Edward Ruscha IV:
"Art has to be something that makes you scratch your head."
This is a Powerpoint presentation I put together for class. I'm honored to have learned about this living legend, an American master. It does give me hope that a guy working in advertising and commercial art can still make his way into the "real" art world.
Photo Assignment: Unique and Unexpected Angles - Avoiding Cliches
Two little dogs from low perspective. Me from below, shooting blind for perspective from below. Miss B in 4 poses: perspective from front, from below, from above, and zoom from second story window above (long lens). Tree from below. House from below at a tilted angle.
Aging Images
Before After
Top: 80% opacity. Middle: 90% opacity. Bottom: 100% Opacity on the Overlay layer blend.
The texture I added for aging effect - brown vinyl from a chair
What do my photographs say?
Photo Analysis
Feelings / mood: This week I was trying to communicate a quirky, fun attitude. The sun came out, I mowed the lawn and it was a good day to be outside.
Subject placement: The areas of the images that were important to me were right-to-left movement apparently; the right third in the rule of thirds. I wonder if that's just the preference of my eye right now. I do try to focus on the eyes with people and animals, though studying Ed Ruscha did get me thinking more about buildings.
Multilayered: At the time I took these photographs I just wanted to create images for the assignments. The overriding mood is personal though and each of these images hits close to home. My dogs, my daughter, and the trees behind my house. This summer I need to paint my house and it's going to be a big chore so it's kind of funny that I'm showing what it would look like "aged."
Depth of field: I focused on the subjects in each image but for the most part other areas are not entirely out of focus.
Light: Each of these was taken with natural light. The photos of the girl at sunset, and all the others at sunrise. The vinyl chair is an indoor shot with interior lighting, flash off.
Improvement: for weird angles, I did some spontaneous things such as lifting the camera over my head and shooting down at an angle, blind, or up in a similar manner. The gamble paid off a couple of times but to really get this right consistently, I need steadier hands and / or better setups for elevated angles. I could use a ladder I suppose. A couple of photos that would have been among my favorites were out of focus due to me being a bit shaky. Too much setup time though and you can lose your light, or worse yet your subject. So on the whole I was happy with my results. I am improving on my ISO bracketing and I'm getting better about shooting more total photos so that's good.
Subject placement: The areas of the images that were important to me were right-to-left movement apparently; the right third in the rule of thirds. I wonder if that's just the preference of my eye right now. I do try to focus on the eyes with people and animals, though studying Ed Ruscha did get me thinking more about buildings.
Multilayered: At the time I took these photographs I just wanted to create images for the assignments. The overriding mood is personal though and each of these images hits close to home. My dogs, my daughter, and the trees behind my house. This summer I need to paint my house and it's going to be a big chore so it's kind of funny that I'm showing what it would look like "aged."
Depth of field: I focused on the subjects in each image but for the most part other areas are not entirely out of focus.
Light: Each of these was taken with natural light. The photos of the girl at sunset, and all the others at sunrise. The vinyl chair is an indoor shot with interior lighting, flash off.
Improvement: for weird angles, I did some spontaneous things such as lifting the camera over my head and shooting down at an angle, blind, or up in a similar manner. The gamble paid off a couple of times but to really get this right consistently, I need steadier hands and / or better setups for elevated angles. I could use a ladder I suppose. A couple of photos that would have been among my favorites were out of focus due to me being a bit shaky. Too much setup time though and you can lose your light, or worse yet your subject. So on the whole I was happy with my results. I am improving on my ISO bracketing and I'm getting better about shooting more total photos so that's good.