Assignment # 6 Portraits

For my portraits, i shot my cousins. The pictures were Saturday and Sunday at their house, and the light is gorgeous. I took some pictures of them just playing, and then one by one, posed. There are five children, two older girls and three young boys. There are five candids and five full on portraits.
When i first tried to upload the pictures to the blogger, the computer got all messed up, so i had to delete and re-import, so what's on here isn't as good as the actual prints because i didn't have enough time to redo them completely.
Portraits first.

This is the youngest, Gary. This was his own pose.



I love the light in this one. These are the 8-yr-old twins, Dustin and Corwin. They have kind of opposite personalities, but are a lot alike at the same time. Dustin is the one in the shadow, Corwin is the one looking at the camera. This was how they were actually standing, and i just happened to be there and snap a picture.



This is Indigo Joy, 11.
She is doing that eye-to-eye thing -- you know, that means "I'm going to GET YOU for this."
It was originally a little flat, but i pulled up the contrast to get depth in her face and hair and pop the whites in her collar.



This is my self portrait of me not being me. I chose Greta Garbo to be, and imitated her famous picture. I had Eli bracket, so i had more options to work with. I gave it a really high contrast to echo the original picture.



The candids were really fun to do, because the kids were much more natural and didn't burst into nervous giggles just as I took the picture.
This is the first. Indigo and Gary are in the foreground, warding off Darwin (the dog). There was a picture just before this without the twins in the background, but it had too much blank background so i chose this one instead.



I love this one. Sage is the oldest -- she just turned 12. I love her expression in this picture. It's a little self conscious, and a little bit amused at whatever i just said that was probably stupid, but she looks very calm and happy at the same time. I especially love the light hitting the side of her face.
When i think of Sage, I always think of her as strong. Not physically, but very much in her personality. When she was 3, she was diagnosed with leukemia, and spent four years fighting before it went into remission. She lost all her hair and still has big scars below her collarbone, but she did it. So here is the closest picture I took that says that this is a strong girl.



This is Indigo again. She spends a lot of time in her own world (when she isn't glaring at me) and strikes dramatic poses such as this instinctively, looking contemplative and philosophical. The light was a bit tricky -- I wanted to make the stripe on her cheek to stay bright, but had to bring back details on the wall behind her.



Gary again, after bumping his eye. Sage brought his some ice. I love his lower lip that's sticking out. It looks like he can't decide whether to sulk or whimper. I also like the contrasts here.



This is my favorite. I was fiddling with it in Lightroom, and decided to yank up the blacks, pull exposure out enough to keep the lights, and print whatever happened. Further testament that impulse decisions are the way to get through life.

#5 On Your Belly

My biggest problem with this assignment was focus. With most assignments I can use a tripod so that even long exposures can turn out well, but with this one I was holding the camera, so that by the time I got to a good exposure, the time was so long that it was blurry (It didn't help that I wasn't getting home until around 8-9 every night, so the light was awful). I liked the actual images of the thread, the open cupboard, and the sweater at the bottom of the stairs, but they were very tricky technically between the light and the focus. Overall, I liked the concepts and images, but not the amount of messing around I had to do with them on the computer, because whenever I do too much on the computer I feel like I'm losing too much of the original picture. I had fun doing it, though, and had fun thinking up ideas.

The Chandelier. My favorite part is the trippy shadow around the top.



A cupboard in my kitchen:



A spool of thread i spotted under a chair:



My stairs, with a dark purple cashmere sweater at the bottom:

Portraits: one painter, one photographer

So I googled "Portrait Photographers" and there was an actual online directory for them. I chose two: Rebecca Parker, and an unknown one.

Rebecca Parker I chose because she has very pretty, cliche photos that have a fantasy feel to them, like these:





The second is unknown, but he took one of the most famous portrait photos ever. I absolutely love this photo, even though it also breaks my heart:




The painter I picked is Vermeer, who did one of my favorite portraits of all time, "The girl with a pearl earring"

Jaws the Great White Shrimp

When i imported my photos for assignment four, I accidentally included some photos i had also taken one day with my dad. I had come home from dance and my dad was sitting at the table looking mournful. when i asked him what was wrong, he solemnly answered
"Did you know Jaws was a originally a shrimp?" i said no, and he held up a shrimp we were having for dinner. "He was a Great White Shrimp."
I pulled out my camera and immediately took pictures. They're all really blurry, because it was getting dark, so it was a long time. Also i was laughing really hard, so the camera was shaking.
First, there's The Great White Shrimp himself, from two different angles. (my dad had already removed the tail, so we are unsure which end is his head.)



and another angle:



And my dad, after eating Jaws (this is blurry cause i was laughing so hard:


and finally, he mourns the end of Jaws:

Assignment #3 High Key/Low Key

High Key #1 Mug with Beads
Original

Touched Up


So this is a white mug with airsoft pellets spilling out of it. I used my bathtub because it was the only white surface i could find. I bracketed it twice, but for some reason i skipped straight from 2 seconds to four seconds, when the perfect time would have been 3. So i had to touch it up a lot, but I'm pretty happy with the result. I'm glad i found the airsoft pellets, because i like all the shadows and curved surfaces that aren't too obvious. Overall, I like the way it turned out.

High Key #2 Paper
Original


Touched Up


So I didn't have to do as much with this one. I picked a larger depth of field to catch the shadow behind the paper, and so i had to pull up the exposure a little, but other than that i didn't have to do anything to it. You can't really tell in the small picture, but my favorite part is the pin holding it to the wall. if you look at the close-up you can see it at the top of the paper.

Low Key #1 Clay Pot


With this one i didn't retouch it at all. I thought about maybe trying to get back some of the shadows, but i didn't like how grainy and flat that made it. I love the highlights though. I shot this next to a window.

Low Key #2 Computer Mouse, Book, Random Black Thing


I didn't touch up this one at all either, because i liked the time and was more comfortable letting go of some of these shadows than with my other Low Key. I have very similar light in this one, but i put some more fabric along the back of the shot to create a little more depth. i like this one more than my other low key.

Butt Ugly

Boring Original


The totally awesome photo i was supposed to make look ugly but just couldn't because my photos are so awesome no matter what

Before/After

original

touched up



This is my friend's hand
taking a picture of red
fire hydrant but
you can't tell because this is
black and white with a
little bit of gray
retouched in lightroom by
me, isabelle george Rosett

a double haiku on the nature of a fire hydrant and jessie taking a picture of it.

Deep stuff.