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 self-portrait project was rather hard because we had to be creative and put a lot of thought into our photographs to make them follow the instructions but also be interesting to look at. I did not have many ideas on what kind of photos to take, and during the time we were out taking pictures I was clueless of how I was going to make my pictures be effective. The portrait I think is more effective though is my extreme angle because the background is something that we don't have here at Chavez, and that makes it more captivating. If we were given this project again, I would put more thought into it and hope to make it more creative. Overall, I felt I did not do a very good job because I limited my creativity.

Contactsheet

Overall I think my contact sheet turned out pretty good. What I did well was organize the photographs so they aren't all crowded, and that way it's easier to look at them. What I could do better next time is make the titles of the pictures stand out a bit more. Out of all the compositional tricks I think my extreme angles turned out the best. However, the trick I enjoyed using the most was macro. I liked using this trick because there's a lot more options of what you can take pictures of, and because it's fun making something small stand out.

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 the composition of my original photo to this one by making it into a small square. I cropped most of the photography and left only the right corner. I like this picture better than the original one because the other one had too many things to look at and it was distracting. This one, however, has less things to look at so it's easier to take it all in. The two different ways to use crop are to just cut off part of your picture to change its composition, and the other is to overcrop where a white border is created.

Compositional Trick #4: Extreme Angles

To get my extreme angles photograph, my partner and I went to the bleachers by the baseball field. I had him stand on the very top one, stand on one foot, and act like he was falling off. Since he was very tall, I stood underneath and took the picture with him looking down and the camera looking up. What I like about the picture is that he does look like he's falling off and that makes the picture more interesting. What I could have done better though is create a more interesting background. Photographing from extreme angles makes pictures more appealing, and also makes them different from just plain snapshots. You would choose to use this compositional trick because you look at things at different angles and in different ways than you normally would.

Compositional Trick #3: Macro

The macro function on a camera allows you to zoom in really close to an object or texture. The depth of field is how close you can get to your focal point. If you have a deep depth of field you are very close to the focal point and so your background blurs, but if you have a shallow depth of field your background does not blur and you are not close to the emphasis of your picture. Macro would be the best compositional trick when you want to make texture stand out or when you want to get a small object and make it appear larger. It makes these pictures more interesting because we see something we don't really notice everyday.
The picture I like best is the flower one because it's colorful and nice to look at. Macro helped enhance this picture because the background blurs out so the main focal point is the flower.

Compositional Trick #2: Leading Lines

Leading lines are lines that mostly lead to the emphasis of your picture, but they can also take you deep into the picture, and in the end have no emphasis. Leading lines can also take you through a picture or around it. The leading lines in my picture lead to my emphasis,which are the lights, but can also take you through the picture because they go all the way to the top.