Oh, The Places You'll Go!

   One of my favourite and unexpected things about PrairieView so far, has to be the field trips that we have gone on. So I thought I’d share some of my experiences with you. 


  FORE!!!!! Our first official field trip was to Grand Prix. It was a chance to get to know my competition a bit better ;) . Just kidding. But seriously, since then I have learned just how incredibly talented my fellow students are! (You'll be blown away as they continue blogging throughout the year).

  It was a wonderful day that we spent hanging out, getting to meet people we hadn’t had a chance to meet yet, and in general act like a bunch of big kids! It was totally awesome!!!!! We played mini golf in the morning (I won) and in the afternoon we got to do some go-karting (I lost). Even tough I lost at the go-karting I did appreciate all my adoring fans and their support. 


  We also got some pretty fun pics in the meantime.

 One man's trash, is another man's treasure, or so I've been told. On this specific outing, we went to a junk yard. It was cold, dirty, wide open, maze-like, confusing and challenging. We went with specific shots that we had to get, and I found that to be the most challenging part for me. I was so concerned about the shots that I needed to get, that I forgot to relax and have fun. I would love to go back and try it again, to just let go and have fun. 


  I'm slowly learning that you don't always get to do what you want to (even when you are doing what you want to) and that I need to let go of my pre-existing Christina-isms when it comes to, what I consider, "my style" of photography and try something different and have fun. Realizing that "but the ground was sopping wet" is not an acceptable reason for not getting the shot I wanted is incredibly hard for me! I hate getting wet and dirty, and I hate bugs and creepy crawly things! But I will "suck it up princess" as people have told me to do, and do what needs to be done in order to get the shot. Even if that means I need to be thigh-high in mud w/ snakes. Ok, that will NEVER happen! The mud ok, I can deal with that, but NO snakes, EVER!


 Here are my treasures from the Junk Yard.

  It's a bird...It's a plane...It's...Oh! Ya, it is a plane! So guess where we went for this trip. That's right, the Western Canada Aviation Museum. I kinda wandered around for a while, snuck onto a plane (didn't realize I wasn't allowed on it) and off it w/ out getting caught by the grumpy worker, taking pics all the while. Then said grumpy worker was quite generous and offered to take me into the workshop in the back where they restore the planes. It smelled...well like a workshop. It didn't seem like much to me, half restored planes, with spare parts here and there and plans spread out over the work benches.


 I learned some really neat things. Planes take 20-25 years to restore, I feel sorry for those people who spend their entire careers restoring one plane and, in most cases, don't even get to see the culmination of their work. These old, wrecked, dilapidated planes that are brought in to be restored are worth in the millions. And sadly, restoring planes is becoming something of a lost art form. 


  Here is my view of the museum.

  We have also had some unofficial field trips. Places that we got to choose to go to for some of our assignments. Some of the places I've gone have included the Assiniboine Zoo, the Leo Mol Sculpture Garden and a cemetery.


  The Zoo was a BLAST!!!! I can't remember the last time I went to a Zoo. I'd say I was probably 6 or 7. I have never been to the Zoo here in Winnipeg, so it was great experience. I spent almost the entire 4 hours I was there talking to animals in that voice that everyone reserves for babies. I got some pretty funny looks from some of the construction workers (from the  bear pavillion), but that's ok cause it worked! The animals would look my way and SNAP I'd get the shot. Ok well maybe it wasn't completely that easy, after all they are animals and have minds of their own. The thing I loved the most, was how peacocks have free run of the Zoo, it was awesome.

  The Leo Mol Sculpture Garden was kind of awkward at first. I didn't realize that there were going to be LOTS of naked statues. It took a bit, but I mostly got over it. It probably won't be my favourite place to take pictures, but it is really beautiful. I went in the late fall, just after the snow had started, so the gardens were mostly bare, so I am planning on going back in the summer when the gardens are in full bloom. Here is what I found.

  

  My new favourite place to take pictures is the cemetery. I went to shoot with one assignment in mind, but ended up going back a number of times to shoot different assignments. It might sound creepy, morbid or disturbed, but I really enjoy it. It is beautiful, peaceful, emotional and full of history and there is so much you can learn about people you never knew. I used to hate cemeteries for most of the same reasons mentioned above, but not any more. It is a wonderful place to go and think. I find it very relaxing. This is my favourite picture from the cemetery.

  
So those are my trips so far this year. I'm looking forward to what the rest of the year holds.

Annie Liebovitz

So, today I watched a documentary on Annie Liebovitz. What an amazingly talented woman. I spent some time googling her work, and I absolutely love her dream/fantasy portraits. The one that I connected to the most was "Where You Never Have to Grow Up", her version of Peter Pan.

  What I loved about this picture is how it is a perfect combination of Disney's Peter Pan and Cathy Rigby's  Peter Pan. Real people with an animated feel.  It's where reality and fantasy collide. Annie Liebovitz likes to recreate and give people what they want, but they don't always realize that that is what they want.

  The lighting is wonderful. Peter Pan, Wendy and Tink are all perfectly lit. The darker backgrounds help to bring out the 3 characters. The picture has a wonderful asymmetrical balance to it. I love how the flowing curtain divides the frame into two parts, Peter Pan and the window leading to Never Land, and Wendy and the room that leads no where. The curtain definitely gives  the picture a  feeling of movement. You can almost feel the wind that "blew" the window open and Peter Pan into Wendy's bedroom. Annie has done a fabulous job of creating multiple emotions within the picture. Peter Pan's half of the frame is blue which evokes feelings of it being cold, dangerous and inviting. Wendy's half is red which creates feelings of it being warm, cozy, safe, familiar and inviting as well.

  I hope that one day I will be as accomplished as Annie Liebovitz. Where I can walk into a set/stuido, take 3 pictures and say "Ok, got it. We're done!" and leave. I can only hope that I can develop her vision, her understanding of her subjects and models.  It'll take years...but maybe, just maybe.

Photographic Hero

 Rui Palha

  We were asked to pick a photographer whose work we admire. Let me tell you, it was not easy. I stumbled across Rui's Flickr account and fell in love with his work. I find that there is something very nostalgic about a lot of his work. There were times where I found his work confusing and I had to stare at it for a it before I could see what he was doing in the picture, kind of like one of the crazy pictures that you stare at, and after a while a 3D picture pops out at you.


   Rui is still living. And for this I was very thankful! I e-mailed him and he was kind enough to answer some questions, although, not as detailed as I would have liked, but as he was doing me a favour, I didn't want to push it.


   Rui no longer uses B&W film as his medium of choice, he has gone mostly digital in the past couple of years. There are several reasons for this, one is health and he is required to walk everyday and so taking the number of pictures that he does has just gotten to expensive to do in film. Another reason is that no longer has a darkroom of his own. He admitted that he doesn't like the dark room work any more. He didn't mind it when he was younger but finds it too tedious now. And since he doesn't trust the commercial labs, he had gone digital.


  For Rui, the gear is not important! He reiterated that several times in our e-mails. What is important, he said, is the "eye" behind the camera. So I have no idea what type of a camera Rui used, other than  a 35mm film SLR. His film of preference is/was the Kodak TRI-X with a ISO 400. If he needed to he would push it to ISO 800 or ISO 1600. One thing that I discovered about Rui that I love, is that he does all his cropping in-camera, what you see is the original image. He never crops in post-processing.


  Here are some of my favourite of Rui's pics:

  I love this picture! It makes me want to go jump in a puddle. The lighting and the timing in this picture are perfect! I wouldn't change a thing about it. The figure is in the top third of the frame, but the street draws your eye up through the frame. It has just the right amount of contrast as well. Part of the reason I love this picture is that it has a sort of 1950's feel to it, it draws me to what was a simpler time, and although I wasn't born yet, I like to imagine what it was like.

   This picture made want to take up surfing! Not that I would ever do something so dangerous, but it was an entertaining thought. Again, the lighting is wonderful and soft, thanks to the water. The water is clear and crisp as it is cascading over the edge. I love that he used a fast enough shutter speed to stop the motion of the water to give us those fabulous lines. I wish I could join the figure on the bike on a ride behind the water.

   I love how Rui captured the boy's personality in this picture. Just look at the attitude in the tilt of his chin and the gleam in his eye. This pictures makes me smile. Compositionally, it is very simple, but effective. The boy's eyes are on a line of thirds, it looks like he took advantage of some really nice soft lighting. I love the subtle nuances that the grain gives to this picture.

Symbols

Hello,

  So we had an assignment on Symbols. Symbols for love, envy and peace. We had to pick a final picture and blog about it, so here is me blogging about it...

  Love, that is my final image. As soon as we got the assignment I had an idea of what I wanted to do. I am a die hard romantic and so I had fun with this symbol. To me, when I think of love, I think of romance and commitment. What better symbols to use than a rose and an engagement ring? An engagement ring that belonged to my great-grandmother (since I don't have one ;) ).

  The biggest decision that I made in regards to this picture was the lighting. I had some really nice side sun lighting that was diffused by a curtain, so it gave me some really nice soft lighting. I shot in aperture priority because I really wanted to try and control my depth of field.

  I didn't realize what a challenge it was going to be taking pictures of an engagement ring. The ring I picked had diamonds in it and I picked because I thought it was pretty and sparkly! It didn't occur to me that sparkle is really hard to capture and in most of my pictures it blurred the shape of the stones, even though there was no direct light on the ring itself and the ring had been sharp in my viewfinder. I found out I would've been better off with a simple gold band, but figured that one out too late. Oh well. It just occurred to me that I should've tried to backlight it. I think I'll try that this afternoon and see if it works.

100 Shots

   For our Creative Imaging class we had to take 100 pictures of one object in one location. This was HARD!!!! I mean how many ways can you look at one object? Apparently more than 100... I started getting frustrated after the first 25-30 pics. I found that I had to walk away from my location a number of times during this assignment. I did this to clear my mind and re-focus myself on what I was doing, and it helped.

   While trying to find 100 ways to "see" my object was hard and frustrating, it was also kind of fun. It really took me out of my box and stretched me to think of my object in different ways. I know that my final pics were NOT fabulous (in fact they were pretty bad), but I think that I am starting to understand why Sarah had us do this exercise.

   Other than trying to think of numerous ways to "see" my object, my biggest frustration was the location I had chosen, my living room. My living room was fine except for the lighting! Even with the few extra lights I brought in, it was still too dark. UGH!!!!! It was really challenging to get the exposure and white balance right.

   It was a stretching exercise, and hard like a rock, but I think that I'll do this exercise on my own from time to time to take me out of my box and challenge myself. And I WON'T be doing it in my living room again!

Simple Subject Compostion

 
  I think that this picture has good simple subject composition as the little girl is the only subject in the picture. I love the subject and composition of the picture, it is simple yet beautiful. One of the first things I noticed about the picture is that it uses good empty space, the photographer used the empty space on the right hand of the frame really well. This picture also followed the rule of thirds, the little girl's right eye and the horizon in the background are on lines of thirds. I also like how the first and last wisps of the girl's hair start on lines of thirds.

Hello All,

 Well, I have never blogged before, and never thought that I would, yet here I am...blogging. "Then why?" you ask, well I'll tell you. I'm attending PrairieView School of Photography and part of the curriculum is to create a blog. So over the next 10 months I will be posting pictures from different assignments and what not. I hope that you'll enjoy it.

Christina