charlottesville grid project

Mr. David Dupont plays his harmonica for loose change outside the Jefferson Theater. He later tells me, "Many people have taken pictures of me, but nobody has asked me for a release form before."

Micayle Marie (on the left) and Adele Sams (on the right) sit on the mall and play their instruments merrily.

Mr. James Rippetoe and his two dogs walk along the downtown mall in Charlottesville on April 15, 2012.

advertisements

For photography class, we had to advertise something. So I advertised apples, because they are the most delicious food in the entire world.

the arboretum

I went to an arboretum several weeks ago. During the golden hour, the trees looked truly majestic. As evening fell, the silhouettes of the many trees looked eerily beautiful.

portraiture

Several weeks ago, I went on a field trip for my photography class.

 Here is a self-portrait of myself.

 And here is a picture of a small infant I met on the mall, along with his mother.

 Here is a portrait of an older man, who was kind enough to let all of the photography students take pictures of him.

 Here is a posed portrait of one of the girls in my photography group. She is an excellent model!

 

 And here is a semi-candid portrait of a girl in my photography group taking a picture of another girl in my photography group.

 

Finally, an "artistic" masterpiece.

sergei mikhailovich prokudin-gorski

Here is a picture by this illustrious pioneer in color photography:

Notice the combination of three different pictures taken through three different colored photographic filters to achieve the color. Each small movement in either the camera or the subjects would create a "ghost" image in a bright color around the true image. In addition, the slight tilts of the camera allowed the overlay to have some slight irregularities, and create even further "ghost" images. The movement of the children, and the ghost images produced by such movement, show the passage of time in these photographs.

I attempted to imitate this photographic technique by taking three successive photographs of the same subject, then combining their different channels into one picture. This is basically the digital counterpart of G-n. Prokudin-Gorski's analog technique from a century ago.

My attempt is here:

Once again, the different "ghosted" images provide a sense of the passage of time. In addition, the grass continues to retain a semblance of its original coloration. Although I had cropped this image, if the picture had remained uncropped, it would have shown the characteristic colorful borders created by the different overlaps of overlay.

motion

These are several photos of my pet rabbits.

I was able to use freeze motion to capture the actions of my pets. They moved quite quickly and were quite difficult to capture. I was also able to pan, with varying amounts of effectiveness and success. By freezing their action, I was able to show the movement of the rabbit's legs as they jumped. Slower shutter speeds were able to show the motion of the jumping rabbit's legs and show how his legs move through his jump. The blurs created a feeling of motion as well.

still lives

These are several photos of miniaturized toy animals that I have had since I was very young.

I found that using an extremely shallow depth of field was best for my photos. This was because it allowed for the quickest shutter speeds and helped to achieve correct exposure in the photos while minimizing blur. I took most of these photographs while the sun was setting and was only able to correctly expose the pictures by taking a lamp and shining it directly onto the subjects. The shallow depth of field affected the photos by bringing attention to the parts of the photo in focus. The juxtaposition of focus and blur create an interesting effect, perhaps one of antiquity and nostalgia. Maybe that is just what I feel, because these old toys of mine create a feeling of nostalgia for myself. I was able to change the depth of field in the pictures and assignment by changing the aperture, focal length, and distance from the subject. However, since I was mainly photographing very small things, I was often either quite close to my subject or extremely zoomed in.