Photo1Q4.30: Pre-ITSO Photographer Research

"Tears", Man Ray / 1932

I love how close this portrait is, and the diverse array of messages that it can give off. On one hand, one can simply interpret it to just be "crying". On the other hand, analyzing it further, the photo could be interpreted by the tears themselves. They're actually glass tears, and they're so perfectly shaped that it must mean something more. I personally interpret it to mean something along the lines of faking something for the sake of someone else to pity you. It's definitely a possible message in the photo since she does appear to be looking up and to the left, showing that she's crying to something or someone "above" her.

"Portrait of Ghana", Paul Strand / 1960

Much like Ray's photo, Strand's photo of this woman with books on top of her head likely has some historical significance. I know that apartheid was prevelant in South Africa, and the same could've been said about Ghana, though, I have no background knowledge on this. Still, it's a very nice photo.

Unknown, Robert Doisneau / Unknown

The ghostly "after-image" of this photo appears to be the work of a double exposure (?) or use of 2nd curtain photography (?). I thought that this photo was especially intriguing when I searched up Doisneau's name, so this has potential to be the photo that I'd like to recreate.

Self Portrait, Robert Mapplethorpe / 1983

The extremely weird pose of Mapplethorpe is so interesting that I couldn't not include this photo. I'm not sure what exactly was the context behind this photo, but I definitely get David Bowie-type vibes from this photo. Very unique.

American Gothic, Gordon Parks / 1942

Definitely in relation to civil rights, Parks' photo has quite the composition to it that I can't quite grasp in words effectively. Perhaps its the rule of thirds, but it's offset somewhat so that it doesn't "follow the rules"... it's a nice photo.

Immortal Marilyn / John Vachon / 1962 (?)

Marilyn Monroe is in quite a lot of photos and was arguably the face of fashion during her era. I like this photo because it captures a true version of Monroe--a candid version of Monroe. In addition, candid photography is what appeals me the most and is what I seek to photograph in the future. Great photo.

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Photo1Q4.29: Group Album Cover Art ITSO iSpy

Thumbnail only; not the final image

The group album cover art project that we were inspired to do ours in the style of was of iSpy, by KYLE featuring Lil Yachty. We intended on doing one of the succeeding ones, though, we believed that this was a better balance of difficulty and ease as some of our previous selections were either too challenging or too simple. They include Anderson .Paak, Bryson Tiller, Rich Brian, and Childish Gambino. Our backups just in case the iSpy cover was too easy included BROCKHAMPTON, Dreamville, and J. Cole.

We thought the number of elements in this was too complicated given the time frame, but I know that this would've been incredibly fun to attempt.

This likely would've been one of our backups.

Very simple as it does just appear to be two gels and a simple portrait, but I doubt anyone in our group could capture the red eyes look without any illegal substances haha

Very simple as well. I feel that the under-exposed look of this is too dark for my liking however.

Our first alternate.

Our second alternate.

Our third alternate.

To preface this, our group wasn't necessarily split into a specific role as everyone helped out with different things along the way, but here is what everyone in our group did: Coby (me) was the co-director/set designer, Eldon helped with BTS photos as well as holding up the flash for some of our early photos, Rylen was unfortunately sick, Noah helped me out with designing the "set" (cutting out iSpy better than my left handed cutting ever could) and posed in the final photo, and Kris also assisted with setting up the light and gathering materials for the project (the chain is from him). I contributed the jacket and shirt, though I basically wore it for the final anyways so in reality I just contributed to the final photo and organizing the photos for the group.

The album cover art was selected pretty interestingly. We were very indecisive of which one to select since we all had different tastes. I personally wanted to do Blonde by Frank Ocean but that requires much more extensive work beyond this group project that I probably will want to do on my own someday. We settled on Anderson .Paak, but quickly realized that his art for his single "Am I Wrong" proved too difficult in terms of supplies. Because it was asked in the rubric that we recreate even the text and graphics, I was most worried about those elements and how we would incorporate it into the final product. Thus, We finally selected iSpy, which had a minimal design but quite a few possibilities as to what we could potentially do to achieve a similar look to it.

Final

Just for fun, I made an artificial version of it

Compared to the original album cover, I don't think we did too bad on copying it. Obviously the shadow of my face is the most painstaking part of the final photo, and the silhouette lighting work of the original far surpasses that of ours, but it wasn't that bad given how the frugality of our items.

I appreciated the chain and Noah's willingness to wear his shirt backwards. You don't realize it until you really look at his sweater, but it's on backwards, and I thought that it made this photo a lot better. The way the blue falls on the sweater is pretty intriguing as well. The pose was also crucial to get it at least somewhat similar to the original, and I think we did an okay job. It's not exactly how I expected it to turn out, but hey; almost nothing turns out expectedly when it comes to my art.

After completing the group collaborative work, I do feel more prepared for the personal ITSO. I was aware that composition is highly key to your photo, and looking on to some of the photos I wanted to recreate for the next project, that will probably be a main focus before everything else in the photo (props, pose, expression, context clues, etc.).

Working independently, I think the biggest challenge will definitely be finding a subject that really matches what I want to go for. I have a couple people in mind, however, that I'd like to use for the personal ITSO project.

BTS Photos:

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Photo1Q4.28: Doing Things

Oh no, it's allergy seaso--ACHOO!

When you see your homies at work

When your boss says he'll give you a raise if you listen to his presentation

For the above group images, I worked with Eldon, Rylen, Kris, and Noah. To achieve the expressions to match with the person acting it out, we had to think more about what exactly the person is doing with the rest of their body, and the context clues in the photo that were needed to help make the image's message obvious and clear. For our photos, context clues were a main focus. A tissue, a sign, and a computer, for example, were needed to make our photos more sensible.

A mid-life crisis

When mom calls you for dinner but you're still gaming

As one can tell, it worked a lot better when you have a group to use and manipulate. Paired with unfortunate timing, my individual results were pretty subpar. At school I was able to produce more creative results while at-home, I was less successful.

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Photo1Q4.27: Q4 Photo Goals

Overall, up to this point, I believe that my skills in terms of camera control are still at the same level. I feel that I've reached a ceiling in terms of camera control since I work all the time in manual. Though, of course, there are definitely different things that I could add on and learn about such as 2nd curtain photography or color profiles. If anything, I think that my camera body should be upgraded in order to further my knowledge in photography without using old technology (my current camera body is 3 years old).

Taking creative risks and challenging myself artistically was definitely a bit of a struggle last quarter, so I hope to immensely further these skills instead of staying in my shell of photography. That means discovering different avenues of stories to tell, ways to tell it, and working with different people in order to transcend challenging myself artistically.

Knowing that this quarter will be spent on creative expression and self-portraits, I feel that this will be my "make it or break it" moment. The entire school year has led up to this point, and this is the type of photography I'm best in. But in order to prove to myself that I have a place in this avenue of photography, I need to integrate effective storytelling into my self portraits a lot more and rely much less on candid shots that I usually am used to taking. I hope to finish off this year strong.

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