Beyond the Print

Extra Credit- Annie O'Neill

     Annie O'Neill is a photojournalist in Pittsburgh. About 15 years ago, Annie started a project called 50 years of service. By way of connections and chance, O'Neill has met over 30 individuals that have been working the same job for 50 or more years. It all started with a local Pittsburgh man who was a cobbler. O'Neill heard such great stories about him and the project took off from there. The people Annie photographs are met by chance by way of seeing a story about them in the paper, hearing about the person through locals, or they are someone famous like a singer or NFL coach. Annie has all kinds of stories to go with each person she has photographed and plans to record some of those stories through video. Annie plans to keep going with this project for as long as she can. She uses a Hasselblad with black and white medium format film for the quality of film. Annie believes the film fits with the personalities of the individuals she photographs. She doesn't plan the shots, she is pretty spontaneous with it.
     Annie also just started a new project called Uniformity. She is capturing groups of people in uniforms. These are on color film and scanned. She really wants people to respect people in uniform better. She did not talk about this project as much. All the photographs were really interesting and she really does capture peoples personalities and has a very creative mind for shooting on the spot. She is very passionate about her work and such an encouraging person.

Portfolio Prints

I reposted these images- they were extremely saturated before. They are still a little more saturated then I actually have them but I can't figure out what is making them look so saturated.

Digital Manipulation Assignment

Male Downy Woodpecker

   For my Digital Manipulation assignment, I took pictures of different birds and either faded the background or faded the bird from the background. I got the idea from Charles Cohen who made white silhouettes of people by completely removing them from the backgrounds. I didn't want to completely white-out the birds because I didn't think they would be very distinguishable as birds and look more like white blobs. I also wanted to leave a little identity to the birds so viewers can see what kind of birds they are and really see their particular shape.

Male Northern Cardinal

   Being an environmentalist and bird enthusiast, I know quite a lot about birds. The first picture is a Downy Woodpecker. The slight red on the head indicates that it is a male. They are the smallest woodpeckers in North America ranging between 15 to 17cm long. The largest, the Pileated Woodpecker, ranges from 40 to 49cm.
   The next bird is a male Northern Cardinal. Females are a light brown color, with a touch of red on there head and wings, males are all red. They are very well known for their mow-hawk head and brilliant color. Cardinals are song birds which means they have more than one bird call, and usually like to make noise.

Mourning Dove

   The last picture is a Mourning Dove. A crazy fact a lot of people don't know is that when doves take-off, they make a whistling noise and most people think the dove is making the noise but actually it is the wind catching in their wings. They are very graceful and slender compared to other birds. I  have noticed that they like to perch on wires and fences in groups of two or more.

For more information of these and other birds, please visit www.allaboutbirds.org

Advanced Digital Photography: Critique 1

Project Proposal

      I just discovered a photographer, Brett Weston, son of the famous, Edward Weston. I knew of Brett Weston but have never seen any of his work. I choose him for a PowerPoint Presentation for a class just a couple weeks ago. I was really inspired by his abstract photography of ice, mud, and leaves and decided to do something similar for this project. Nature has so many shapes and colors that make it so beautiful and unique and I wanted to do a photography project to capture that beauty. I will use abstract and close-ups (not really macro) photography of the different shapes and colors in nature. No landscapes because I want to capture a part of nature that people don’t really take the time to admire or would ever think to photograph, I want to capture texture, and to really bring out the color I will add a bit of saturation in Adobe Lightroom.

Copycat Photos-Assignment 1



"Shell" 2011, Katie Remele



"Shell" 1927, Edward Weston





 


Original

The first photo is "Shell" by Edward Weston in 1927. I could not find the exact same shell or anything close to it so I used another shell. I gave mine the same space or cropping and made it flat like Weston's photo. I had to make it black and white. I have the light reflecting on the very front of the shell to get the highlight on the very front. I left the dark grey background instead of black because Weston's is not fully black. I added some grain to give it that darkroom look and have my highlights a little blown out with my shadows pretty dark. There is another version of Weston's "Shell" photo I didn't like so much. It was very flat and very grey,  which created no contrast. I liked this one better although it is a little too contrasted because it has more detail.

Photo taken by Emma Bramley
http://www.emmabramley.co.uk/



My copycat photo

Original



I found this photo by Emma Bramley online at http://www.emmabramley.co.uk/. I really like the angle and depth of field of the snowflake. I could not find the gold snowflake but I did find a white one and decided to use that for the image. I added a blur to the left half of the picture to add more depth of field and also darkened the bottom corner of the snowflake to add the shadow of the gold one. I got as close as I could to match the same angle, which was extremely difficult. I looked at Bramley's photo while shooting my snowflake and it took several shoots until I got one that was almost perfect. Because I had to zoom on the shoot, it was difficult to move the camera just-so and find the right angle.

My image

This is an image I took on vacation on Sanibel Island, FL. Although I have many favorites and can't pick one, this is my favorite landscape image. The green and blure are so strong in color (without photoshop) with white clouds and the palm trees. It is so relaxing and beautiful to look at. There are marks in the sand, people sitting in the sand, and resorts in the background, giving it a feel of use but also of privacy because the beach isn't crowded. Sanibel is one of my favorite places in Florida, and they don't get snow clouds like Pittsburgh.

Chipping Sparrow, Great Spruce Head Island, Maine, June 16, 1971

     This is one of my favorite photos by Eliot Porter, the Ansel Adams of color photography. I am a bird watcher and know how difficult it is to get a bird with it's wings spanned out or in flight. Bird photography in general is a hard subject to capture.
     The composition of the photo is great with the birds wings spanning out to the ends of the photograph, protecting her babies. The shape of the bird and the wings are beautiful, and they are not a blur from the motion, but stopped so they can be admired. The redish head and black stripped eyes are the trait of the chipping sparrow, and he caught them perfectly.
     Although the color isn't great, you have to considered that Porter did most of his color photography in the 1960-70's, which means he had to make his own color film, which was very long and painstaking work, and didn't capture color as wonderfully as color film does today.