Portraits

This is one of the final four portrait images I chose.  It is a picture of my niece trying to climb on a rocking horse that I had when I was a child.  I wanted to capture the moment and motion of her trying to get on the horse and liked how I got a side view of her face.  I took the picture outside in natural lighting, but I wish that I could have framed it better.  The class interpreted it as a mother taking a picture of a child.  They liked the contrast of the young child with the old toy.  They also thought I captured the moment and the graceful baby well.  If I were to make changes to the image, they felt darker colors in the horse would be nice.  If I were to use the image in a larger project or series, the class thought it would be nice to have the baby playing with other old toys, such as an old baby carriage.  If I were to reprint the image, the class thought I should make the image bigger.

This is one of the final four portrait images I chose.  It is a picture of my friend.  I had taken several pictures of him with different lighting and a light source that I moved to different positions to see what results I would get and figure out what image I liked best.  As soon as I took this picture, it became my favorite.  I liked the position he was in and the fact that he is looking up, but because of the fact that I took the picture of only half of his face, you can't see or tell what he is looking at.  I think his relaxed style is portrayed well in this image and the fact that you can see some of his shirt tells the viewer a little bit about him.  The class interpreted it as a picture of an artist or musician based on the clothing (the shirt and hat) he was wearing.  They liked the framing of the face being cut off and the way I captured his eyes looking up.  They felt the tones and contrast were good as well as the lighting I used.  The class really liked the composition and said they wouldn't make any changes to the image.  If I were to use the image in a larger project or series, the class thought it would be nice to have more cropped off images and then images that tell something about that person or do a series of full body images and then pictures of the people up close and personal.  If I were to reprint the image, the class thought I should make the image bigger.

This is one of the final four portrait images I chose.  It is a picture of my friend playing his keyboard.   I took several pictures showing his face and trying to portray his love for music and how much he enjoys playing his keyboard, but I didn't feel any of the images showed this well.  At that point, I decided I needed to take the picture from a new angle/perspective and got this image that I was very happy with.  The picture was taken inside, but there was a window next to him that was letting in natural sunlight.  The class interpreted it as a personal image. They thought it had a "homey feel" and showed a hobby, not necessarily a musician. They liked the tones. If I were to make changes to the image, they thought maybe to add more of the leg in the bottom left corner. If I were to use the image in a larger project or series, the class thought close-ups of people playing instruments would be a good idea. They thought I could capture only the hands or all ages and do male vs female. If I were to reprint the image, the class said they wouldn't make any changes to the size.

This is one of the final four portrait images I chose.  It is a self-portrait that I recreated from another image (see below).  This was the first time that I had used the self timer on my camera and had to take multiple images before I was happy with this one.  It was hard to get the timing down right and I wasn't ready on some of them when the camera took the image.  In the original photograph, half of the woman's face is covered by the camera and her hand.  In my image, I like how you can see more of my face.  I thought about cropping the image further and having it look more like the original image, but I liked the way my arms were positioned and I liked the house in the background to give it a "setting" and not just a fence.  It was taken outside in natural lighting and while I tried to make some adjustments to my hair so that the back wasn't so white, it was difficult.  I did like this final image though.  They class interpreted it as someone looking back at childhood memories.  Some felt it had a "homey feel", while others thought it was a threatening image because of the fence.  They liked the angelic look/memory feel, but thought I should tone down the glow and maybe bring out more blacks.  Another suggestion was to not have the fence in front of the subject.  If I were to use the image in a larger project or series, the class thought more sun-lit images or a what's behind the fence series would be a good idea.  If I were to reprint the image, the class thought a smaller size (4 X 6 or 5 X 7) would be better.