The Portrait - Digital Final

For my final in Digital Imagery, I wanted to experiment with expression.  My camera was set to shoot continuously and I would shoot for several minutes.  I didn't let my subject know my whole idea, like the fact that this was an experiment where I would see how their expression changed.  I just told my subject that I wanted to do a portrait and it would take several minutes of shooting.

I originally was going to present this in a grid format, but ended up not feeling that was the right way to present what I wanted to show.  So the idea of doing this in video format was exciting and something that interested me.  

Over the course of shooting for this and editing (approx. 450 pics I went over several times), I discovered quite a few interesting things:  at the beginning of the video it feels like my subject is being goofy to hide his uncomfortableness in front of the camera, after a few minutes of shooting is where things begin to get interesting (after about 4 minutes in the video), I can see my subject getting slightly bored of all the shooting, then begins to feel comfortable enough to engage the camera closely and genuinely laughs.  Also when I was going through watching the video, I would find myself laughing when my subject laughed or even feeling bored when he was, it could have been because I was present when I shot all these photos, but it was a cool experience for me.

I'm posting another video that I hopefully can dig into more later, and it was just cool to watch when I was reviewing my photos, I went through the photos several times enjoying the flipbook in chart form feel of it.

Experimental: Intervention

This project my class could pick from fabrication, sculpture, or intervention in photography.  Mine crosses the borders on each of them.  I was interested in lenticular printing, what image might be caught in the middle when flashing between the two.  When I shot the underwater shoot, I also shot quite a few pictures of my sister falling into the water, and felt that these sort of splashes created a kind of sculpture for me.  I wanted to place them in a landscape, so I overlapped the splash photo with one of a landscape that I took.

Experimental Photo: Billboard Project

My class was to create a billboard that was an artwork, and perhaps fit into the landscape in an interesting way.  I went out to shoot pictures of billboards, but I wasn't able to find any that I liked.  So instead I used a picture I took when going through New Mexico earlier this summer, cut out the billboard from another picture I took, then put my photo of LA in the landscape.  My boyfriend helped me find a little park off 1st Street in LA, and it was nice and secluded while having some fantastic views of the cities and skyscrapers, exactly what I wanted.  I was driving around with the phone next to my ear while he was at home on Google maps directing me, haha, it was really quite fun.

Underwater Photos for the First Time

For my Digital Imagery class midterm, I wanted to try something ambitious...shooting underwater.  My idea originally was to play around with this idea of suspension and the way the body moves underwater, how it seemingly defies gravity.

I was going to rent a camera, but ended up not because it was very expensive.  Instead I went and created my own very inexpensive contraption, which I don't recommend anyone to repeat.  I was taking a risk with it, but you gotta do what you gotta do.  After the third  test of my underwater camera housing (involving transparency, lots of duct tape, and ziploc) it proved to be waterproof.  It worked, and created some interesting effects underwater.  It was difficult to use however, especially since I didn't get all of the air out.  I couldn't stay underwater very long because I kept floating back up to the top!

 This project was a lot of fun for me and my model, one of my best friends; and my sister who I persuaded into helping too.  When I get some extra money, I'll be sure to invest in some real underwater housing.  Anyways, enjoy some of the pictures I took, and the "behind the scenes" ones my sister decided to take.

Diana Goldstein: Fallen Princesses

Someone presented Diana Goldstein last week in my Digital Imagery class, and the one I saw was Snow White, and I really loved just the aesthetic and the way the photo was set up in general, I thought it was creative, when reality hits fantasy.

I've always wondered, is prince charming really that charming, or.... I mean, with those tight tights....uhhh?

Anyways, they're pretty self explanatory if you've already seen the Disney movies, and I like the classic Disney fairytale, but these....these are fresh.

Experimental: Photograms

Last week for my experimental class, we had photograms due. And this exercise was my first time making photograms, which is an enjoyable and addicting experience. In other words, I went a bit crazy and was, well, experimenting, and made too many. hehe. We've been doing single projects every week since school started and I like the system, it's fun. Next week though, I think we're going to be starting bigger projects.

I think the whole basis in photography is experimenting, at least for me that is. I'm still finding out what my style and niche is in the photography world. Anyways, Mark Ruwedel is my teacher and he's really very funny and witty. Every class is a good time, and he's just sarcastic, he doesn't force his humor, great teacher. So I'm looking forward to the rest of class.

The set of 6 that I'm showing are what I presented for my critique last Thursday. Can you guess what they are? Probably, because the middle picture definitely gives it away. It was suggested to me that perhaps I place the two on the end with a picture of an entirely different nature to throw the viewer off. And I like that idea. Enjoy.

Pandora's Box and Randomness

Last week I finally did a photo shoot with my lovely friend Chelsea. We went to Huntington Central Park. The generator I borrowed for the soft box lights I was gonna use didn't work, so that was a bummer, but that just means I'll have to do another shoot!

This pic is of our setup in a perfect little nook in the park, we got our dressing room and everything. There was a lot of stuff to carry that's for sure.

One of the themes I had in mind was Pandora's box, where it turns from innocent curiosity into something darker and full of despair. So those are the first pictures. Chelsea and me also just had fun shooting pics together. The other ones are sort of whimsical cutesy ones, we tried an "asian/japanese" sort of shoot, but it didn't really work out, haha. Then at the end of the day-tired after shooting and changing all day-we did a circusy one. It was fun, nothing too in depth on anything, so enjoy :)

My 365 Day Challenge

I have another blog I am now in the 13th day of posting, and the challenge for me is to take a new picture everyday and post it on this blog. It's called 365 Days of Christine. And I'm pretty excited about it, because it pushes me to create something everyday. So here's the link, come follow me on my adventure. :)
Intoxication365.

Thanks Banksy

News from the Los Angeles Times that renown street artist, Banksy, is sponsoring free Mondays at MOCA (Museum of Contemporary Art), The Geffen Contemporary, for the Art in the Streets show he is a part of. He quotes, "I don't think you should have to pay to look at graffiti. You should only pay if you want to get rid of it." True words that make me like him even more. Thanks Banksy. The show is running until the 8th of August, read more here.
Piece below is by: Banksy, I Hate Mondays.

Quote: The Brother's Bloom

"I don't know about 'truths.' A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells, the less you know." -Penelope (from The Brother's Bloom).

Fantastic movie by the way, the quote is from the eccentric female lead played by Rachel Weisz, and she quotes this after showing Bloom her camera made from a watermelon. Perhaps I should try making one of those, hehe.

Photographer: Allison Stewart

This semester in my color photo class, one of the teacher assistants, Allison Stewart, is a graduate student who presented her work to our class, so I thought I would share it with you too. To check out more of her work, go to Allison-Stewart.com.

What a Nice Surprise

My sister told me several months ago that my photo was hanging in one of the offices at my old high school, Orange Lutheran. I had to go check it out. And just like she said, my photo was hanging in the administration office I believe. Wow, even after I already graduated, it was a pretty cool feeling knowing I had a photo still hanging up at my old school.

One of my sister's friends also said another one of my pics was in the graphic design/photo classroom. That is another visit I'll have to do.

Color Theory Project 1: Saturation

I realized I have not put up any of my work from my Color Theory class this last semester. It certainly was one of my favorite classes and was very interesting to me how colors work together and how our brain perceives them.

We did a lot of exercises this semester to help prepare us for these projects. This first project was fairly easy, what was mainly difficult was deciding what to do. We needed to basically create a poster, but one using all fully saturated colors. My teacher for this class, Jeff Atherton, is pretty awesome. He helped me out a lot picking colors and whatnot. I chose to do my posters on sea monsters just because they're cool and like destroying stuff. And I really wanted to go with yellows and turquoisey blues, but with sea monsters that wasn't going to work. I needed angry, menacing colors. That's where the red comes in and it was fun.

All our projects this semester needed to be painted. I had painted with acrylics before, and they are temperamental and difficult to deal with, but I started to get the hang of it and enjoyed actually painting with acrylic, I did surprise myself a lot this semester. One goal I had was to do my best and stick with doing what I wanted, and it worked for me.

This project, I kept it graphic. So I painted giant swatches of a single color, then drew my own stencil, traced it over the colors, cut them out, and glued them together. Simple.

During the critique, when it came to my picture, I saw that the boat I had in the middle looked like a shark fin because of my last minute decision where I had decided to paint it gray. Everything else I like and my teacher did as well, and we mutually agreed that the middle (where the boat was) needed to be fixed. So instead of going through and repainting everything, I just scanned it and edited it on the computer in Photoshop. Voila! The final product is much better. :)

Color Photo Project 3: Simulacra

Simulacra: the constructed image.
1. slight, unreal, superficial likeness or semblance
2. effigy, image, or representation
3. re-creation, fabrication, counterfeit, fake

This was the third assignment of my semester. I'll briefly mention right now that I am behind on blogging yet again, but I've been enjoying my summer thus far. I've done well this semester with getting my projects turned in on time, which was one of my goals. I feel that sometimes when given a photo project, I need more time than what is given. So it is coming up with the best of what I got at the time.
This project I plan to work on a make stronger during the summer. My teacher likes the ideas I am developing with this project and finds them interesting, it is just a matter of working with it more. I feel I'm close though.

This project works with appropriated images, which is basically me taking pictures of pictures and turning it into my own work. By re-creating these images of open-mouthed sexy women in advertisements, the original picture becomes distorted and pixelated creating this strangeness and fakeness to the image. I also printed the pictures very large to enhance this distortion.

I went through lots of editing such as doing different sets of pictures that all still correlated with each other, but money and time subtracted that from the equation. I ended up printing six pictures in a grid format, something that is already laid out for you like a magazine spread, where I originally got my pictures from. Even though I shot hundreds of pics, I narrowed it down to six to keep it simpler, and less overwhelming.

Struggling

I've been so conflicted lately about my work, my desires, my art. I feel like I'm in a constant struggle trying to find...something...hoping for an explanation about...something...but what? Part of the struggle is because I don't know. Is that a beautiful thing? Is that art? I think I'm chasing something, something I'm not quite sure what it is yet. But whatever it is, I hope it's a dream...

Color Photo Class: Portraiture

I had a 5 hour critique yesterday for my photo class, and I'm sure some art students have been in longer, but that was the longest I've ever had a crit for, and it was long I reassure you. I do like crits because of the helpful feedback I get from my more than qualified instructor who has this valuable insight and also from my classmates.

I'll be honest my project doesn't really have a concept too much behind it. I decided to shoot pictures of people that are somehow involved in my life and it was for the most part candid, trying to catch them in a moment, a snapshot. It was more of an experiment, and I used flash on all the pictures I turned in. I discovered while shooting (at the last minute) that I really like flash and decided to shoot the rest of my pictures using that.

My teacher said that technical wise my flash use was good, but she thought my previous work in previous classes was more imaginative. And I agree with her, I know she's right. I did however, have a few different ideas for this project, some didn't turn out the way I liked when I shot, and the one that I think would have possibly worked, I didn't have time to shoot (yes, because I procrastinated). So I can always resubmit, but it is not like I didn't like my photos. I absolutely do, but conceptually there's not much there. Some questions I need to ask are: How can I use the snapshot form in a different way? Possibly exposing our social tendencies. How should my flash be used? And that I could add more context into my pictures instead of cropping them so closely around the person. So quite a few options to push my work further.