Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Andy Warhol Photoshop:



Andy Warhol


       Real name is Andrew Warhola (8/6/28-2/22/87) (Became Warhol after a misprint)
o   Born in Pittsburgh, PA, Parents from Czechoslovakia (does not exist anymore)
o   Father worked in a coal mine
·         In High School, kicked out of art club because he was “too good”
·         Graduated from the Carnegie Institute of Technology (Bachelor of Fine Arts)
·         Graduated with degree for pictorial design & wanted to become a commercial illustrator
·         Designed advertisements for women’s shoes
·         Used Polaroid camera
·         Fear of hospitals and doctors, hypochondriac
·         Favorite print making technique was silk screening
·         Friends & family described him as a workaholic
·         His sexuality was speculated upon and how this influenced his relationship to art is “a major subject of scholarship on the artist”
·         First solo expedition in 1952
·         Coined the term “15 minutes of fame”
·         1960s: iconic American products (pop art)
·         Created The Factory, his NYC studio from 1962-1968
·         Celebrity portraits developed into one of the most important aspects of his career

·         Made films (first one called Sleep – 6 hours of a man sleeping) (1963)
·         1965 said he was retiring from painting
o   1972 returned to painting
·         Designed cover for the Rolling Stones’ album Sticky Fingers (cover made out of real jean material)
·         Produced Velvet Underground’s first album
·         Started a magazine called Interview, worked for Glamour Magazine, Vogue
·         Shot by Valerie Solanas 3 times for being abusive and “too controlling” (6/3/68)
o   Solanas authored the S.C.U.M. Manifesto, a separatist feminist document
o   "Before I was shot, I always thought that I was more half-there than all-there – I always suspected that I was watching TV instead of living life. People sometimes say that the way things happen in movies is unreal, but actually it's the way things happen in life that's unreal. The movies make emotions look so strong and real, whereas when things really do happen to you, it's like watching television – you don't feel anything. Right when I was being shot and ever since, I knew that I was watching television. The channels switch, but it's all television."
·         Marilyn Monroe = favorite model (not painted until after death)
·         Wore silver wigs until he dyed his hair silver
·         Practicing Ruthenian Rite Catholic who described himself as a religious person
·         Died of a heart attack brought on by a gall bladder surgery and water intoxication
·         $100,000,000 for one of his paintings (highest amount paid) (“Eight Elvises”)
·         Referred to as the “Prince of Pop”

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Photoshop:

Image #1Giants World Series: I blended 3 pictures together from when I went to the World Series Game 2 with my Dad. I made sure all images were the same size and then applied them to one image (the one I wanted as the background). Image #2 Hotel Wellington: I went to New York this past month and took a lot of pictures of where I stayed, taxis, and a bunch of other places. I blended all the images together to create one image as shown. Image #3 9/11 Memorial: We visited the 9/11 World Trade Center site where they had all of the pictures and information of what happened. They also had a picture of a firefighters hat that didn't survive in the World Trade Center. Image #4 Puppy Dog: This image is a picture of my dog, Bailey. I used "threshold" which is playing with the different layers of colors and putting it all together and then adjusting the background to whatever you want it to be. I like doing this in photoshop because I like how you can select one color, for example, turquoise, and each layer is a different shade of turquoise. Once you put it all together, it comes out like I did in my photo. Image #5: Mercy Emphasis: I used color emphasis in this photo. So, I made the image black and white and then I took the eraser tool and erased the part that I wanted the color back. In this picture, I erased the grass to emphasize the green in the grass. I then zoomed into the image and made sure that it was neatly done even though from far away it looked fine. Image #6 New York: In this picture, I used threshold without color layering. It reminds me of the iPod/Apple commercials. I like this picture a lot because I feel like I've seen a picture similar to this one before on Google or something.

Thursday, February 10, 2011

In Class Photo Editing:

 True black and white photo.
 Black and white with color emphasis.
Black and white and then turned into warm yellow filter.

Saturday, January 22, 2011

Ansel Adams

Ansel Adams was a photographer who was best known for his black and white pictures of Yosemite National Park in California. He was born on February 20, 1902 and died on April 22, 1984. Adams father gave him his first camera, a Kodak Brownie Box Camera before. In 1916, with his camera in hand, Adams and his family visited Yosemite National Park; where his interest first began.  He spent his own time reading magazines and books about photography and also attended meetings and joined clubs to get a better knowledge about photography. 

Adams is best known for his landscape pictures of Yosemite. He made the pictures black and white to add more affects and emotion into the photo. His passion for photography and landscape portraits have truly left an impact on other photographers and have inspired many people to do the same thing as he did. 
The Tetons and the Snake River, 1942
Yosemite National Park
Line, Value, Emphasis; I like how the river 
leads your eyes to the mountains that are 
centered in the middle of the picture.

Thursday, January 20, 2011

Chapter 9 (203 - 217) Blog Notes:

Landscapes
"A good photograph is knowing where to stand." -Ansel Adams

Landmarks in Landscape
  • Photography invented in 1839.
Photographing the Landscape
Thinking Artistically:
  • Composition is one of the most important aspects of landscape photography and viewpoint is the most important part of composition.
    • An inch or two can make a huge difference in a photo
  • Images with a wide range of tones can be more dramatic while those with a narrower range seem quieter and more contemplative.
  • Goal for composition: achieve a balance between unity and variety.
    • Unity results when all the individual parts of your image come together and support each other to make one cohesive image.
    • Variety refers to all the diverse art elements found in a picture.
Camera Settings:
  • Most landscape photography has been characterized by maximum depth of field
    • Stop down a lens as far as it will go (f/16, f/22, f/32)
Light:
  • Two times of the day where most photographers do their work:
    • Just after sunrise and just before sunset
  • It's easier to deal with direct lighting than it is for closer subjects.
  • direct lighting creates the highlights and shadows that make a landscape seem 3D
  • For closer views, photographers choose overcast days to reduce the highlights and shadows to show more detail.






The Grand Landscape
  • Grand Landscape: the "big view" for pictures of the great outdoors; wide-open expanses that showcase the majesty of the natural world.
    • National, state, or city parks are great locations
  • Always include a large expanse of the scene; Rule of Thirds, the horizon should be placed either one third from the top or bottom of image
  • To make the clouds stand out, use a polarizing red, yellow, or orange filter.




Chapter 8 (179 - 197) Blog Notes:

Architecture and Urban Landscapes
  • Indirect portraits: when you take pictures of the buildings and homes in your neighborhoods, towns, and cities.
  • Architectural photography is a great way to examine the formal aspects of design, because people, using the elements of art and principles of design, created the buildings that make up our cities and towns.
  • Can be formal and informal
Looking Back
  • Reasons why architecture was a popular subject:
    • early films were slow, often needing hours of exposure for one image
    • buildings were stationary = photographers had ready subjects with lots of details, varied tones and values, and their camera exposures could last long
Photographing the Built Environment
Thinking Artistically
  • You can use line to lead the viewer's eye through an architectural image
    • Vertical and horizontal lines - help divide images into different sections, separating areas of different values or textures.
  • Pattern: the repitiion of any of the elements of art, is uaully a part of every image.
Film
  • Color films - emphasize values, shapes, and textures.
  • Architectural photos: commercial and artistic
  • black and white is usually the medium of choice for artistic photographers
Lighting
  • Different types of lights used inside buildings:
    • Incandescent lights (regular household bulbs) (more orange)
    • quartz lights (modern spotlights) (somewhat yellow)
    • Fluorescent lights (greener)
      • Each light provides different version of white light
  • Use deep blue 80A filter (incandescent) 
  • FL-D filter (fluorescent)
Lenses
  • Big view = wide-angle lenses because you can't get back far enough to get the entire scene you want with normal lenses; the wider the lens, the more distortion you get; keep lens level if you want limit perspective distortion.
Camera Support
  • Tripod --> slow, fine-grained film and lots of depth of field











Filters
  • Using a yellow or orange filter it will make the clouds stand out more in big view shots
  • Filters can also bring out textures in stone and concrete
The Big View
  • Big View: the wide-angle, overall view
  • Perspective Distortion: appears as strong converging lines in a building, where the sides of the building angle in toward each other instead of looking parallel as they are in reality.
    • The farther you are from the building, the less distortion you'll see.
  • If you shoot straight on the building, it will look 2D and flat.
  • If you shoot from the side, the photo will reveal better textures, forms, and shadows.
    • Naturally creates a 3D view; reveals depth and width and height.
The Detail Shot
  • Detail Shot: features the individual architectural elements of a building's interior or exterior.

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

In Class Lecture (Jan. 19):

3 Main types:
  • The Grand Landscape
  • Details
  • Abstract
    • Study the natural world without the presence of humans
Landscape Photography
  • Composition is crucial - edges of the frame and focus are key
  • Rule of Thirds
  • Lighting either warm/cool, and shooting at specific times of day will improve images
  • 100 ISO will help give you more details
  • Tripods
Ansel Adams (1902 - 1984)
  • Black and whites
  • Yosemite National Park
  • founded group f/64 with Edward Weston and Imogen Cunningham
    • Lead to the Museum of Modern Arts Photography Department
  • Born in SF
  • Kodak Brownie (first camera!)
  • Small apertures and long exposures
  • "Pure Photography" - relying on the art and form of photorgaphy, not attempting to manipulate other art forms
  • Commissioned by Jimmy Carter to take the first portrait of a president using a photograph
Timothy O'Sullivan (1840 - 1882)
  • Documenting the Civil War
  • Provided initial photographs of Grand Canyon, Death Valley, and Colorado River
  • Responsible for "New Topographics"
11 Tips for Great Landscapes:
  • Maximize depth of field
  • Tripod
  • Focal point
  • Think foregrounds
  • Consider the sky
  • Lines
  • Capture movement
  • Work with the weather
  • Work the golden hours
  • Think about horizons
  • Change your point of view