Movie Week Extravaganza

During the Movie Week Extravaganza I viewed One Hour Photo, Manufactured Landscapes and O Brother Where Art Thou? I thoroughly enjoyed all three, along with all the junk food consumed (2 bags of popcorn, a Mars Bar, and one juice box in total, not bad)...

One Hour Photo

One Hour Photo is a fabulous film. My viewing during movie week was not the first viewing I have had; in fact I have now seen the movie 3 times, and every single time that I see it it does not fail to fascinate me. I am a big movie goer and have seen many Robin Williams films (as I am sure many of us have), and still cannot get over what a diverse role he pulls off in this film. The opening monologue on the role of photos in people's lives is quite interesting, my favorite part being:

"Family photos depict smiling faces. Births. Weddings. Holidays. Children's birthday parties. People take pictures of the happy moments in their lives. Someone looking through our photo album would conclude that we had led a joyous, leisurely existence, free of tragedy. Nobody ever takes a photograph of something they want to forget..."

The way that they adjusted the lighting in various situations for Sigh is really neat. When he is working in the photo lab, it is very bright and clean and clear. Shots of Sigh at home sort of have an off tone to them that accentuates the loneliness that he feels. Overall, the movie definitely gives off a creepy feeling! It never really occurs to you that when you take prints to a photo lab, a complete stranger is viewing them. I often wonder what kind of stuff those photo technicians must see in just one day. The movie really incorporated these wonders when there was the fun scene of the crazy cat lady, the new father, and the up and coming porn photographer. One hour photo labs are definitely not something that many of us give much thought to, but after seeing this film it definitely got the wheels spinning in my head.

O Brother, Where Art Thou?

This movie was also great! To be honest the only reason I chose to watch it was because I love George Clooney. I had never been interested in seeing this film, and I am happy that Clooney enticed me into seeing it. The three men traveling together are funny beyond words, and it gives you an interesting glance at what things were like at this time in the United States, during the 1930's. The story line kept me drawn in, and the director of photography definitely knew what he/she was doing. The opening scene of the men working on the rail road is really neat with how it goes from black and white to color, and then you see the three men escaping through the field. The angles that they shot the rail workers at were neat, using silhouettes and implied lines quite a bit. The film was humorous and light while being moving and deep at the same time - something that does not happen too often! I was laughing throughout most of it, and when we were shown the extra about how they created all the edits in the film it gave me a whole new respect for what film makers have to do to create the final product, just like photographer's and our post processing.

Manufactured Landscapes

Manufactured Landscapes really scared the heck out of me. When I chose to watch it, I went in not knowing a thing of what it was about. Although the movie frightened me (and I do mean that it literally did frighten me - almost as much as One Hour Photo but in a different way), I really enjoyed it because global warming / globalization is a huge issue facing our world today, and it also happens to be an issue that fascinates me. In Creative Imaging we had seen a bit of Edward Burtynsky's work before, and I instantly recognized his industrial landscape images in the film. What I found interesting is that the film conveyed two message to me: all of the waste in the world, and the factory workers who create all of the objects sporting the "MADE IN CHINA" tag on them in our Western World. I mean really - the majority of what I own is "MADE IN CHINA". It is something we do not pay a lot of attention to, and that is why when they interview the president of one of these manufacturing companies in China, I feel bad for them. I feel bad because the president had so much pride in the work they do and so many goals, yet we barely give them any recognition. The only recognition that we see in our Western World is the "MADE IN CHINA" tag. Some of the conditions that these workers work in absolutely stunned me - like the young males working in the oil. I found this film extremely effective, and the way in which Burtynsky photographs all of this is beautiful in a very strange way. Since viewing the film, I have been viewing more of his work online and learning more about what he does, because shooting industrial landscapes is something that intrigues me.

DT 13.2 Blogging Non-School-Related Photos

Wow! Can't believe the holiday have already came and gone. I am pretty sure we had roughly 3 weeks away from Prairieview, and it has seemed both long and short. I am happy to be getting back into the swing of things! I had a great holiday, including a trip to Banff. Below I have included some of the highlights...

On the 12th, just a few days into holidays, me and one of my good friends Rita went out for some sushi. We went to my favorite sushi place, "Kenko Sushi" on Corydon! We had a blast, and low and behold I had my camera with me. I took some fun shots in the restaurant using my 1.8 and a high ISO. This is a picture of Rita holding up the chopsticks, featuring the Kenko logo!
I got to catch up with some old friends as well. Lots of my friends go to school out East at McGill and Western University, so it was great to see them all! My friend Paul was wearing a t-shirt featuring Farrah Fawcett. He happened to be lighting up a cigarette, and I thought it would make for a neat candid shot, lighting up Farrah on the t-shirt. We hung out that night at one of my friends apartments and had lots of wine and pizza - it was a blast!
I decided to make a triptych in order to display what I did on this day! This is my friend Rita (once again), and she was going to Latsch Studios to do a photo shoot. It was a pinup shoot, and the photographer who owned the studio was Mike Latsch. I tagged along with her because she was nervous, and I also thought it would be neat to see a studio! Latsch studios is in the exchange district on McDermot. The first image is one I took of the makeup artist in the mirror, getting Rita's make up done! The second is Rita all ready for the shoot. The third I took after we left the shoot (yes I fully took advantage of the hair and makeup that had been done!) We went for a walk in a park afterwards because it was so nice out, and it was fun to get some shots of Rita in the natural light. I did not take any at the actual shoot because it would have been too complicated with the studio lighting and what not to have two cameras going at once, plus I did not want to rain on the other photographer's parade! Once again - it was a blast.
Well, well well... another night of drinking? I suppose this is normal during the holidays! One of my good friends got a brand new tattoo done on her leg, and was wearing fishnets this night. She was carrying her vodka around the kitchen, and I got her to freeze when I saw what an interesting shot this could be! Needless to say, we consumed a fair bit of vodka that night (cosmopolitans, being total girly-girls!) It was really great to have lots of party and chill time with my friends over the break.
After too many nights of partying, I decided it wouldn't hurt to stay in and have a relaxing, alcohol free evening! I wound up hanging out with my sister Sarah and her boyfriend Jordan at my place. We ordered in pizza and watched movies (Shaw on Demand is life changing!) I grabbed this shot when the two of them were deciding which pizza to order in the kitchen.
On the morning of Boxing Day, around 5 a.m., I embarked on a 15 hour road trip (which we did in one day!) to Banff, Alberta. I love to snowboard and party, so I knew this would be a trip worthwhile of a 15 hour drive. I shot this when we were just outside of Brooks, Alberta. The sun was going down and we still had about 4-5 hours ahead of us on the road. I made my friends pull over because I couldn't resist getting a shot of this beautiful sunset.
On one of our first nights in Banff, we visited "The Balkan", a very funky Greek restaurant! A belly dancer danced around the restaurant for about an hour or so, and she was going around the restaurant choosing people to come dance with her. She would use her purple scarf and wrap it around your neck, forcing you to get up and dance! I do realize that the flash is just terrible in this photo (I was using my old point and shoot), but the story behind it is priceless! This is my friend Jessie, who was absolutely terrified that the belly dancer was going to choose her! I decided to capture the moment. The belly dancing was really neat, and we got to smash plates later and everything. Definitely the coolest Greek restaurant I have ever been to!
This photo was taken on December 27th, which happens to be my birthday! Out of the whole 5 days we were there, my birthday had the nicest weather. It was +5 and clear blue skies. We decided to go to Sunshine Village that day, about a 30 minute drive from Banff. This is, obviously, a photo of my friend Jessie! We were at the top of the mountain here, and had just finished a healthy morning birthday breakfast of beer and nachos. We were quite happy indeed. I had to use my point and shoot on the mountain, so the quality is not what I would have liked it to be but hey - that's okay sometimes when it is not school related!!
This was on the 28th, the day after my birthday. You are probably wondering why we are in the town and not on the hill! The answer is simple: big huge ugly almost dying hangover day! Jessie and I finally made it out of the hotel around 1 p.m., and we were on a quest to find greasy food when I took this. I felt guilty for not being on the mountain, so I brought out the SLR to get some shots instead! She was about to kill me here cause we could barely walk due to the inhumane partying of the night before. But the view behind her was too gorgeous to pass up, so I made her stop and let me grab a shot. After this we found Dairy Queen and it cured us. We then spent the day shopping, and I almost got a tattoo on the fly, but then realized this may be a hangover decision, which would not be good. I do not regret my decision to hold off on the tattoo!

There are many more photos from my trip, but I chose one of the last photos taken on the drive home! We climbed into the car on New Year's Day and embarked on our 15 hour drive home. This shot was taken literally 10 minutes into the drive! Good thing Jessie was not supposed to drive for another few hours - she was wiped! I guess it had something to do with going out for New Year's Eve the night before. When I took this photo she totally caught me and woke up right after, telling me to "Put that damn camera away!" Thus, this is one of the last images taken on my holiday.

- LC Murdoch

Karsh: Roman Vishniac, 1971

The Karsh exhibit was great. To see so many of his prints in one day was amazing, and the portrait of Roman Vishniac stood out to me the most. Lots of Karsh's work has lots of darker tones in it (or perhaps it could have just been the lighting in the WAG), so when I came across this portrait of Roman Vishniac (a biologist and photographer), I was very interested. This portrait is heavily backlit, and seemed so bright and unique. The majority of Karsh's portraits show a lot of detail on the person's face that he photographs, and in this portrait he gave his subject a lot more room, filling Vishniac's entire torso in the frame. It was quite refreshing to view a piece that has given the subject more space in the frame. As far as darkroom techniques go, I would assume that he upped the contrast quite a bit and perhaps did some flashing to darken down the sky a tad. A little dodging of Vishniac's face could have been performed as well. Compositionally speaking, the photo is fantastic. I love the use of the silhouette that is symmetrically balanced with the microscope. The backlighting allows this relationship between Vishniac and the microscope to be simple, and creates implied shape. Of course - Vishniac is situated in the upper third of the frame. The only critique I would have of this photo would be the line on the left hand side that is falling behind Vishniac. It is distracting and I'm not too sure as to what it is - a building? I guess with modern photoshop techniques this could be erased, which I think would further help to support the symmetry in the frame. I'm not sure how you would get rid of the building with a dark room technique - perhaps a ton of dodging? No idea. Despite the distracting building, Karsh's darkroom techniques and skill with great composition created one of my favorite portraits in Karsh's collection.

Link:

http://images.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=http://cybermuse.gallery.ca/cybermuse/servlet/imageserver%3Fsrc%3DWI036546%26ext%3Dx.jpg&imgrefurl=http://cybermuse.gallery.ca/cybermuse/search/artist_work_f.jsp%3Fiartistid%3D2833&usg=__XcVDaNqG7RGlG72N5QSF5gmA8ss=&h=110&w=82&sz=5&hl=en&start=10&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=ixzML1IsnVmJRM:&tbnh=85&tbnw=63&prev=/images%3Fq%3DYousuf%2BKarsh%2Bportrait%2BRoman%2BVishniac%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG%26um%3D1

- LC Murdoch

Colour Block: Our Response to Colour

I had a lot of fun with this assignment! It really makes you realize how many colours are present in our world, and how easy it is to find them. I came across a lot of great colours and was able to make them work with interesting content as well. I think many people (myself included), never really think about colours and their connection to our human emotions.

Magenta (Pink): My pink image is one of my favorites in this collection of colours. I find that it makes the drummer more mysterious. I feel 'mystified' when looking at the image, and kind of 'mellow' in a way. My objective viewer (my dad) felt 'smooth', 'mellow', and 'mystery'.

Green: When I look at my green image, it makes me feel youthful, and I want to get up and go for a run. The green is punchy and the more subtle green on the wall behind it neutralizes things and is more nature like. It was interesting when showing this to my dad because he said the green was making him feel youthful and energetic (yay!), and that the adverse/aggressive stance of the person conflicted with that youthful feeling he felt. I never noticed that before he mentioned it, so that was interesting. I feel that this strong stance would be neat to do with the colour red.

Violet (Purple): Violet was fun! This is my other favorite image. My image is more on the purple side than violet. Strangely enough, the image makes me feel youthful - perhaps because DC Shoes are associated with youth a lot of the time. Although I feel youth from looking at it, it is also very rich in colour which makes me feel grounded along with that vibrant, uplifting feeling of youth. The positioning of the shoes has a youthful feel to it as well. My dad felt a feeling of 'jazz', 'tappy', and youth. He said this while he started dancing around the room!

Red: First and foremost, my red image gives me a feeling of tension. I feel an urge to get up and run, and I most definitely do not feel so mellow as I did when viewing my magenta image (I found this surprising since I always consider red and pink to be so similar). My dad felt a feeling of (quote on quote) "get the hell outta here". He said he felt panic and action.

Similarity Colour Relationship: I love the relationship between red and yellow. They are very powerful together. The red makes me feel tense once again, and the yellow helps to 'lighten up' the image, and give a sense of joy and happiness and lightness. They look great together. My dad felt nostalgic (this is probably because of the vinyl), and said that for him the photo was more about the nostalgia of the vinyl, and that the colours did not really matter so much. So I asked my sister, and she said it made her feel happy and vibrant.

Complimentary Colour Relationship: My complimentary relationship was red and green. Obviously I thought going into shooting it that it would just make me feel like Christmas! Looking at my image I do not feel Christmas though. I actually feel tranquil, but not too tranquil. The green is a fairly light green and takes the heaviness away from the red in the back of the scene. I really like the placement of the colours, and find it would not have such an effective feeling of tranquility if the red were in front. It seems to make sense to have such a heavy colour in the back, and the lighter green upfront in the photo. Red and green really do work well together, and do not always have to be associated with Christmas. My dad felt mellow from the photo, and 'bluesy' (kind of ironic that he felt the blues from green and red, huh?).

All in all, I am going to consider colours much more in my future images, and how they relate to my subject. They will go hand in hand with my knowledge of metaphors, and how to create accuracy in the message I am trying to portray to the viewers of my photos.

LC Murdoch

Yousuf Karsh

Yousuf Karsh is who I chose as my photographic hero. After spending some time in the dark room, it is a different experience looking at black and white photography. When observing Karsh's photography now, I recognize a difference in contrasts between his photos from a technical standpoint. I seem to understand how he made a photo look the way it did by not only his composition and lighting at the time of the photo, but the post processing in the dark room as well.

As we all know, Karsh is a master of portraits. He adjusts his style, contrast, and cropping according to what type of person he is photographing, and this is a big part of why he has such success in his portraiture. Style and contrast and composition all go hand in hand. Karsh's style in portraiture is his ability to tell a story to the viewer and introduce whomever he is photographing to you very effectively. Therefore, when shooting a figure such as Audrey Hepburn as a pose to Winston Churchill, Karsh applies heavy or light contrast to tell his story effectively.

A heavy contrast in this photo has emphasized the femininity of Hepburn. Her cheek bones are highlighted, and the crisp blacks and white provide for a clean prolific shot. Although the composition of the photo places the subject in the middle, putting Hepburn's head in the top third balances things, along with the the symmetrical placement of her upper body that form a shape reminiscent of a triangle.

For Winston Churchill, Karsh used a low contrast. This low contrast provides for a gray, hazy background that makes Winston in his black suit a strong point of the photo, in the middle. The rule of thirds is also used in this photo - placing Winston's head in the top right corner. The low contrast emphasizes the shadows on his face, giving a sense of power and importance. Karsh also decided not to crop Winston too short - the stature of the man in his expensive suit allows the viewer to understand (even if they do not know who the subject is) a sense of how important this man is.
When photographing Albert Einstein, Karsh framed in pretty tight around the head and shoulders, because Einstein is a man of intelligence, therefore his head would quite naturally be the most important part of a portrait taken of him. A high level of contrast is used here to emphasize a sense of wisdom through all the lines on Einstein's face, especially around the eyes. If the contrast had been low, it would of given more of a mysterious and important effect like Churchill's photo. This would not have been effective at all - Karsh wanted to highlight the wisdom in Einstein's face, and the sharp contrast of the lines and shape of his face project a great sense of knowledge about the man, and the discoveries he made. Once again, a rule of thirds has been used.

These portraits, in my opinion, are extremely effective. In fact, all of the portraits I have viewed that have been photographed by Karsh are amazinh. I chose Hepburn, Churchill, and Einstein because they are some of the most powerful people that Karsh did photograph. They are also diverse, and Karsh was able to photograph them all in a unique way. With Hepburn her femininity and class had to be highlighted. Churchill's power and importance had to be highlighted. And Einstein's knowledge and intelligence had to be highlighted. All of these require different technique and composition, so it was interesting to further look at how this was achieved from a technical standpoint. For doing this assignment, I figured choosing three very diverse portraits would really give me a good idea of what goes behind the success Karsh has when photographing people.

- Laura Murdoch

Creative Imaging : Composition At Home

Hello everyone,

Back again to report about my adventures with yet another creative imaging assignment. Below I have included my top 6 shots depicting a certain design element in each. Along with each photo, I have included a short description as to what I struggled with with that particular design element. If you do not want to go into too much detail, you can read my brief description (directly below) of my experiences with the assignment.

MY EXPERIENCE WITH COMPOSITION AT HOME

I am not good with boundaries. I struggled with this assignment as much as I did with our '100 Creative Ways' assignment last week. I am happy with my final images, yet I doubt how clear and concise my design elements are when portrayed in most of my 84 images. I feel so confined in my house, and therefore get panicked, and the whole 'being at ease' and 'letting go of self' before photographing sort of goes out the window. This is not something I am learning to do easily but with time and many more of these assignments I'm sure I will both

A) Be a pro with limited area and design elements

B) Go mad in the process!

I like to be challenged, and I really do hope to get better at this. I may even start doing my own challenges, like confining myself to one area of a park while shooting or shooting one subject 100 ways once again. Despite the issue of confinement, I feel a little hazy about how to distinguish between all of design elements. Line, shape, and form all seem to fall under one area for me, and I get frustrated trying to find the proper composition while still incorporating the design element I need - all to make one final great photo. I will just have to keep shooting and pushing limits with myself.

DEPTH

This is my image for the design element depth. I approached depth by using the 'sharpness/depth of field perspective'. I compressed my space between this vase and it's background by using a telephoto lens and a low F stop. The compression of space has created a very sharp subject and intriguing short depth of field.

SYMMETRICAL BALANCE

This is my image depicting symmetrical balance. I think it is quite self explanatory as to why I chose this as my top image for this design element. The windows are symmetrical, and the range of tones surround the outside of the windows along with the dark tone in the middle of the two draws the eye in quite effectively.

TEXTURE

This is my image for the design element texture. It is of a grapefruit and orange, and even though it is somewhat soft of a texture, it's quite apparent, especially in the grapefruit.

PATTERN/RHYTHM

This is my image for the design element pattern or rhythm. I think it is fairly self explanatory why this is a pattern and somewhat rhythmic photo. The rich color of the table cloth make the pattern quite distinct and 'easy on the eye'. I also sense a bit of rhythm due to the rolls of the table cloth as your eye is drawn to the right.

SHAPE/FORM

This is my best image for shape or form. Although I took quite a few shape/form images, because I understand shape/form, this one stood out the most. The glasses have a great texture to them, and your eye is not distracted to the background because of the low F stop I used. This was taken with a telephoto lens. I suppose these shapes are more of a form because they are modeled somewhat dimensional.

LINE

Here is my image for the design element, 'line'. I decided to use this image for line because, well, there are very distinct lines in the image. Not only are the lines distinct and intriguing to the eye, but there are two tones (the paint) in the image as well, that meet. Edges are implied in the distinct corners of the four windows and wherever the walls meet. I feel this is a very strong depiction of the use of lines in composition. I do also recognize there are hints of rhythm and symmetrical balance, but lines are the most dominant due to the two shapes, tones, and colors that meet very distinctively in the photo.

Til later,

LC Murdoch

Dan the Man

This is the slideshow from our DT Practical Quiz today. My partner was Dan, and these are the shots...