Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Surrealist Photos




Andy Goldsworthy

Andy Goldsworthy is extremely in touch with nature. He described his realationship with the earth as necessary for his discovery of self, and for life in general. His art pieces reflect this relationship, as he does his best to portray the very heart of the nature around him. The theme to all his works is ultimately organic, and he uses almost no unnatural elements in the making and final product of his compositions.

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

macro 2

This is my favorite macro photo. I took it with very little outside light, keeping the candle as the sole light source. I adjusted the levels of this peice, and adjusted the colors minimally, but other than that, I altered this photo very little. I like this photo because of the glow eminating and its appearance against the wood. I like the detail along the rim of the jar as well.

macro 3


macro 4


Christmas




Monday, December 14, 2009

Pedro Meyer Emulation 1

This photo emulates, even copies an image of Pedro Meyer's. They both feature a dog as the focal point which matches its surroundings. They also both feature a fragment of a human face. The lighting is different, but the theme is the same. I do not especially like this composition, I will it's fairly weak and distracting.

Friday, December 11, 2009

Pedro Meyer Emulation 2

I employed Pedro Meyer's concepts in this piece by featuring two friends talking and sillouhetted from the back. I lowered the saturation and lightness of both the background and the figures, but I brought the figures down to a much lower degree. I used the clone stamp tool to get rid of a metal distraction above the girl's head, and a light spot on her bag. I used unity through out the piece in shade and value and balanced the composition with fairly equal distribution of figure and shade.

Lorie Novak Emulation 1

This is a photo of my brother's eyes layered over a picture of a winter tree. I used a photoshop process very similiar to that of the previous photo, with the exception of flipping the tree photo by 90 degrees so that it read horizontally along with the rest of the image. Lowered saturation and opacity play a big role in the composition. The veiwer's attention goes directly to the eyes and then is carried throughout by the lines of the tree. I used the clone stamp tool to rid the left hand side of the heavy trunk image, assimilating it with the rest of the tree image. It's a pretty fantastic image, with unrealistic concepts.

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Lorie Novak Emulation 2

I took this picture emulating Novak's theme in many of her pieces: an eye or face used as a canvas for another image. I brought both images to a much lower saturation and then layered the eye image over the tree, bringing the eye to a lower opacity. Novak used a greater level of contrast, bringing her images to a black and white level, but I chose to keep some saturation in my work, as I wanted some of the color in the eye. I used the clone stamp tool to rid the tree image of unwanted distractions. do you think the pine tree on the right is distracting?

Tuesday, December 8, 2009


Pedro Meyer




Lorie Novak






Thursday, December 3, 2009

Montage 1


I edited the wave, coral, and turtle into this picture. I adjusted the opacity to create the effect of transparancy. The focal point is essentially the bottom left corner of the composition, as the warm saturation of the coral contasts with the cooler and less vibrant tones in the rest of the piece. The eye then moves to the dark head of the turtle, and then is carried across the composition by the wave. the theme is, pretty obviously, sea life. Is all the lowered opacity distracting?

Montage 2


I created this photoshop document using stock photos. All photos (background, the three ballerina images) were originally seperate images, and in color. I altered their hues, higlights, and edges (blurred) and arranged the seperate peices to create this final composition. The ballerinas serve as focal points, as their light colors contrast the comparatively darker background. They descend from left to right, smallest to biggest, seemingly "dancing" down the street, increasing the movement of the composition. I think the whimsical fantasy appearance of the ballerinas and the average, even grimy appearance of the neighborhood give off a theme of dreaming. Do you think the highlights of the ballerinas are too light?

Monday, November 16, 2009

Name: PowerShot A1100 IS
Megapixels: 12.1
1) There's an "easy mode" that disables adjustment features and really only lets you use the shutter button (great for letting a little kid take picture)
2) when reveiwing photos on camera, there are multiple display settings, one of which shows you the f-stop, ISO and other stats about each picture
3) There's a "lock" switch on memory cards (I've been using the same memory card for years, and was unaware of this new addition)
4) Green frame appears around focus of photo when shutter button is pushed down half way
5) Camera has face-finding abilities
6) subject may not be in focus if shutter is not pressed down half way before being pressed down all the way
7) Under automatic settings, the camera will sense shooting conditions and subjects on its own
8) You can take a second picture even while an image is displayed by pressing the shutter button
9) Even if detected faces move, they are followed by camera
10) Camera can focus on more than one point

1) I don't understand Program Mode very well...
2) How do I manually adjust the exposure?
3) How do I know which setting to use in which situations?