Week 11 BOC: Self Portrait

 

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My self-portrait depicts how I feel from time to time about myself and how life is going for me at the moment. One point of view of myself is calm, life in black and white, nothing out of the ordinary and everything in its place. This is the persona I present to the world, a false face so nobody can see the turmoil and the chaotic mess that is my inner self. The inner me, the hidden side of my life is like a described. Chaotic and in turmoil, I am bathed in the blood of my youth and possibly the blood of my future. I am on uncertain ground with no heading or direction. Blood is the only companion I have to keep me company, its all I can recall rom my youth. Without it I would be even more lost and directionless because the pain of the past is what makes me the individual I am today. I am creative and visual oriented because it was my only way to escape the harsh reality of a troubled youth. I would imagine scenes and act like I was taking pictures until I was able to buy a camera and then I actually took the pictures.

The first half of this photograph was taken in studio with me sitting in a chair and the camera positioned over me shoulder while I am looking into a stand up mirror. The second half was taken on some railroad tracks, with me on my knees and the camera facing me as an assistant poured fake blood over my head to show my inner trauma.  Only an on camera flash was used for the railroad shot and a single strobe key light with a 24” softbox was used to get the low key lighting of the studio.

 

Week 10 EOC: Things I have yet to do

For my final project for Business of Photography class, I still need to do the following to be certain it is complete and turned in on time.
 Here goes, I need to:

• Need to make a Fax Page
• Need to make a Letter Head
• Need to make an entire page of business cards, not just my single ones I use
• Need to make sure all my tweets and up to date, currently they are
• Need to make sure I got all my quotes in place
• Buy more paper holders to display work
• Print all blog photo challenges in color
• Make sure all my blogs are approximately 300 words each
• Make sure I show up to class that day 
• Make sure I bring my portfolio for review and grading

This is pretty much the remainder of what I have to do to finish my project. As long as I keep at it, it is still manageable and I wont fall behind but if I goof off any, I might be in the hurt box for sure. Just need to do a little bit each day before next Monday and it should be easy.

BOC Photo Challenge: Fashion

I took this image of a model I use on a regular basis. I lovingly refer to her as my Muse and count her as a friend. Her name is Vynnie C. and she is a very smart woman, who originally made to our Country from Cuba on a raft as a child. I took this image in studio using a seamless backdrop of grey. I used two strobe lights, one key light from the left and the fill from the right. I was going for a darker moody look but not to dark. I asked that she do her makeup dark and bring dark outfits to wear. Vynnie is a Cheerleader and knows how to move and twist her body to make herself look more desirable than I have found most models are able to do, as demonstrated in this image. Vynnie is always willing to help me out and hasn't told me "no" yet to a crazy idea for a shoot or when to shoot. She has gone beyond the call of duty to help me and I think because of that, we have never had a "bad shoot" where neither of us walked away with nothing we like. Its usually the opposite, where we have to much to choose from.

Week 8 EOC: Bang Bang Club

“There was lots of outgoing fire,” he said. “No one tells you how dramatic massive amounts of machine gun fire is. In photos you just see the puff from the barrel. But when you are there, it’s incredibly shocking and dramatic. I realized that, as someone who was very green, I could not handle the outgoing, much less the incoming. So I decided it was best to leave it to the guys who know what they are doing. I thought, ‘I should leave this to someone with insurance and a guarantee to publish the pics.’ As a freelancer, I just could not do it.” (http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/25/young-in-libya/, Ty Cacek)

I found the movie “The Bang Bang Club” to be exceptionally well done. The being based on a true story, made it even better for me. The movie was able to portray the true-life experiences of four combat photographers capturing the final days of apartheid in South Africa. From the highs of winning three Pulitzer Prizes to the lows of a suicide and a murder amongst the group. The movie stays on focus showing you how harrowing the life of a Conflict Photographer could be.

"It's a very intimate thing," said Lyon. "What we're talking about here, in essence, is a relationship — a relationship with danger, a relationship with death, in some cases. A relationship with adrenaline. A relationship with intensity of experience. (http://www.npr.org/blogs/pictureshow/2011/05/09/136053477/the-perilous-job-of-conflict-photography, Santiago Lyon is director of photography for The Associated Press)

Being that I have been in situations where I have shot at and experiences from growing, I think I could actually work as a Conflict Photographer. In fact it actually has stirred an interest and I will investigate the possibilities in the near future with my graduation coming up. I would do it for the sake of bring the news and conflict to the people, you can keep the awards, well maybe not the award money.

"Breaking News Photography, previously called Spot News Photography – for a distinguished example of breaking news photography in black and white or color, which may consist of a photograph or photographs, a sequence, or an album." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulitzer_Prize)

Week 8 Photo Challenge: Conflict Photo

 My interpretation for this weeks photo challenge was going to look at lot like this photograph actually. I was going to take a photo of my profile shooting with my camera and wearing a baseball cap with the bill forward. I was then going to merge it with a photograph of some sort of conflict so I would give the impression that I was actually in the middle of the action on assignment for some News Agency.          

Week 7 Photo Challenge: Gentlemen's Relish

I took this photograph in studio. I used approximately (1) key light for this picture. I put the key light on 1200w and placed it the right of the model and had her face in that direction. I was going for a low key, moody feeling with this picture so I made it dark on purpose. I had the model place her hand under her chin as if in thought or possibly day dreaming of another as she slowly start to remove the dress she was wearing, uncovering a single breast in the process. Besides the dark moody light, the pose was supposed to help show an intimate moment in her life.

Week 7 EOC: Adult Content

I have never really had much of an opinion of adult content in art other than what I view as being artistic (appropriate) and the other just being pornographic (inappropriate) in nature. I know one view of adult content by most people is that it is content, such as pornography or violence, which is not generally thought to be appropriate for viewing by children. This would include such things as Hustler magazine, XXX videos, and anything else that shows gratuities sex scenes or gratuities amounts of male or female genitals. Think Playboy vs. Hustler magazine. Playboy would be considered, in my opinion, more artistic in nature due to the way the images are taken. The composition, the lighting and how the images are edited in post all suggest art, an appreciation for the female form and its body. Where you take something like Hustler and explicit imaging of models genitals and acts of an intimate nature between a man and woman just for the sake of it, with no artistic approach or value to it. This I consider inappropriate for art and don’t see value to it. To each their own I guess but some things should just be left for ones private life and the other to be celebrated and appreciated like true art should be.

Now when it comes to my work, I will do nudes but I do them with a purpose or a theme. Not just to do a nude, without rhyme or reason other than to see a pair of breasts. We are all adults and should behave and act as such while working. As a habit, also generally do not take full nudes, usually just implied nudes and topless, since I feel it is easier to justify why I want such poses from my models. Models I work with are made aware of this and I usually receive more respect and cooperation from models after they find out my view on adult content and that I am not  just being another pervert with a camera.