Final Exam

1. A photo that I've taken that has changed how I viewed photography would be one of the photos in my presentation project , specifically this one.  The reason why is because of the memories associated with that photo, the feeling and rush of adrenaline, the encapsulating view of the race track. Mostly, it is the emotions attached to that image. I remember the first time I tried indoor Karting. I kept hitting all the barriers and spinning out all the time because I would panic whenever I reached high speeds. Slowly, I learned how to be okay with losing control and most of all, trusting that I wouldn't mess up. It was only when I began to notice I was doing okay, that I had started to lose focus and mess up from the fear of it. The experience of Karting has taught me a lesson about life: the importance of confidence and how a lack of it can send you in a self-perpetual cycle of fear and failure. This was a transformative photo for me. Number 25 hits the apex perfectly and I was able to capture this while everything was in motion. 
2. The difference between shape and form is that shape is normally two-dimensional and flat and is created through lines, color, and texture, whereas form is a three-dimensional photo with depth and it uses principles of design since it has length, width and depth. 
3. The difference between pattern and repetition is that repetition is repeating the same element, but not necessarily forming a pattern out of all the elements, whereas pattern gives order. Repetition causes the eye to look from point to point.
4. Movement is when your eye moves from place to place and focuses primarily on a focal area. It often creates flow in the photo. 
5. Of the last three projects, I believe my presentation project was the best. This is because I had the most fun photographing it, and I was really engaged in my subject. It was also an experimental time with shooting objects in motion, which was tremendously difficult. For an hour straight, I persisted in getting a clear photo and the work paid off. I also was manually focusing the camera, so that was another additional challenge. This project changed me psychologically, in how I decided to be confident in my abilities to kart and fully enter "the zone." It was a very freeing experience and I learned a lot from engaging and documenting that kind of adrenaline-inducing activity. I saw challenges as a way to overcome failure. 

Presentation Project: Leman's Karting

Multicultural Week Story of a Photo

MSJMCW Story

In sophomore year of high school, I attended my first multi-cultural week here at Mission San Jose. They had something of the like at my old school, but it didn't include an entire week of various cultural foods being sold during lunch. I was so excited. I craved samosas, pho, milk tea, dumplings, and nearly every type of food from each culture. I remember eating a lot of food that week and being sad the week after it was over. It is important to indulge in the foods of different cultures. Not only do they have historical value, but they teach you a little bit about each culture: you are able to taste the subtle nuances or drastic differences in each type. I ended up buying mostly Mexican and Asian cuisine. It wasn't all too great because I am a very adventurous eater to begin with and have tried most every cuisine out there. My favorite cuisines are Korean, Indian, and Japanese.

I don't go to multicultural week anymore because all that food triggers me. (http://www.foodaddictsanonymous.org/)

The Rules of Design

Balance

Line

Repetition

Lens Blog Photo

Lens Blog Photo
1. Fast or slow - why?
2. One rule of composition per person
3. Element of Art - list one with an explanation
4. Principle of Design - list one with an explanation

1. Fast because there are no blurs
2. Viewpoint - the angle the photo is taken with. My partner chose Leading lines - the lines that draw the viewer's eyes to the photograph
3. Texture is used to describe either the way a three-dimensional work actually feels when touched, or the visual "feel" of a two-dimensional work.
4. Balance is the distribution of different colors and objects in a photo

Motion

Documenting the Blues in Mississippi Delta

Number 7
1. The focus of the picture is on the woman. The two babies balance out the photo by being symmetrically side to side.
2. Everything else is blurred and unimportant, yet still draws your eyes in the background.
3. The house is positioned proportional to everything else.

Texture

Movie Monday Half Past Autumn Part 3 and 4

1. What is your definition of successful?
2. What have you given up to become successful?
3. What did Parks give up to become successful?
4. Who was Genevieve Young's father?
5. How much was Parks advanced to write his first book (and eventual best-selling autobiography)?
6. How much money did Elijah Muhammad offer Parks to do a story on The Nation of Islam?
7. Why did Parks refuse the money?
8. What was significant about the movie The Learning Tree?
9. What was significant about the character Shaft?
10. What was Gordon Parks' choice of weapons?
11. What reason did Genevieve Young give for the divorce?
12. In 1984, Parks directed Solomon Northrup's Odyssey. What recent feature film told the same story?
13. Who was Gordon Parks, jr?
14. What is your favorite Gordon Parks photo?
15. What will you remember about Gordon Parks in ten years?

1. My definition of successful is achieving the highest level of happiness and feeling of accomplishment/fulfillment. 

2. Time and tremendous amounts of effort

3. A regular occupation

4. Genevieve Young is Gordon Park's former wife.

5. He had two books flash Photography (1947) and Camera Portraits: Techniques and Principles of Documentary Portraiture (1948).

6. Elijah Muhammad offered parks half a million dollars.
7. Parks refused his money because he was afraid of Muhammad's influence.
8. The Learning Tree is significant because it represents Park's childhood and because he is Hollywood's first black director
9. Shaft was a black superhero.
10. Gordon chose his 35mm camera as a weapon.
11. Genevieve Young said that they divorced because of Gordon's turmoil in his life.
12. The recent film based on the same story is called 'Twelve Years a Slave'
13. Gordon Parks Jr. is Gordon Park's son
14. American Gothic.
15. In ten years, I will remember him as an advocate of black rights and as a humanist. He spread awareness over racism.

Half Past Autumn - Gordon Parks Part 1

1. November 30th, 1912. The doctor decided to put him in ice-cold water.

2. Kansas

3. His college adviser told him to not go to college because he was not "college material."

4. He was fifteen years old.

5. He was dumped on the streets by his relatives. 

6. He graduated later on in life with an honorary baccalaureate as a doctor of fine arts.

7. He worked at Frank Murphy's fashion store as a photographer.

8. Double exposure is when you repeat a photograph's exposure to create ghost images.

9. He was an American boxer.

10. He played piano.

11. He won a fellowship with the Farm Security Administration because of his photography of poverty at the time. 

12. He wanted him to take pictures of Ella Watson.

13. The lady whom he was capturing.

14. To confront racism and segregation by capturing workers' conditions.

15. It didn't matter who was behind the camera. The importance of photography is what you are capturing.

Shape

Line

"An Embedded Photographer Empowers the Poor"

1st Photo #3
2nd Photo #8
3rd Photo #10
4th Photo #11
5th Photo #22

Multimedia poster

What makes our poster good?

Our poster clearly depicts the group of dancers performing for the multimedia fest, and it also relays accurate information about the event. The information on our poster is clearly visible, especially with the black and red fonts of the text, it really contrasts with the white background to make them "pop out". The crowd at the bottom of the poster enhances our group photo of dancers. The arms from  the crowds act like leading lines that are all pointing towards the title of the poster and our photo. The original photo from our first multimedia poster is at the heart of our poster, it has been enhanced and cropped better than it was done previously on our first poster project. The fonts we used for texts in our poster were based off of the fonts used in authentic Jabbawockeez logos/posters. Overall our poster attracts the human eye with color contrasts and the information is concise so that it does not bore the audience. Our poster is well edited and has a clean simple presentation that is pleasing to our senses.

What changes did we make to our original poster?

We re-cropped our original picture that was used during our first photo project to get rid off the rough edges and awkward areas of background that still remained the the cropped out portion of our photo. The masks were also re-positioned to fit our faces better. In total, all of the changes made to our original photograph made it cleanly trimmed and less awkward to look at. We brought back the excitement to our group of dancers by enhancing the group photograph which is the main attraction of our poster. The added crowd at the bottom of our poster was not present in our first project and this helps our poster with more added balance. The crowd evens out with the title, text, and group photo to make our entire poster seem to be at balance. The leading lines effect created by the extended arms of the crowd members directs our viewer's eyes to go from the crowd to the group photo. The fonts of our texts and titles were both improved and our main focus when choosing the font was to choose the proper format to attract our audience's attention the best. The vibrant red adds excitement to our poster and helps complement our dance crew. Finally, we revised the information to be more accurate and concise for the pleasure of those viewing our poster.

How did we make our poster?

First we had to crop out the entire background from our original group photo and then photo shop masks onto our faces to make us appear like the dance crew, the Jabbawockeez. We used the magic wand to crop the masks and pasted it into our group photo. We added a new clip art of a crowd to the bottom of our poster to improve the overall sense of balance in our poster. the information from our first project was both confusing and inaccurate, we revised our text to make the information easier to read and comprehend for our audiences. Our first poster received criticism for text inaccuracies and the difficulty to read the title and texts. We changed the fonts of the text/title to "pop out" from our photo. The white background we used for our poster adds simplicity to the over appearance of the poster. 

The Photo League, Movie Monday Answers

1.) What was The Photo League's credo?

The Photo League's credo was that social change could be achieved through documentary photography  and an emotional connection with one's subject.

2.) What organization did The Photo League separate from?

The Photo league was separated from the Film and Photo League which broke up into the Photo League and Frontier Films.

3.) What was the workshop? The workshop was a class taught by Sid Grossman as a part of the Photo League. These classes were crucial to the Photo League because the classes were affordable and offered to any photographer who had a working camera.

4.) Who taught "the workshop"? Sid Grossman was the one who taught the workshop.

5.)If you were to devote one year of your life to one project, what project is worth your time and energy?
I would devote my time to making a film or movie.

6.)What was The Harlem Document?

A portrait of black urban America and the people, culture, and lifestyles of Harlem that was initiated to try and tell the world about the poor living conditions hoping for improvement.

7.) Who started The Harlem Document? Aaron Siskind started the Harlem Document from March 8, 2014 and carried it out until July 20, 2014.
8.) A photographer discusses a photograph where "the children looked like they came out of a Caravaggio painting. Who was the painter? 
9.) Why did the photograph mentioned in #8 look like it was by the painter?  The photograph looked like it was painted by Caravaggio because the boy in the photograph was illuminated by the sunshine and looked special. Many of Caravaggio's works are dark but have the main focus of the painting very well lit.
10.) Who was Lewis Hine? (name two significant contributions) Lewis Hine was an American sociologist and photography. Hine used his camera as a tool for social reform. His photographs were instrumental in changing the child labor laws in the United States
11.) Who was Weegee? Known as Weegee, Arthur Fellig was a photographer and photojournalist that was known for his stark black and white street photography.
12.) How did The League change when The Nazis took power? When the Nazis took power, the Photo League received many talented refugee photographers who had escaped from Europe.
13.) How did The League change during WWII? Photo league members used their cameras to support the war effort in America. Many female members of the League took over operations of the organization at home while many of the Photo League's men photographers were sent overseas with armed forces.
14.) How did Siskind change after WWII? Aaron Siskind brought the concept of abstract expressionism to photography, a far cry from the sociological realism from the Harlem document. Siskind was criticized for his conversion to abstractness.
15.) What was the Saturday Evening post? The Saturday Evening Post was a bimonthly American magazine that published weekly. Many of the photographs used in these magazine articles were taken by members of the Photo League.
16.) Who was Barbara Morgan? What did she photograph? barbara Morgan was an American photographer best known for her depictions of modern dancers. She was a co-founder of the photography magazine, Aperture.
17.) What eventually undermined the Photo League? Angela Calomiris an FBI informer testified that the Photo league journalists were supporters of Communism and the League as a whole was accused of being anti- American.
18.) What was the "Growing Menace" mentioned in the film? The growing menace was the suspicion mounting on the League by the nation who questioned their ideas about society.
19.) Who agreed to serve as President when The League was under investigation? Eugene Smith agreed to serve as President when the League was under investigation.
20.) What happened to the league? The league disbanded in 1951.

Period 1 - Semester Final

1. My favorite photo from this Lens slideshow is #6 of nine, of a 1960s Mercedes Bens crossing the Haskeen Pan by Nic Bothma of European Pressphoto Agency. I love the contrasting landscape: the ethereal sky touching the acridly yellow landscape of a dried-up lake bed. I love the illusion of the car traveling at great speed, yet it is in perfect alignment with the landscape. Lastly, I love how the sky seems to open up in the middle  of the photo, creating a specialization of balance; the clouds are to the left and right, which frame the photo as well.

2. In my humble opinion, the best photo from this Lens slideshow is #9 of nine, "A red deer seen through the morning mist in Richmond Park, London." by Rob Stothard of Getty Images. There are three reasons behind this: one, overall refreshing yet morose tone this particular photo gives off, enabling your own senses to feel the morning mist; two, the composition and placement of both the deer and the bird on its back (rule-of-thirds); three, the lighting which causes the tree to contrast with the sky, allowing the obscurity of bushes to create a field of depth. 

3. I'd like to think my best work all semester has been from the Masters of Photography project. I imitated photos of Paul Strand. (http://sophieow.blogspot.com/2014/12/paul-strand.html) I think this is my best work so far because I was able to draw a lot of inspiration from Strand's photography; I I was honored to emulate his work. There were no methodical steps in taking these photos, I simply had to get a "feel" of each photo and sense whether or not my work reverberated elements of his. It helped me see through somebody else's perspective, which is unique in my experience. I expended a lot of patience in getting the close-to-perfect shot I strove for. I persistently took many photos and then later eliminated the ones I didn't like. I think the number of shots I will was willing to take helped me become a better photographer. I discovered what did and didn't work for me.

4. I chose experimentation, rule-of-thirds, and balance as my three rules of photo composition. Experimentation is interpreted as being able to add your own personal flair, unguided by any rules whatsoever. I like this one especially due to the freedom of expression it allows (you can always re-invent a new variation of the wheel). Rule-of-thirds is having your photo's subject never positioned in the center, but always 1/3 away from the frame. This allows for a much more pleasing photo and leads to more balance, which I will get to in a second. Balancing a photo means formatting it -- the subject, the objects, the background, etc -- in order to provide enough substance and lessen any distractions that detract from the photo. 

5. 

"Somewhere in Sonoma, Napa" 

Rules of composition used: balance, rule-of-thirds, and possibly framing. 

6. Your first rule is to get closer to the subject of whatever you are shooting. 

7. The benefits of working in a group: you become a recipient to other people's input and helpful criticism, you can grab inspiration from others' work, improve your social skills, and you won't feel so lonely (you'll have someone to go to for advice) 

8. The difficulties of working in a group: it slows you down, everyone has to agree/compromise, people go at different paces, some people are irresponsible, some like to take all the credit, some people never show up. (This never happened in my group thankfully)

9. I enjoyed Vedant's recreation of the Ramones album (http://mehtaphotos.blogspot.com/2015/01/re-creation-of-album-cover.html) I think he is an excellent photographer and achieved a very flawless shot. I love the composition of the photo and how everything looks very balanced and symmetrical. 

10. For the Masters of Photography project I had the honor of studying Paul Strand's work. He was an American modernist photographer and filmmaker, one of the most well-known during the 20th century due to his great contribution to photography as new art form at that time. Not only was he heavily involved in a number of social and political causes, but he was also a very forward-thinking and innovative person; he took modernist photographs in urban settings, and experimented with abstract photos. He is known for his black and white style and contributed to that mode of expression. 

11. She is known for her "Migrant Mother" photograph taken during the depression and the dust bowl of 1930s America. It is of Florence Owens Thompson and her children in 1936. The Resettlement Administration was one of President Franklin Roosevelt's agencies who hired Lange to take those photos in order to support its programs. 

12. Life was founded on January 4, 1883 in New York City but did not begin publication until 1936: for its "Building the Fort Peck Dam" cover story. 

13. Elvis Presley was born on January 8, 1935. 

14. Robert Capa founded Magnum Photos which started publication in 1947

500 Greatest Album Covers: #33 The Ramones, Self-titled album

Reflective Writing: Master's of Photography Project

My perception of "digital photography" changed from an art form only delineating sophistication & beauty to a more profound view. I've also gained a lot of experience during this project, not only by practicing my own eye and feeling and interpreting Strand's photography, but by observation of my group member's excellent progress as well. I've learned that each person is unique in what they choose to capture and how. I was especially impressed by Vedant's work; I appreciate his sense of proportion and aestheticism. Travis' photographs had an intriguing flare to them and so did Nicole's. Nicole was the most enthusiastic person of the group: you can really see how much energy is put into her work.

1. I honestly found that inspiration comes to me when I least expect it. I spend a lot of time in the pre-planning period of things and find it difficult to execute the actual task due to my neurotic perfectionism. The process is messy for me and I eventually am able to put together something I feel is good, not necessarily following any rules or guidelines.
2. My understanding of photography has definitely changed throughout the school year. I see the process behind it and have felt the flutter of excitement that fills your entire being once you know you've captured a photograph in your trademark, through your perspective and your perspective only. I've learned to look at something at all angles, intuitively choosing the most fitting.
3. The benefits of working in a group are that you can exchange advice and perhaps the different styles and inspirations that could be found from others subtly shows up in your own photography.
4. Some of the disadvantages are being overly dependent on others for direction, thus inhibiting your own creative process.
5. Things I would have done differently: find better places to shoot.