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.