Steven Russell: Final Project

This body of work is a composition of my life in that they are things that I struggle with on a daily basis.  The things are what my photography centers on despite me being in some of the images.  They are spiritual principles or sins that I think about constantly.  They comprise a huge part of my life that I struggle with.  There are six images of different ideas both good and bad that speak towards the religious beliefs that I have.  I chose images that show what goes on in my mind in terms of importance.  These ideas are important to me because they are intertwined with my faith.  The images show me, in various ways, through my struggle to understand and wrestle with them.  I chose to depict the ideas of: guilt, lust, vanity, pride, redemption, and heaven.  I wanted the images to be very personal and visceral while maintaining the idealistic principles that I have just expressed.  The reasoning for why I chose this topic is in short my faith.  I have prayerfully considered many different ideas that I could express.  I decided that nothing would better show me than that which I feel important to how I live my life.  The ideas that are in these photographs are a big part of my life.  They have impact on my mentality, how I treat people, and even how I treat myself.  My faith plays a role in how I live my life.  This being said the way I live my life is either in line with that faith or falls into another less admirable category.  These images describe both my less admirable points as well as the awesome clarification and realization of what my faith promotes.  This project is a self-examining portrayal of myself but is something that every human deals with.  I wanted to include the teachings of my faith along with the images themselves so as to show exactly what it is that makes me feel that these topics are relevant to my life and not just menial facts of life. They are things that I can change and not just accept.  I shot this project in my house because I it to be very personal and within my living space.  These pictures are portraiture in a way because they show my struggles and even have myself in most of the images.  The pictures are not of just myself but of things as well.  For instance there is a still-life photograph incorporated as well in the set.  I wanted the viewer to get up close to me in a physical sense to show how close these things are to my heart. 

Night Photography With Motion

For this photography project I chose to do night photography. In my photographs, there is motion represented in each of my pictures. I wanted to incorporate bright colors that were blurred at night by having a long shutter exposure. Four of my images are very similar, and I got them by having someone drive for me as I took the picture out of the sunroof of my car. I had two that are from the front of the car, and two are at the side of my car as I was driving by. The other two pictures I took downtown on a street corner, but they also show some sort of motion. I chose that street corner because there is usually a lot of traffic and I thought it would be a good way to capture motion at night. For all the pictures I took, I used the ‘bulb’ setting to have a long exposure. Two of the images that were taken downtown I took on a tripod, the other four I took by just placing my camera out of my sunroof and just resting on the car.

I really enjoy night photography, and thought it would be interesting to do my project on it. What I didn’t really realize is how challenging it is to take photographs at night, even though I have the proper equipment to take the pictures. It was definitely not as easy as I thought it would have been, but I am glad I chose night photography. I also chose to take pictures at a busy intersection in Albuquerque at night and having the traffic lights be blurred to show the motion. I really love the atmosphere downtown, and I thought it would be a perfect opportunity to capture how busy it can sometimes be downtown. A lot of time and effort went into taking these pictures, and I am very happy the way they turned out.

                                     

Stephanie Corriz

Models, Cranes, and Motion

I decided to do my central theme around the Sandhill cranes. It was my goal to incorporate cranes, models, and movement (preferably the motion of flight). November 17^th and 18^th, was the day I planned to take the photographs. These dates were when the Sandhill Crane Celebration took place in Albuquerque. After seeing the photography of Francesca Woodman and Deborah Turbeville, I wanted to try and incorporate their style into my photos. I attempted to do this my using a muted background and neutral colors, while adding a combination of both stillness and motion. I had the models move on a slow shutter speed to capture the motion of flight and used a tripod to maintain clarity and stillness in the background. As a result, the birds in most of the photos are very still, while the models have taken on the motion or qualities of birds. Some of the photos are taken during the afternoon, others early morning, or at sunrise. This made keeping the lighting consistent very challenging. I had to work around the bird’s roosting times, take off, and when they would fly to their field of preference. This took research and timing. Sandhill cranes are very shy birds and do not trust people, so the photos I initially imagined taking were not a reality. I did get to learn a lot about the birds and experienced a naturalist’s love of nature through the hikes, talks, and viewings. The Sandhill crane is the oldest living bird in the fossil record. Being able to see the cranes through the telescopes was a very special experience. It was my aim to create a better appreciation of nature through the setting, birds, and models. I feel that people are becoming more out of touch with nature and our environment and wanted to create a sense of unity between them in these photos.

Georgia Weiss-Elliott - Conversations

In photography I've always been interested in portraits and capturing the human face. I believe the face has a lot to tell and emotions can portray different meanings to different people. In American Sign Language (ASL), over half of the conversation takes place on the face. All meaning behind the signs and hand movements are portrayed on the face; while the facial expressions can act independently, the hand movements cannot be separated from the facial grammar. Similarly, the movement of the body signifies certain grammatical structures. ASL, besides being a language, allows for such self expression, visual conveyance of ideas, and easily captivates those around it. For this reason, I decided to photograph signers in action focusing on their face. While I don't expect everyone to understand the grammar, I hope that my viewers find these conversations interesting and perhaps understand my infatuation.

               For my pictures, I chose primarily D/deaf and native signers because of their fluency with facial grammar. At first I tried photographing my models in public places and realize that I wanted a more focused location where the subject, ASL, is most noticed. I had a few of my friends come in to the studio and tell me stories or talk to each other so as to have as natural of poses as possible. I left some space in the crops and positioned the subjects in such a way as to give the stills movement.

               ASL has been photographed by many people and tends to have a generic quality: blurry hands, weird facial expression, boring. Most often they are inadequate for capturing the essence of such a beautiful language. While my pictures have blurry hands and weird facial expressions, I hope to convey meaning, not just show ASL in action. And while my point may not come across to all, I hope that there will be something interesting for everyone. 

Evan White - Creative Assignment 3: Nature Through Different Eyes

For this final creative assignment, I photographed the main light source of the globe, which is the sun, through various pieces of foliage and vegetation at dusk. I photographed the sunlight directly through the foliage in order to manipulate the lighting so it would fit the mysterious setting that it was illuminating. It is a project that studies the various natural manipulations of light and how different meanings and feeling of nature are conveyed or understood through light. I also photographed them with a 70 to 200mm lens in order to focus on the objects that I was photographing through, while leaving the background and the light source heavily compressed. All of these technical implications that influenced these images work to convey a sense of unknown and interstitiality in nature during dusk.

All eight of these images illustrate the mysterious aspects of nature through light, compression and the framing of all of the photographs through various pieces of foliage. The way the backgrounds are compressed in these images depicts nature as mysterious and unknown. The light farmed in these pictures also helps to convey senses of vulnerability to the unknown elements of nature. Also by framing them through different pieces of trees, plants, and bushes keeps the natural objects of the landscape in focus, but the framing also functions in a way that places these various pieces of vegetation into an environment that in almost incomprehensible, thus depicting nature as a unknown element. Taking the photographs at dusk also helped illustrate this sense of mysteriousness by presenting these various natural objects at an interstitial time of day. All of these element working together help to convey a sense of anonymousness within nature and the light source being shot directly through the lens and the foliage gives these images a euphoric feeling. The overall message and function of these photographs is to frame nature and the objects within it under a different light and through a different perspective. Nature is volatile and beautiful and these images illustrate the radiance and vulnerability that nature itself posses. 

  

David Bentley - Night Sculptures ABQ

This Photo Series was an attempt to capture the beauty and majesty of some of the different sculptures in and around Albuquerque.  I am amazed at how many people do not notice these amazing pieces of art.  Others do notice them, yet think them to be an eyesore.  I tried to photograph these images in a way that brings out the inner beauty of the sculptures in hopes that others may come to know and appreciate them as I do.  I decided to take the pictures at night to present them in a way that perhaps had not been seen by others before.  Enjoy...