Artist Statement

Over the several past months we have been working with photoshop and learning the new tools. This is the work that we have completed in digital photography 1-2 since the first day. The photographs that will be found in my digital photography portfolio are Compositional trick #1: Rule of Thirds, Compositional trick #2: Leading Lines, Compositional trick #3: Macro, Compositional trick #4 Extreme Angles, Compositional trick #5: Cropping, Contact Sheet, Self Portrait, Adjustment Layer, Creative Me, The Scream: My Interpretation, Scary Expressions, Critique: Parke Harrison’s “Guardian”, Haunted Chavez, Social Issue, and last but not least Lyrics.
I feel as if I’m satisfied on how my entire photography portfolio came out. I met all the requirements and I have finished all of the photography assignment. The photo that I am most proud of is my lyric because I took my time and I really worked very hard on it. The assignment that I struggled a lot on is the Haunted Chavez. I struggled on that assignment because I couldn’t find any other person than my partner to be a zombie. Overall, I know I could have made a little more changes with most of my assignments. What I learned on this class on this semester is how to use most of all photoshop. Before this class I have never heard of photoshop but I’m glad I did

Lyrics

The lyrics I chose for this project is Shoot Me Down by Lil Wayne. I chose these lyrics because they are uplifting and they never bore me. I can listen to this song and or read these lyrics and I can never get tired of reading them. Another reason why I chose this song is this is my favorite song that can put a smile on my face everytime I listen to it. Here are the lyrics for the song that I chose.

Open up your heats people. page 1 chapter 1 verse 1yeah uh huh I’m drinking hot tea feel me yeah if you let me, you wont regret me, if you let me you wont forget me. Remember and if you don’t then mind that, hold up pop pop there’s a reminder. I aint kind of hot I’m sauna I sweat money and the bank is my shower ha-ha and that pistol is my towel so stop sweating me coward and I would die for ours ride for ours supply the flowers now the is history in the making so shut up and let me make it please don’t shoot me down cause I’m flying I’m flying I’m high up please don’t shoot me down cause I’m flying I’m high up(this tea is at a real good temperature right now. so am I. I spit Alcatraz bars and I know and d-boys are the only alphabet boys i know got a 3-80 on my waist on Rambo at home, no more bandana on my dome bandana on my left pocket. I’m grown so forget what you on now watch me stand on the world as I sit on a throne and if I jump I’m a fly and look into the eagles eye and see I am nothing like you. Why? Just see. It gets me how nothing gets me or gets to me and if you shooting for the stars than just shoot me but your bullets don’t reach mars pause. Clause because I’m a beast I’m a dog I’m a getcha my picture should be in the dictionary next to the definition of definition because repetion is the father of learning. Homie I know you barrel burning but please don’t shoot me down cause I’m flying I’m flying I’m high up please don’t me down cause I’m flying I’m high up.

Social Issue

This photograph is about the life of abused girls that have been abused through out their boyfriends and lives. Abuse affects me in life because most girls are powerless and they are scared or maybe even petrafied to tell someone else about their abusive boyfriends, maybe because they do not want to get hurt to the worst. Many girls intend to let their boyfriend hit them and take control of them in the worst way.

I chose this statement because of the girls who get abuse and are fed up to the fullest with being abused and to just say its enough. i chose this picture because it is a perfect example and pose of a real life situation about an abusive boyfriend and powerless girlfriend.

Haunted Chavez

This project is about the highschool that i am attending and making it look like a horror picture. My initial idea was to make the picture look as if i am running from zombies for my very life. For my initial idea I wanted to make the zombies with a little more of a scary look and to have a group of zombies like women, boys and girls to be chasing me and to have them all look as if they were running also. I had many difficulties but one of them were getting more people involved to be zombies I had no one to ask. Another difficulty problem that i had was making the shadows look like real shadows. Some problems that i faced was making the scene more darker and scary like, I solved those problems by making the tons of layers with black and by taking the eraser and erasing spots out of each one. I believe I did well on the composition on Where I was standing in the picture and where the zombies were placed. My overall thought on this project was good I believe I did a very good job on this project.

Critique: Parkeharrison's "Guardian"

There is a man standing on the bark of a dead lest tree. He looks down as if he is almost in perfect balance. He looks as if he’s trying to be perfectly still so that he can pretend as if he were a tree. The ground is a dark pitch forest but he is the only “tree” still standing in the gloomy grayish sky’s that look like ash. The photograph seems a bit boring because it is in the dead center. And he does not really make the emphasis that strong. With the twigs that he is holding it shows that he is trying to be a tree.

Scary Expressions

When I look at the zombie picture it makes me think of the scariest thing that I have ever seen in my life. i thought that i look like as if I were in a video game graphics on the blood the way it is spread out throught my face and clothing. The zombie picture also remindes me of the video games because of my big eyes and my big mouth and the way that they are rotated.

When i look at the ghost picture it remindes me of a peacefull little wonderful place can be as scary as ever for instence look at the expression on my face it looks so peacefull and non scary.This picture remindes me that many peacefull and quite places cannot be so peacfull as you believe.

When i look at this picture it looks as if im turning into somekind of hideous beast. I look angry and like as if im going to go nuts. If you look closely into my eyes can see very clearly that my pupils are facing opposite directions so that i can have a funny look in my eye.

The Scream: My Interpretation

The reason why I think he is screaming is that he witness something really bad and that thing that he saw is still haunting him till this day. He probably saw one of his close friends or maybe even family relative probably drowned or had slipped and fell into the water, Because of the water and the sad mood that this artist had painted. Another reason why I think that the artists painted someone screaming is probably someone that he is close to got in a car accident and he couldn’t do anything to help.

Creative Me

This project was an opportunity for us to put the tools we have learned to use. We were to take one of our portraits, and change it creatively using the following: selection tools, layers, adjustment layers, layer styles, blending options, paint brushes and opacity.



The tool that I liked the most on working on the Creative Me project was the magic wand because you can choose alot of selected items at once. What i like about my image is how i did the brick wall in the far left and i also dimmed the sky to a darker red for a more dramatic look. I feel like my confidence have improved in the knowledge in photoshop but this is just the begginig their is much more to learn!

Adjustment Layers

In this exercise we learned about Adjustment layers. Adjustment layers allow you to add adjustments to your image on separate layers instead of directly to the image itself. This comes in handy during long complicated projects. In Photoshop every tool is specifically designed to help improve your photo. However, here we took some artistic liberties and explored adjustments creatively.

Self Portraits

For our Self-Portrait project we were to take three self-portraits. They were all to be in black and white, and they were all to capture a mood of some sort. We were also challenged to be as artistic as possible, and stay as far away from normal, cliche portraits that we see on personal pages etc. as possible.One had to use the rule of thirds as the base for the composition; One had to incorporate leading lines, and one had to be taken from a more extreme angle.

The picture that I thought was most succesful was the extreme angle because it captures this mood like as if Im going some where. The thing that I would of done better or different was take alot more time and be more patient about taking the Rule of Thirds picture. Throught the whole time spent on taking these 3 pictures it was very hard because the photographer did not really understand on the mood I was looking for. Overall, I believe that i done okay on these three self portraits.

Contact Sheet

Overall, my contact sheet came out very nice i liked how the black and grays came out in the bright reds. The thing that I did well was the macro because i really brought out the colors and the texture on the candy wraper. What i think I could of done better was to pick a different place to put the extreme angle shot because it is too close to the crop picture which is the same thing.

Compositional Trick #5 Cropping

Cropping is a trick that photographers do all the time, even if they don't realize it. Every time a photographer chooses to cut something out of his/her frame, before they snap the photo, that is in essence cropping. We also have learned tools on Photoshop that allow us to crop an image after we have taken it. When cropping in Photoshop it is possible to improve our composition or change it completely.

I changed my composition from my original one to this one because i was able to crop out some backgrounds that i disliked in my photo. I like the original one because it has way more better lighting than the croped one. The two different ways that i used to crop was using the marching ants grid and croping out a selected part of my photo.

Compositional Trick #4 Extreme Angles

The thing that i liked about taking this picture was how I got a cool pattern on his shoes and his shirt. I also like how his mood is serious and not so happy or sad. The thing that could of made my picture better was to choose a different background because it makes the mood look a little less boring. What also could of made the picture better was to bring out the lighting on my partners face. Extreme angles take photography to a whole new level because of the shape and positioned of the model. Extreme angle makes a simple lame snapshot into a batter snapshot and even into a photograph.

Compositional Trick #3 Macro

The Macro function on the camera is showing the texture of something really close up. It brings out outrageous colors that the viewer have probably never seen before. Macro is a good compositional trick because it shows how something is well shaped and well colored. The macro function is good to use when the viewer wants to take a picture of something specific like an insect, candy wraper, or even a flower to see the extreme colors or shapes. Depth of field is having a deep or shallow depth of field and what that means is to focusing on one thing and making the rest blurry. The photo I liked best was the macro (top) because it shows the well texture on the ants and the candy wraper.

Compositional Trick #2 Leading Lines

Leading Lines make the viewers attention tell where to look. Leading lines view you to the emphasis of the picture. The leading line in my picture is the arc on the pavement, it leads the viewer to the black crow that is standing on the arc.

Compositional Trick #1 Rule of Thirds

The Rule of Thirds is catching an image not in the center but still the image is the emphasis. To emphises an object on the Rule of Thirds is by putting the object on one of the 4 intersections it makes a snap shot into a photograph.