Monday, March 14, 2011

Photoshop

In photography class we had an in class assignment to create a picture on Photoshop using any of the artistic styles we’ve learned about. Although this is a photography class, Photoshop is a great part of it. We take our photos, which include the artistic skills we have developed and learned this year so far, and open them up on Photoshop. On Photoshop we have learned so much about different styles and ways we could improve our images. We have learned to create fisheye photos, gradients, change color hues, threshold our photos, blend images, copy and paste onto another image, change our images to black and white, add texture to our images, and much more. For my final photoshop picture I chose to use the copy and paste method, it was my favorite style we have learned so far on photoshop because its fun. I simply took a picture of a flower that I had taken earlier in the year. Then I went to google.com and searched a picture of a butterfly. Once I found the right one I opened both the butterfly and flower on to the same photoshop document. Next I had to change the image sizes of both pictures to match each other in “pixel” format. Once I did that, I took the magnetic lasso tool and got the area of the butterfly I had wanted. I went to edit—copy the butterfly then pasted the butterfly on to the flower. Once it was right where I wanted it I right clicked the mouse and clicked on free transform. If you hold the shift down and move the edges of the picture free transform allows you to adjust the image making it smaller or bigger. Once I liked how my image looked I went to file, then save as and saved my image as a JPEG so it flattened all the layers in to one, then I saved it as a photoshop document so that if I wanted to, I could go back and fix my photo.

Monday, January 31, 2011

Architecture Assignment

St. Catherines Interior shot
St. Catherines Detail shot

St. Catherines Church


Fence behind Church on Elcamino Real






OLA Church













Friday, January 21, 2011

Chapter 9 (pgs. 209-217)

Film
  • landscape photographs need to record as much information as possible
  • Black and white photography showcases value, line, shape, texture, and pattern

  • Fall foliage and spring flowers are particularly well suited for color landscapes

  • color can overpower elements of art

Lenses

  • landscape photographer prefer to use wide angle lenses that capture more of the scene

  • creates a greater sense of depth in the images
  • some photographers use a telephoto lens
  • ^this will let you captrue scenes and objects that you cant get physically close to or it will allow you to separate objects from their surroundings

  • Macro lenses are also useful for getting really close up images

  • macro lenses are especially good for creating abstract images of bark and rocks

Filters

  • use a yellow filter to bring out the clouds
  • use a red filter to bring out deep black skies with stark white clouds

  • use a red filter with a polarizer to bring out ultimate black skies and mazimum contrast


The Grand Landscape

  • It is the "big view" for pictures of the great outdoors

  • national, state, or city parks are great locations to explore landscape photography

  • Grand landscapes always include a large expanse of the scene and wide angle lenses will give you the wider view that you need.

  • horizon in your photographs should be placed either one-third from the top or bottom of the image

Landscape Details and Close-ups
  • parks are a good source of subject matter for detail-oriented photographers

  • japanese gardens are especially good with meandering streams, small waterfalls, and expertly placed trees, shrubs and rocks

  • the difference in tonal values between the brightest and the darkest parts of an image can be more than any film can capture. Highlights will be blown out of the shadow values will be blank, or both.

  • Many photographers prefer to shoot in cloudy or overcast conditions that even out the light, eliminating harsh shadows. "quiet light"



Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Chapter 9 notes (pg. 202-208)



Landscapes

  • landscape photography can be firmly located in the real world, filled with ecological devastation and human artifacts, or it can portray an idealized version of what we want nature to be-pure and magnificent.
  • focus on the natural world
Landmarks in Landscape Photography
  • when photographers first looked for inspiration for what to photograph, they looked to paintings and they looked at the land.
  • Watkins-took photos in yosemite valley and his huge photographs were among the first to be made as art.
  • Adams - also inspired by yosemite valley
  • his landscape photography always tried to capture the experience of being in the wilderness.
  • our way of seeing the natural world was forever changed because of adams's images.
Ansel adams at wawona tunnel Yosemite Valley

Photographing the Landscape

  • Composition is one of the most important aspects of landscape photography
  • viewpoint is is the most important part of composition
  • Landscape photographers pay careful attention to where they position the camera
  • Value, an images light and dark areas, is especially important in black and white
  • one goal of good composition is to achieve a balance between unity and variety
  • extreme unity occurs when all the parts and objects in your image are related to each other
  • Variety refers to all the diverse art elements found in a picture
  • balancing unity and variety creates art that is interesting to look at without being chaotic and disturbing




Light


  • There are two times during the day when many professional landscape photographers do most of their work-just after sunrise and just before sunset.
  • shapes and textures are emphasized by side lighting
  • direct lighting creates the highlights and shadows that make a landscape seem three-dimensional








Monday, January 17, 2011

Chapter 8 notes

  • Architectural photographs are indirect portraits.
  • if you focus on the details of a building, it can be an exploration of abstract images.
  • important key: use line to lead the viewer's eye through an architectural image.
  • observe the space that surrounds the objects or buildings in your photographs
  • also consider how a buildings surroundings can help make your photograph stronger
  • learn to look for pattern in your photo
  • architectural photography usually has as much sharpness in it as possible, no blurry
  • big view- the wide angle overall view. this means that the photographer was farther away from the building being photographed or the photographer was using a wide angle lense
  • perspective distortion-appears as a strong converging lines in a building, where the sides of the building angle in toward each other instead of looking parallel as they are in reality.
  • farther you are from the building, the less distortion you'll see
  • Detail shot-features the individual architectural elements of a buildings interior or exterior

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Architecture Notes

  • trying to show personality of space
  • color contrast to give sense of entire space
  • proportion
  • Frank Lloyd Wright uses nature to bring out his architecture
  • you will see line shape and form and other elements are naturally in architecture, good for photography
  • bring out emotion in architecture with use of light
  • platinum papers used for making bombs and munitions-prices were expensive
  • Frederick Evan who used platinum paper gave up photography when they banned platinum papers
  • use of value gives a sense of space
  • in detailed shots focus on specific details in shot
  • Ezra Stoller- started out as an architect but found photography more interesting focused on value, line, shape, and form
  • focus on full view of the space and emotions connected to it, like a portrait
  • patterns dominate almost every part of the image such as bricks fabric and wallpaper

Monday, January 10, 2011

Movie Notes

  • In the daily news they only took pictures
  • 6 to 7 editions a day
  • put the picture up very big to attract attention from people so that they could buy the newspaper
  • In the evening photograph showed people never seen before
  • Wanted news so bad that they snuck a camera in an execution chamber and took one of someone sitting in the electric chair
  • photographs began to replace drawings
  • people wanted to believe that photographs were true
  • photographs transformed little things to objects of desire
  • Babe Ruth was second most photographed person to advertise stuff
  • photographs of celebrities got people obsessed