilted angle just enough to split the frame across in half with the wall with texture being focused and the wall behind as the background.

Top 9: Taken on a wall this was taken from the ground facing this sky that shows the sun-like light bulb shining down the wall as if it was it’s only hope in the dark.

Top 10: The light splits the wall apart leaving one side in brightness and the other in shadows, setting a clear difference between “right” and “wrong” as well as how they never crosses.

Top 11+