Photo 1: High-Contrast
I'm not going to lie. I woke up this morning and 100% regretted my decision about printing this image for my final four. Maybe it was the printer, maybe it was my own inadequacy, but the darks seemed dwarfing and the highlights seemed blown out. The crit made me feel a little better about it, however. The image wasn't interpreted as a narrative, but as a tense moment between two people. I like to believe the viewer can step into the moment with whatever pretense they like. The group thought that it worked as a smaller, intimate photo rather than blown up like the others. They also mentioned that the blown out highlights help to abstract. I'd suppose it might, but I feel like it kills the mood I was going for. I'm not sure this image has much potential for a jumping off point, unless I used light (or rather lack-there-of) to continually abstract my subject. For now, I don't think the piece is portfolio worthy, though if I put a little bit more color in and decreased the contrast, it might be there.
Photo 2: Sushi Delivery
The reaction to this was different than I necessarily expected. I intended for the photo to show the rush, stress, and annoyance in jobs in the food industry. Instead, I got comments that he seemed to be taking to sushi to eat, and the blur in the background was reminiscent of nausea. The group agreed that the motion blur helped to bring focus to the subject, but I should have been tighter with the mask. The subject was left with a small halo effect, and no matter how subtle, I'm not sure I want that in my photo. If this was a jumping-off point, I'd be interested in snapping the same subject in various locations, but I don't think the theme is deep enough to warrant different delivery boys. Minus the slight halo effect, this is my favorite image from the assignment, and I'd consider it about ready for the portfolio.
Photo 3: Four-Armed Piano
I didn't change too much about this image since the computer critique, but I did blur out the face. I really wanted the focus to be on the weirdness surrounding the hands. The ground received this pretty well as a conceptual choice, but questioned my application of it. I distorted the face with a flat blur, but left the shoulders and similar parts of the same distance in focus. Although I didn't notice at first, it makes the photo to obviously manipulated for my taste, a likely solution would be to redo my editing with a radial blur, leaving the shoulders a little blurred, yet not as much as the face, giving a more realistic sense of space. I received a lot of positive feedback about turning this piece into a series, with all kinds of tasks being done with four hands. It would have to be done classily, but I think it could be rather successful if done right. Overall, the piano piece gets a check plus for my portfolio.
Photo 4: Morning Light
This was several people's favorite photo, which I find a little weird. I do like the photo, but I wouldn't consider it my best. Maybe I forgot to embed the color profile, but the photograph did print much darker and less yellow than I intended. Also, when printing, we messed up a few prints that turned out almost cooler than the original. The ink didn't spread proportionately, and I got some weird horizontal lines that matched the blinds in the composition. Hm, this particular response is turning out much more negative than I intended. Perhaps a little bit less contrast and a reprint is all I really need to get this ready for a portfolio. Hell, maybe I'll reshoot from a million and one other angles.
No comments:
Post a Comment