Becoming Portfolio Final Photographs

For my final project, I shot pictures with my film camera and returned to the darkroom. My original intention was to take abstract photographs of different textures. I wanted my photographs to have high contrast and varying depths of field to show variance within my series. I shot my pictures with different compositions and lighting, while still unifying my series with contrast and a darkroom quality. 

When looking at all my photographs holistically, I feel there are a few series that have developed within my larger series. One series potentially is the close up abstract pictures, where you cannot necessarily tell what they are (such as the shirt, ties and cracked surface). Another series could be the isolated objects such as the dream catcher, nails, buttons or belts. Overall, the photographs seem to work well in my eye and I'm happy with how they turned out. 

Becoming Portfolio Inspiration

For my final product of the year, I am taking photos with my film camera and returning to the darkroom. I plan to take abstract photographs of texture to continue my style of photography, while exploring composition, lighting and different materials. Both of these photographs inspire me to focus my intentions around contrast and depth of field, in addition to composition, lighting and textures. I am very excited to do my last project in the darkroom to close out my Branson photography career.

Artists as Activists- Ocean Pollution

Sarah Wallace and I collaborated in a project around the issue of ocean pollution. I have always loved the ocean and seeing more and more trash accumulate on the beach and in the ocean got me thinking about what I could do to prevent that from happening. Since I cannot eliminate every piece of trash in the ocean, this project acted as an outlet to raise awareness for the matter.

In order to address this issue most directly, Sarah and I chose to have a sign playing off of the "No Lifeguard on Duty" signs commonly seen at beaches. Going off of that idea, we had our sign say "No Conscience on Duty" to remind the viewer that it is a conscious effort we put in or do not put in when we leave trash on the beach. Together, Sarah and I built this sign starting from getting the wood, to painting the wood, to nailing all the parts together, in order to come up with our final piece. Making this sign was a big risk for both Sarah and I, since neither of us specialize in sculpture or any sort of wood construction, but I am very proud with how it turned out. In addition to making the sign, I took pictures and Sarah used watercolor drawings to display trash on the beach. My individual style came across in my pictures because I got to explore texture and composition. It was most interesting for me to discover how the sand and rocks interacted with one another and also how the composition of the trash played a part in the success of the photograph.

In doing this project, our intentions generally stayed consistent from the beginning. We both knew we wanted to have pictures of our individual work, but the only minor hiccup was how we were going to incorporate the sign into our project without it feeling like a separate object altogether. By connecting the sign to the conceptual concerns of our project, I think we did a good job in making it feel united.

Our formal concerns for this project were to have each picture be the same size, have texture in each picture and the sign, have square/rectangular shapes for each picture and the sign, and also to have a variance in materials. We chose all of these as our concerns to create a sense of unity within our final product. We wanted each picture to have specific qualities that emphasized the individuality of the image, but in the end, for all of the pictures to work together as two separate series, but still have each series complement the other. The variance in texture and materials came more from my individual style that naturally developed in our project as a whole. Even though this project had a lot of moving parts (with the size, shape, texture, materials etc.), each element enhanced the project altogether.

Cross Pollination Photographs and Installation

As I began formulating scientific ideas for this project, I went back and forth between using kinetic energy as a theme or using natural elements as a theme.  Naturally (no pun intended), I chose the nature-oriented one because of the different textures in leaves, flowers and twigs.  Soon after shooting the photographs, I began thinking about the presentation of my photos, not one of my strong suits I would say.  It's not that I don't enjoy coming up with ideas for presenting my photos, but I would much rather spend my time taking millions of photographs.  That being said, once you take a bunch of photos, you want to present them nicely and professionally, so I try to come up with innovative ideas for my presentation.

Luckily for this project, we had the opportunity to work with Beth Mullins in coming up with ideas for our projects, which certainly helped me a lot.  Beth is incredibly creative in her personal work and that definitely translates into her advice.  Between the two of us, we came up with numerous ideas for my project, which gave me a lot to choose from for my final product.  I decided for my photographs to cut them out and arrange them in pairs as to have the different textures interacting with one another.  It's difficult to tell in the photographs, but I think the couples complemented one another well.  

I have, for the most part, addressed some sort of textural element in most of my series and this collection was one in the same.  Hearing that this project was entirely dedicated to texture obviously made me excited and I'm glad I got the chance to explore more uses of texture in my work.  However, this project was still distinct from my others because it was a black and white series shot in a studio as opposed to directly in nature.  Adjusting the lighting of these objects definitely made my series more complex and dynamic, but I hope to return to the outdoors and let nature guide my photographs soon.

Largely in this assignment, my intentions remained uniform, except when it came to presenting my photographs.  Originally, I was going to put these "larger than life" flowers and leaves into a vase, but given the time constraint and unrealistic nature of that plan, I started with Plan B.  Not being entirely sure of what Plan B entailed, I decided to start cutting out the images and went from there.  Through talking with Ms. Seal, we came up with the plan to mount the photos on the wall in twosomes.  In hindsight, I'm glad there was a time constraint and technical difficulties with my first idea because I would not have discovered my final product otherwise.  That being said, the vase idea was original and unique, so I partly regret not giving it a fair shake (perhaps in another project).

Lastly, my choice of materials.  Probably one of the most important decisions I made with this assignment, was choosing which materials to use.  I ended up with six different leaves, two flowers, one twig and a peacock feather.  My favorite material to work with by far was the peacock feather.  Not only does this material look incredible in black and white, but it looks even better in color, as it was slightly unfortunate to have to make it black and white.  In the future, I would like to incorporate more peacock or other kinds of feathers into my work because of their colorful and textural qualities.  Since my scientific aim for this project was regarding biology and the make up of different natural items, I think the leaves, flowers, twig and feather did a wonderful job of exemplifying that intention.  

Overall, I am pleased with the outcome of my series and hope to include texture in my next assignment. 

Texture Block Pairings

Throughout my entire series, I focused on using black, white and gray tones with one red block.  In this group of four, I like the cool gray tones across from each other and the white ones across from each other as well.  Also, the top right box stands out more than the others, but I like how they all complement one another.

In this group of four, I like how all of them are one dimensional, as opposed to the three dimensional blocks in the previous series.  One of my favorite blocks in this series is surprisingly the foil covered one because it is simple, but works well with the more complex blocks.  Also, the other three blocks in this series have many layers, which unites those together.

This group stands out from the others, as the blocks have a lot more going on, except for the red one.  My favorite block is the button one because it is all one material, but the buttons have their own sense of individuality.  I also wanted to keep the red block in this series simple and without any other materials, except for paint, because the color made it stand out on its own.

This picture is my entire series and I am very pleased with how it turned out.  I like the mixture of one dimensional and three dimensional blocks as they remain different in size, but united because of their shade of color.  The red block definitely stands out from the others, but I like the diversity in the series.  The many layers and different shades of gray ended up working well together and I'm excited to see what this project leads to.

For my next project, Beth and I talked about using the blocks again, but putting my pictures on the blocks, instead of different textures themselves.  We talked about taking overexposed pictures of the city and of sand, which would both include texture.  The physics idea of using kinetic energy would be incorporated with the pictures of the city as the lights would portray "energy of motion."

I will only need blocks for my project, but I'm not sure how many, so I will get back to you on that.

Mini Texture Block Series

When the artist in residence, Beth Mullins, first described this project it sounded kind of perfect to me.  I've always been intrigued by texture and hearing about Beth's work furthered my interest.  In the picture below is my first four blocks of a larger series of twelve blocks.  I've decided for my entire series to use black, white or gray materials and then to have one red texture block.  I'm really excited to see the red block stand out from the others, but also for the black, white and gray blocks to have their own sense of individuality.

In my first mini series, I used baking cups, old darkroom prints, old negatives and playing cards.  Not only does this series work as a cohesive unit because of it's color palette, but the many layers on each individual block adds to join them together with a more 3D element, instead of being one dimensional.  I'm very excited to continue working on this project and see what it leads to for the larger assignment in a few weeks.

Group Collaborations: