Week 14 final project

This semester our classmates had a wide variety of knowledge with photography. Some of us like me had very little knowledge of photography and using the editing software. Others already had great knowledge and had used editing software quite a bit previously. Every week we commented on our classmates blogs and class discussion forums. Week 1 This week we introduced ourselves and created a blog. We needed to post a photo both to our moodle account and to our blog. We learned about files size and formats. We learned that the pixels per inch can effect the way our photographs look. I now use picmonkey to resize my photographs. I use JPEG in order to format my photos. I do use the PSD format the PhotoShop Document. This “is useful only in Photoshop and saves all the layers and history information, which is very good if you need to go back and tweak any of that” as Lisa stated in our week one discussion forum. The largest size a photograph should be when posting to the discussion forum in Moodle is 300 pixels. Week 2 We read Curtain’s Chapter 1. The information in this reading included Camera Controls & Creativity: Taking Photographs in Automatic Mode. It talks about when things go wrong. For me this happens quite a bit, although this class has helped immensely. Most usually the batteries give out at the most inconvenient times. I need to check the battery level before using my camera each time. It talked about different types of digital cameras and how to use them. My camera is a point and shoot. I have learned a lot about my camera and have used some of the different settings. I found it interesting that “pixels on an image sensor only capture brightness, not color. They record the gray scale—a series of tones ranging from pure white to pure black.” (Curtain) We also learned about exposure controls – shutter and aperture from this chapter. It also talked about Composition. I found out that most point and shoot digital cameras no longer have a viewfinder. My current camera does not have one. I do like having the option of having a viewfinder. I have a great difficulty taking pictures on a sunny day with using just the monitor. I find that there is too much glare for me and I am taking pictures and hoping for the best. Otherwise I have to wait until the sun has gone down, gone behind clouds, etc. We also had to view SimCam: All About Aperture and Shutter Speed. We also viewed the following tutorials on depth of field and shutter speed: http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/depth-of-field.htm and http://www.photonhead.com/simcam/ I found the second website very interesting so I could see how a photo looks when changing the shutter speed and aperture. We needed to comment on Lisa’s blog on the composition of the photo of the tree. When playing with the simcam I liked how you could make the background blurry. We also needed to take pictures using point of view. I now think about the point of view I would like to use when I am taking photos. Week 2 all my photos were of a particular stone in the cemetery near my house. For some this week I got up close and only took part of the stone. I sat on the ground and looked up at the stone. As I have continued to think about point of view the possibilities are endless. Week 3 This week we learned about Macro photos, making a collage, and understanding camera lenses. We viewed the following tutorials by Sean McHugh: http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/camera-lenses.htm and http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/macro-lenses.htm which was about Macros Lenses. I enjoyed the work on these photos. I had never heard or used macros previously before this week. I also enjoyed how the collage worked and will continue making collages with photos I take. I really like the detail the macros produce. Week 4 This week was about light and color. Color we learned about analogous, complementary, and monochromatic color schemes. We needed to post two color scheme photos to our blogs. For my blog I chose to use monochromatic color scheme and an analogous color scheme. Both were of toys. We read Chapter 4 about Capturing Light and Color, where color comes from, white balance, color balance and time of day, sunsets and sunrises, weather, color choices, photographing a night, direction of light, quality of light, and using light and color creatively We also needed to take photos in three lighting situations. Even though I had obvious lighting changes the photographs came out blurry, which I hadn’t realized until Lisa pointed it out. I used a different picture than my initial posting this week. I like the way the light and shadows hit the trees in this photo. Week 5 Composition and Aesthetics. This week we learned about the rule of thirds and framing. We needed to create a slideshow with the framing photographs we took. I was able to create my slideshow without too much difficulty. I had major difficulty posting my slideshow to my blog. Another aspect to think about was the horizontal lines. There are many other things to think about when talking about composition. I had always centered my photos. This has been a hard habit to break even though I really like the way the photos I take come out when I use the rule of thirds. There is just so much to remember when taking a picture. Also I like using framing when it occurs naturally. When I have tried to create a framing shot I haven’t been thoroughly pleased with it. Week 6 This week we studied the history of photography. The oldest black and white photograph recorded is from 1827, Niepce created this photograph. http://www.tropinature.com/photohist/photohist04.html . In 1861 the first color photograph was produced by James Clerck Maxwell. He was a British physicist. Color photography continued to improve as time went on. Modern color photography procedures were developed in 1935. The 35mm camera was developed in 1925 by Leitz.The first digital camera was sold in 1991. As the years have progressed the megapixels of digital cameras have greatly advanced. Typically I have seen 14 and 16 megapixel cameras. We also needed to pick out a photographer to research. I chose Ansel Adams. Ansel Adams was a famous landscape black and white photographer. He was the first photographer to photograph all the national parks. He co-created the zone system with Fred Archer. We also created our own landscape photography. Landscape: “a picture representing a section of natural, inland scenery, as of prairie, woodland, mountains...an expanse of natural scenery seen by the eye in one view.” (Webster’s New Universal Unabridged Dictionary)I would say my favorite type of photography is landscape. http://www.tropinature.com/photohist/photohist11.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_photography. We learned some critiquing skills. We critiqued five photographs posted by Lisa. Week 7 This week we started learning about photo manipulation software. We also explored Photosynth. Photosynth is an amazing technology. With it you can create a 3D image. You can take photos, link them together and make a panoramic photograph. You can also put many pictures together, not necessarily from one person, to create a photo. This brought up the topic of copyright issues with photographs. This week Jen Perry tried to create her own Photosynth. She stated in our discussion that she was not successful. I wonder if she had used more photos if it would have worked out better. Ashley posted a link for a YouTube video on how to create your own Photosynth. I have not tried this yet myself. The video makes it seem very simple, but knowing the difficulty I have had along the way creating slideshows (or posting it to my blog). I will wait to attempt to create one when I have more time. The manipulation tools we used this week were marquee, lasso and magic wand. We also cropped photos. It is amazing what you can crop out of a photo. I used both the initial photo of the bridge and a new photo of a ball with a seal embedded on it. I started with both photos creating a layer with the seal. Then I used the magnetic lasso tool to remove the seal. Then I layered it onto the ball. Then I used the clone tool to clean up and mistakes I had when I used the lasso tool. I was much happier the way the ball came out than with the bridge. Week 8 This week was another interesting week. We read The Twisted Tree Tutorial on making basic adjustments of light and color. We needed to manipulate two photos. We also read about Robert Silvers and his mosaics. Then we needed to create a mosaic of our own. Mine did not come out the best. It said that all tiles would not be filled and to allow tile duplication, which I did. I played with the saturation, hue and lightness. I also played with the levels adjustment and the exposure correction. When adding color to my photo I really didn’t get the effect I wanted. I would have liked more color in the trees but could not achieve the look I was trying to get. I have tried to create mosaics and I still get the message that all tiles will not be filled. Lisa had posted in the discussion “I'm wondering if the not all tiles filled thing is because you added at least one image that was not a jpg? If you put in a .psd (Photoshop document) or a tiff, pdf, or maybe even a gif or bmp, this program might not translate it.” When I created others there were only .jpg files in it. So still not sure what I am doing wrong. I enjoy making them and can’t wait to get a perfect mosaic. Week 9 This week we discussed copyright law and intellectual property, ethics and how it applies to photography. We also used the dodge and burn tools. It took me a very long time to figure out the dodge and burn tools. Now that I have figured out how to use them I am able to practice using them with other photos. We also used filters to manipulate photos. For my first photo I used the artistic filter and chose the colored pencil. For the second filter I used the brush stroke and used the ink outline. I enjoyed the way these filters looked. I tried many other filters on other photos but these were the ones I liked the best. Week 10 This week was very tough. All my work from this week was late. I went to Atlanta Georgia for a conference and lost my camera while I was there (actually during the first three hours). So needless to say I could not complete this week’s assignment. Also the cost of the internet was astronomical at the hotel I was staying. When I got back from my trip I needed to purchase a new camera, work on week’s 11 homework as well as catch up on week’s 10 homework. We were learning about the clone tool, paint and text tools. I was able to use the text and paint tools without too much difficulty. I did not like the way the color tool came out. The text tool was real light; I would have liked to get it a little bit darker. The clone tool was a different story. I could not figure out how to use it. I googled it, watched the tutorials on it, and tried to get it to work. Finally after emailing Lisa again I figured out that I was not lifting the alt button after I picked up some material to clone. I have now used this tool to get rid of power lines, cloned leaves into a pile, and cloned the ball so it was blue right next to the seal. We also talked about Chris Jordan and Tony Sweet. Also our research paper was due this week. I studied Ansel Adams. He was best known for his black and white landscape photos. Week 11 This week we read everyone’s research paper. There was a lot of information and many great photographers I had never heard of. I enjoyed learning about the photographers. Many wrote about specific photographers but we also had topics on photographing children and painting with light (soft focus). There were other photos that I tried to get into the slideshow but they wouldn’t go in. Week 12 We compared David LaChapelle, Jerry Uelsmann, and Maggie Taylor. I really didn’t care for Lachapelle’s photos, personally. I saw many similarities between these three photographers. We learned that Taylor and Uelsmann were married but they don’t collaborate on any work. We also needed to decide on our final project. We could go with a photo storyboard or we could do an annotated photo slideshow. I chose the annotated version. I would like to continue working with photography and the manipulation tools with Photoshop and create an alphabet book for my granddaughter. Week 13 This week we studied Diane Arbus and Richard Avedon. These two photographers were friends and both started out as advertising photographers. We also needed to study about taking portraits. There was a lot of information in the tutorials we used this wee,. In the past when I had taken portraits I would center them, take whole body shots, head shots or an upper torso shot. I would have never imagined taking a shot of just a pregnant belly, or using the rule of thirds. These definitely give a whole new perspective on taking photos. Week 14 This week we needed to complete our final project. We also discussed the future of photography. Photography has changed over the years. I find it amazing that even over just the few recent years the megapixels on cameras have increased dramatically. The future of being able to focus after taking a photo is mind-boggling but in my case would be wonderful as many of photo, especially my portrait photos with my Vivitar camera still come out not in focus.