Digital Photography

Hyperrealism

May 10, 2019

This photo was created for the hyperrealism assignment. To take two or more photos in the purpose and intent to later combine or blend them together to create something that is surreal. Part of it was to have a concept in mind before going out and capturing pieces of said concept. 

How I applied this here is with the graffiti wall and facility door. The door, my composition, works well in making you think this is some kind of establishment; perhaps run down in addition to the graffiti blending through. It solidifies the idea that there is an inside closed off, even though you can clearly see the top of the wall revealing the other side. To enhance the grit and gloominess I had heavily darkened the image, but brought back the saturation to keep it from not being completely dull. With this, I am drawing attention to the door as it appears more lit than the edges of the image. Because I took similar exposures and angles for both photos, I believe I have created a successfully convincing surreal image.

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Portrait

April 19, 2019

For my portrait assignment I was tasked to capture a person's emotion or attitude whether in expression or posture.

The composition, my friend Ryan, obliged to let me use him as my subject matter. Playing with different types of natural lighting, I found a nice spot and background to give a proper portrait photo. Without trying to create a fixed or forced photograph, I let him decide how he wanted to stand and look. With just a bit of cropping, experimenting between keeping the color or go with black and white, and slightly darkening the background, I believe I accomplished a decent portrait. Switching to black and white I think helped with lessening some of the over exposed background. My intend had been to create something that may be used in a professional setting such as LinkedIn or otherwise, and I feel I achieved this.

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HDRI

April 4, 2019

                                   

                             

The images above comprise the HDRI assignment. Starting from the top I took a normally exposed, an over exposed, and an under exposed photo. Then, the final image. Blending the first three together I accomplished a high dynamic range image.

I chose this composition for the leisure of capturing multiple photos without the worry of too much movement going on. I simply liked the look while in the position I was standing in, and the design of the structure. With the building nice and centered, I amplified it with saturation to exaggerate the otherwise not see-able colors in the photos that were definitely there when physically seeing it. I went to the extreme with contrasting highlights and shadows. In doing this, I may have made it a less convincing realistic image, but my intend was to take the word "range" and push it to a reasonable point.

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Panorama

March 29, 2019

This was my photo for the Panorama assignment. By taking about 4 to 6 images with a little bit of overlap between them, and the same exposure and panning the camera from left to right, I would then have to go into Photoshop to stitch these separate images into one.

In this I had taken 4 images total to create this panorama. My intent was to capture the cloudy sky over this open landscape. The tree silhouette helps fill the scene with contrast in distance, shape, and tone. The image came out correctly in its merging, but I did take liberties in Photoshop to adjust the levels and increase its saturation. Doing this brightened up an otherwise dull sky and grass. The biggest challenge was trying to keep from changing the image too much, and I do believe with incremental changes you can clearly see these small differences was enough to improve it.

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Things

March 8, 2019

My photo here was for an assignment called Things, which is about getting up and close to your composition. To having just the subject be in focus and the background blurred, or at the very least not distract you from the subject. 

My subject, this stuffed teddy bear, is clearly my main focus for the assignment. I captured it so it contains the majority of the photo. The background is only slightly out of focus, so to compensate I darkened it heavily in Photoshop to allow my subject to stand out further. With some experimenting I also settled with a low saturation to make my image feel more somber. I believe I accomplished well enough my focal point, that being the bear's head. Its head is turned with one eye visible, implying that it could be looking somewhere. The body itself also draws us bottom left up. The metal beam intersects with the head, and also follows the same direction the head is facing as your eyes travel from bottom right up.

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On The Edge

February 22, 2019

This photo was for the On The Edge assignment where I was tasked to capture a composition that appears to move off frame.

The fence in my photo would be said composition, and it accomplishes capturing your eye and guiding you into the image. I got in close to the subject to get an interesting perspective of near to far leading lines. With these leading lines it brings your attention to the focal point, the tree. However, my original intent was to simply capture a neat texture of the wood in the fence. By going into Photoshop I opted to change my image to black and white, brightened my focal point a bit, and darkened the corners to help the viewer stay contained in the image. With these changes I believe I improved an otherwise weak focal point while also enhancing the quality of the texture in my composition.