I enjoyed the trip to Central Park. I wasn’t expecting to see 2 brides taking pictures with their husbands. it got me hype! loved the bubble guy who was really nice to us. One picture that I took and really liked after looking at it for a while was this one
For the last part of the location assignment, I used depth of field, and different angles for my photographs. I portrayed shallow and large depth of fields. This way I captured large, descriptive views of Bethesda Fountain and other views that were even abstract looking. The above and below the eye level pictures provide different point of views of objects that you would think of differently. When I returned to Bethesda Fountain the weather was completely different from my first two times, it was raining on and off and misting slightly during the day. The sky was completely cloudy and it cast darkness over everything. This caused my pictures to look gloomy, maybe even a little eerie. The mood of my latest photographs greatly differed from part one and two of my location assignment, both of which were sunny, cheerier pictures.
I found this second third of this photo shoot a little harder, just because the train station was just as vacant as the first time and I felt like I was running out of things to photograph. I tried to focus on odd or strange things that I saw and I used a lot of close-ups. I also included the sky in a lot of photos because it was so bright blue. My favorite picture was one taken on the way out of the station, on the stairs. its a picture of this bright green tree against a bright blue sky:
For the last part of my shoot, I plan to photograph in late afternoon/early evening, around 5pm.
For the final project, I chose to shoot at the train station near my house. The first third of the final project, I did at morning and it also turned out to be a day with lots of overcast which I originally did not plan. I mostly looked for odd things at the train station and not so much for people because it was early and not many people were at the train station. What makes this particular station so unique is that one side of the platform has an entrance that hasn’t been in use for years. It is closed off and is mostly covered in pigeon poop with a sort of eery feel to it. As a double feature, there is a very old cemetery on that same block with graves dating back to before the early 1800’s. My favorite picture is a picture I happened to take as the train was pulling out of the station and the letter “A” is framed between two poles of the train station:
For the second shoot, I will shoot in the afternoon.
For my first part I decided to go to a park where everyboday can find a lot of things to do an to take a lot of cool pictures. I never image that the park was so big until I started walking to get images for the homework and I discovered spaces that I never knew before. So I hope I accomplish the first part of the homework and I the second part is comming soon.
My own experience as a studio photographer since the beginning of the semester was challenging. Creating my studio was easy to make but when it came down to shooting i realized it has to do a lot about using the lighting very carefully. At first it was pretty difficult but after all of the homework assignments with shooting objects i saw myself progress. It was really fun working in the studio, my favorite was the capturing the water in motion. This was fascinating to me because the camera can captivate so many details which is exciting.
One of the works i saw that captured my attention was Uta Barth. 
This picture was very large in person at the museum. This image is called the Sundial on chromogenic color prints. I liked this image because it doesn’t look like any ordinary picture the effect she used looks like the inverse of the objects. I like how you can only see the silhouette of things and not the actual thing which makes it look interesting. This photograph looks like it was taken at an early morning because it looks like daylight coming out of the windows. This photograph opens up my mind to make something like this in the studio it can be very fun and creative. We can set up objects and place them on a table set next to a window with a lot of daylight and create the inverse. This inspired me to create something different and maybe combine objects together and make it look like something its not using this type of method. Overall the exhibition a world of its own was very interesting of people using film projectors to experiment many things. I thought it was very academic how people back then found things out without taking any precautions just seeing what are the outcomes of their experiments and what effects will happen.
For the second part of this assignment, I tried focusing on photographing the angel at the top of the water fountain. I tried capturing her beauty, but that once again proved to be difficult. I made the mistake of going at the same time of day as I did the first time. I think that if brought into post production, I could make the shots that I took, work well. Compared to last week, I took pictures that had a larger depth of field; they were not as close up as my previous pictures. I did this because I wanted to capture more of the park and its surroundings.
A World of Its Own was a very interesting exhibition which showed photographs created within the walls of the studio. It was quite unique, interesting, impressive and not so impressive to see the ways in which photographers experimented in their studios.
The exhibit changed my view on studio photography and also the overall understanding of history and what’s possible especially with light. A World of Its Own where messiness and experimentation can flourish. The experiments can be technical, aesthetic, even emotional. A place where I learned that in the studio or “art museums”, anything goes–you just have to know how to market yourself with sophisticated vocabulary which professor emphasizes and truly believe in your work. Talent doesn’t play a big role here. To make it big you need to have tight connections with art critics, dealers, gallery owners, curators etc. I think who you know really is a big key to success. Well let’s just put it like this-the world is seriously twisted when something like this gets sold for $44 million. I love art and I think the piece is OK but museum quality? or $44 million!! Come on give me a brake…
See link: http://twentytwowords.com/canvas-painted-blue-with-a-white-line-sells-for-nearly-44-million-4-pictures/
Anyway back to the subject. I thought there where some very great pieces at MoMa. Like for example the portrait of a mannequin by a French artist, Valerie Belin was quite striking in person. It was my favorite piece at the museum. Looking at the picture you realize that our perception of beauty has been distorted by the “beauty industry” because it takes awhile to realize that it is a portrait of a mannequin not a photoshopped model. When women are photographed they are touched up to look like mannequins, so why not just take portraits of them. Brilliant.
I agree with Roberta Smith in the NYT article “When a Form Is Given Its Room to Play”. It is understandable that history is important but it was a little repetitive, unorganized, largely favoring black and white/non-modern photos in a Modern Museum and setting the medium from inception to the present that was never done before was quite experimental. There was a lot of human interest/portrait and inanimate objects but little to no landscapes, animals, advertisements, urban life, etc. The fact that there was a lack in female photographers doesn’t really matter but what matters is learning how to market yourself eloquently, network, have passion at what you do and BELIEVE.
I took pictures on three different days for the spring assignment. Two days were at Botanical Garden in Brooklyn. One day was a rainy day where I was able to capture some pretty great shots because even though it was rainy it was bright and the lighting seemed great . I just kept shooting and playing around with different settings. The other day at Botanical Garden was a beautiful spring day. There were lots of people and festivities going on so I was capturing people and the atmosphere. The third time me and my family went hiking to Minnewaska State Park which is upstate NY-by the way a gorgeous place for hiking and taking pictures.
For the location project, I decided to do Astoria Park. I really love going there whenever I want to go for a walk, and I thought it would be a great place to take photographs and show others the beauty of it and how calming it is for me. I had problems with the lighting because sometimes it would be sunny and then get dark.
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