I am glad to see that you recognize how differently color photographs render the world and your experiences in it. I am also pleased that you now appreciate how color can distract the eye and that working in B&W first makes it easier to grasp Framing, Composition and Mystery.
There are some common photographic strategies that people are using that need to be corrected, not that they are inherently bad, but just because they are common. Originality and creativity involves doing things that others have not thought of doing. See if you can use any of these points to help refine your personal vision.
Mystery
It is not enough to take pictures of things just because they have color. Yes, this is the first time shooting in color, adding this on top of the Framing and Composition skills were learned in the first critique. The goal is now to inject some passion into the shots using color. The initial response is to find things with color, but these cannot be shots where things are centered in the frame or easily identifiable. These factors eliminate the key ingredient of the first round of shooting, Mystery. It is not until Mystery and Passion are combined that you get to the really juicy stuff.
Objects vs. Place
Actually, it is time to stop taking pictures of things altogether. This course is not just about recording the appearance of things. It is about your experience with things – it is photographs of you looking at something. [Here is a short piece about Relative Perception.] It is time to shift focus and go for experiential pictures, photos that put you into a place or environment that your viewer can inhabit. [Please read Space = Environment]
If you are shooting interior spaces it is all a matter of the lighting that will turn an interesting space into a compelling experience. Take more shots during the magic hour, just before and just after the sunsets. The color of the light changes the appearance of everything and creates more ‘feel’.
Consider the word artifact. This is evidence left behind after someone has been somewhere. This can create clues that your viewer will have to work through to figure your photos out. And sometimes the answer is not evident, and the viewer is just left with a mystery. That is just fine. If they walk away thinking about your photo, then you have embedded yourself into their psyche.
Desaturation is a more desirable technique than over-saturation. Over-saturation usually makes things look fake. That is not the way to make interesting color photographs. Less color tends to throw things more toward the surreal side. This capture people’s attention and opens their immagination.
Photo Clichés
Avoid all of the Color Photo Clichés. If necessary, please re-read the paper on Photo Clichés now. Color Photo Clichés are discussed more specifically in the blog post titled Tips for Topic 2.
No pictures of flowers. And maybe trees and their shadows join this classification.
No sunsets, please! Stop taking pictures of clouds and big blue skies. (The storm photos that came up this round may be an exception, as you will see below.)
Pictures of your feet are not self-portraits. Same goes for photos of your Shadow. Make sure you look at the web page of Smartphone Self-Portrait Examples.
Don't take pictures of other people's artwork. Don't take pictures of signage or graffiti, especially graffiti. It is so overdone and it usually becomes documentary. Remember, this is a course in Art not Photojournalism. (Neither is any better than the other, they just have different goals.)
Don't use somebody else's creativity to make your photograph. Use your point of view to put across your point of view!
P-Angle
Don't turn your camera on an angle to make the photo more interesting. This is something your Uncle does when he is about to take a snapshot at the family barbecue. This is because he recognizes, maybe even only subconsciously, that he is about to take a really boring picture. The angle is known as a P – angle, meaning pretentious angle. Avoid this tactic. [note: some shots below manage to use angled shooting to communicate rushing to avoid something in the photo and this adds to the environment of the photo. It starts to describe the emotional state of the shooter. In this case the tactic works!]
Pictures shot in rearview mirrors are on the cliché list. Shooting pictures while driving should be added to the cliché list. This takes us to the next topic, Shooting.
Shooting
You have to get out of your car to take photographs. Pictures from cars show a lack of effort.
There are way too many pictures being taken inside your apartment. You have to go out and venture into the world to see what's there.
Gathering vs Hunting
It is no longer enough to walk around snapping shots of whatever looks cool at the moment. It should no longer be just immediate reactions to things you see. You have to have something in mind when you go out to shoot. Now is the time to move from Photo Gatherer to Photo Hunter. You have to determine what subject is worthy of your attention and then focus of shooting pictures that investigate that subject. If you do not make this shift you end up recreating the scenario from the movie ‘Fifty First Dates’ (that was just on the other night, again) where every photo is like your first, just an immediate reaction to your surroundings right now, with no forethought. [At the same time, you do not want to loose your spontaneity. Yeah, I know that is a contradiction, but…]
Third Eye
There is also the concept of the Third Eye. In Buddhism the third eye has the ability to sit outside of you watching what you are doing without intervening. The result of this is enlightenment. But in photography, if you learn all the techniques of shooting so well that they become second nature to you, then you can shoot without thinking and always get a well composed photo with the proper exposure (although with a smartphone the exposure is already taken care of.) This is called discipline. If you can let your body make the shot then your camera can capture your spontaneous emotional reaction to the world. i.e. You can let your hands connect to your heat without your head getting in the way. This is the interaction of the physical and emotional disciplines while the conceptual discipline sits back and takes notes on what is happening. At some point however, you have to look at those notes to see what your subconscious self is responding to so you can learn about yourself and find out who you are. Then you can take these lessons and apply them to your next round of shots. This is when you move from being a Gatherer to a Hunter. This is when you change from an Intuitive to a Directed Way of Shooting.
Research
Making this shift requires some Visual Research, but more importantly it requires Emotional Research. Then once you have this working, all the photographs have to work together, which is part of Conceptual Research. These all sit upon the foundation of good Framing and Composition to create Mystery.
By the end of the class you will be responsible for building a Portfolio of photos that fit within specific categories that you invent. Think of the semester as a book of photos. What will be the titles of the chapters in the book? What topics interest you enough to ‘write’ a chapter with your camera? Those will be the titles of the ‘chapters’ in your Final Portfolio. The glue that makes the photos stick together is the conceptual component of shooting. There will have to be a visual connection between the photos, through consistency of Framing, Composition and Mystery. That is the Physical Discipline. Then each group has to elicit a particular emotional response from your viewers. They have to respond to the emotional ambience of the photos. This is the Emotional Discipline. If you have not read the paper on the Three Disciplines, please do so now.
Multiplicity
There are too many pictures with no particular focus. You need to have at least two, and preferably more, key points of focus. These are places where your viewer’s eye can rest and focus on a particular element to ponder its meaning. If you have several points of interest, it becomes the relationships between them that becomes the essence of the photograph. Please read about how to employ Movement through Multiplicity to make more interesting photographs. It is all about the psychology of communicating with a viewer to get them to spend time with (and hopefully IN) you photographs.
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Here are the photographs that I find the most successful:
The first photo by Brittany cuts the frame in half between organic shapes and industrial shapes.
This is an interesting visual technique that you should keep in mind – the ‘Split Frame’, making it look as if two frames have been stuck together just by how you shoot one single frame. There is another example of this later in a photo by Thomas. [There is another strategy of shooting two frames to be presented adjacent to each other where the content is connected. These are called Diptychs in the art world.]
This photograph of a wild tree is by Lauren.
This is extraordinary because of the bright sunlight coming through the leaves and the extreme shift in color of both the foliage and the branches. This is a highly modified photograph and is what we are looking for in the next critique.
This photo by Julie is looking straight down, which flattens the picture space.
This is flattening of space is another interesting technique that removes our sense of perspective. This presents a unique point of view to a viewer. The real world doesn't really look like this. This is another interesting strategy that comes up later in shots by Loren and Jonathan.
What makes or breaks a photograph like this is the way you place objects in the frame, making them more like a painting than a photo. The subdued color is also a plus.
The next half a dozen photographs all have outrageous skies. It is curious when a whole group of people come up with the same means for making photographs. If too many people do it, it becomes a cliché. If just a few then it is a trend.
The first photo is by Loren and contrasts a huge collection of pumpkins on a wide open field against an ominous sky that has modified color.
An even a wider photo of an open field by James is exaggerated by the 16:9 aspect ratio.
This photo also has an almost 180° difference in the colors, the blue versus the yellow. This complementary color combination tends to be psychologically comfortable. This gets into the ‘Psychology of Color’ that mixes science and emotion. There are many good articles on this subject online. Do a search and see how many come up.
The next photo by Megan seems to depict the end of the world. [I hope you recognize that I have a sense of humor!]
This is all about the drama of this weather event. I wonder if this is even modified it all. Was really what was happening! Yikes!
Ashley’s photo also has modified colors.
This one is shot in square format that is an aspect ratio that, while currently being made popular by Instagram, really harks back to the use of Twin Lens Reflex camera in the 1950s. Variations of these cameras are now being sold by the Lomography company that is leading the resurgence of shooting film. The colors sense takes us just to the edge of believability and it looks like it may have had some brush work done to the sky (mostly because there is a little bit of a halo around the tree and along the wires). This is an effective photo because it plays on the emotions of the impending storm, but in a subtle way.
The next photo of a storage tank and a blank building walls is also by Ashley.
This one uses that same ominous sky as a backdrop for these really minimal industrial buildings the create interesting, almost abstract shapes. This is reminiscent of the photographs by Louis Baltz of industrial parks in the 1970s. These photographs are on my Research pages. Ashley's photos work in a similar manner so the walls become fields of flat texture. The extra payoff is the pink paint on the fire hydrant. (Maybe it was red before the photo was desaturated, but that question makes it even more interesting.)
The next shot by Ashley gets even trickier.
This one is a pastoral landscape with a translucent overlay of a couple sitting on a bench in the field. You can see the tree on the left side is also translucent, indicating that the tree and the bench and the people are all part of the second photograph of the composite. She is using an app called ‘Photoblend’ with great success. [Photoblend for iPhone / Photoblend for Android]
The next photograph starts a set of 3 rain pictures. These are curious since we just finished looking at a group of pictures with ominous clouds indicating a coming storm. The first photo is an open field by Ashley.
At first it appears to be a soft focus photo but then you can see some drops of rain which shows that you are looking through glass. If you look on the left side there is a pole against the edge of the photo. This one small visual element really sets off the framing. This photo is reminiscent of a series of seascapes shot by Sugimoto that are an extraordinary in their minimalism. You should check these out on my Research pages.
The next rain shot is by Jared.
This one has a completely different urban setting and the orange barrier blocking the street is kind of strange, especially considering that there is traffic coming the other direction. The visual structure is well done. The yellow barrier comes just shy of the edge on the left side, the pole sits against the edge on the right side, the little 'do not walk' sign flashes it's red light at us, and a striped walkway in the foreground is another exciting element. The rain adds to the craziness of the situation. On one hand I am trying to get you out of your cars to take pictures, so you really interact with your environment. But in this case the rain is what is forcing us to stay in the car in the first place, so this one is justifiable.
This nighttime rain shot is by James.
There is a streetlight refracted in the raindrops on the glass. This sets up a textural visual environment. The horizontal line of light is a little hard to figure out. It is not clear at first if it is positive or negative space, but that is part of the intrigue of the photo. I talk about not turning your camera on an angle just to make the photograph more interesting (because it doesn't) but this one looks like it was shot from the hip in a hurry to get out of the rain and that makes it work (even though it was probably shot from inside the glass). This is because it is possible to create an alternative reality in your photos. This gets into ‘the suspension of disbelief’, a film term about how we as audience tend to believe whatver is put up on the big screen, even though it is all fake behind the scenes.
Now we have a series of nighttime pictures that take advantage of the strange environment that artificial illumination can create.
The first is a photograph of a police action shot by Jared.
The single street light sets the stage for some police vehicles. It creates an almost a tubular feeling and we have nowhere to go but down the center. The figure walking towards us becomes the most interesting part however because we don't know if he is walking or running, and if so, perhaps we should get out of his way!
The next vertical shot is by Julie and she uses a single light source and a reduced color palette to create an ominous feeling.
The vent pipes sticking out of the broken sidewalk give the picture a bit of a dirty feeling. The puddle tells us it is wet outside and that adds a bit of heaviness to the shot. The seam in the sidewalk on the left side runs exactly parallel to the edge of the frame and that stabilizes the geometry in the picture. It is very subtle but it is very well done. And the ambience is compelling.
The next photograph by Loren is as much about design as it is about color.
These violet sky is a classic trait of long exposures at night and that tonality complements the golden glow of the trees created by the halogen streetlights. This is similar to the effect of the blue and yellow in the wide landscape by James discussed earlier.
Now Thomas introduces some architecture into the conversation.
He has placed the red lights in the ceiling on an interesting diagonal, counterbalanced by the deep blue violet of the vertical posts the left. A field of white dots extends into the background. This is another nicely designed photograph that is a visual pleasure.
Thomas shot the next city picture to work in a very different way.
This is a good example of what has come to be known as a ' Split Frame' photograph. He has cleverly divided the frame at the bottom third so that the top section is the open street while the bottom part leads us down into the subway. It almost looks as if two different photographs have been spliced together, but he did it all in one shot by placing himself at just the right position and shooting at just the right angle. This is an interesting strategy that you might want to adopt for your own use. Shooting at dusk adds to the mystery of the environment.
Julie Miller brings us from the street into the backyard with this shot, but still in the evening.
This photo combines a low angle of view with dark street lighting and windows lit by interior lights to generate a nostalgic feel. The content of the children's playground is a great subject for this photographic treatment. This is a great example of how Form Supports Content.
Loren returns to give us a set of four semi-abstract color studies. The first is out on a construction site.
The construction materials present the three primary colors of red, yellow and blue and the perspective is a partially cut-off view that creates an interesting geometry. These ae minimal yet not so restricted, and also relate to the Louis Baltz photos mentioned earlier, but in a more colorful manner.
The next green wall is in Tyler but hopefully no one else is going to know that.
Making the vertical line parallel to the edge is what helps flatten the space and move it towards the abstract. The white rectangle at the top right is actually light coming through a window that adds a more sensual feel to the photo.
The yellow corner has us looking up at an unusual angle as the light filters through the glass transom above the doorway.
There is a little bit of a number on the door that again adds what could be a clue to some personal information.
The last photo is a little more straightforward but it is still an unusual space transformed by the amber light.
I am not sure what to think of the person who is coming towards me. How do you feel when you are in a similar situation?
Another color study photo comes from Megan.
The stack of Fiestaware bowls in a rainbow of colors are a visual delight even if they are readily identifiable.
Jonathan provides another photo of tools of the trade.
The subdued light and the muted tones unify these elements in an organized layout. The view from above removes perspective as we discussed earlier. All put together they may give us some idea of the person who is using them.
The last color study is by Julie.
This shot gets close enough so that the small jade plant gets fragmented and starts to resemble a cubist painting, almost like Duchamp's 'nude descending a staircase'.
The next photo of a small interior space (with another small plant sitting on the table on the left) is by Rachel.
The space is a bit confusing because it looks like it could be a studio but those are not real walls. So we are left to ponder what is really going on.
The next photograph, also by Rachel, plays with light coming through window hitting foliage.
There's a good downward viewpoint and the little piece of a chair starts to set the stage for something to happen. It might be better if the top of the photograph wasn't quite so dark so we could see what was going on up there, adding to the environment, and the potential for something to happen.
Another photograph that creates feel with light is also by Rachel.
The intimate corner space, the light coming through the curtains, the patterns on the wall, the little bit of blue sky, all work together to create a specific feeling. Subtle and sensitive.
Here a photograph by James plays with depth of field to create an intriguing space.
The subdued color, the background going softly out of focus, the drops of water on the leaves, and the possibility that this is being held by someone's hand, all of these elements work together to create a rather haunting photo.
Both of these last two photographs have a collection of small subtle hints. It is when they all work together that you get the real effect of the photos. This is another way of getting to the idea of 'Multiplicity' that I was speaking about in an earlier document.
This photo of hands holding a folded paper crane by James bears a resemblance to the previous.
Hands reach forward towards the viewer. The background drops off into a soft focus that concentrates our vision yet still gives us clues about other aspects of this exchange. In Japan the crane symbolizes eternal youth and good fortune. It is traditional for Japanese people to fold 1000 origami cranes when someone is sick. This cultural background adds to the photograph but still leaves it undefined. It has also been proven that when a person gives someone a gift, the serotonin levels go up in both the giver and receiver. [Serotonin is known as the ‘happiness hormone’ as it helps regulate mood and a deficiency can lead to depression.] If someone is watching the exchange, their serotonin level also goes up. This is chemically measurable. [If you make a point of complimenting people and making people happy by giving them small gifts of any type, you work to make the world a better, happier place. And you gain as much benefit a your recipient!]
And now we get a little more serious with another shot by James.
Here is another close-up look up of hands engaged in an activity that might have some other serious psychological implications. Let's leave the final read up to each of you but these last few photographs dive headfirst into the conceptual discipline of photographic art making. And the concepts are supported by the formal qualities of the photos.
This next photograph by Jared and has a very curious offhanded feel to it.
The fact it is slightly off kilter implies it was shot very quickly and the look on the boys face is unsure if not completely unaware. We know that he is outside yet we are looking from inside of somewhere, or perhaps through a fence, and there is a can of soda on the edge. Once again we have another collection of sketchy clues as to what is going on and it is up to the viewer to figure it out. This photo has is a slight resemblance to the crime scene photographs of a gentleman named Artuhr Felig, more commonly known as Weegee, who followed the police around during the 1940s through 60s. [I do not have a page of his work but you can do a Google image search to see what he was up to. Some of it is pretty grimy.]
This portrait by Jared places the subject at the far end of our field of vision, at the end of a dark hallway.
All the factors of low angle of view, deep space, dark foreground with bright background, give us information about the subject.
And now we are in the self-portrait section. The first shot by Ashley truncates the subject’s eyes, removing a sense of identity from the shot.
The colors are muted which helps accentuate the feel of the photo.
Another half hidden face with eyes closed is in this next shot by Rachel.
The color and the hair against the color of the bushes behind, coupled with the close view, all work to make this a cool photo.
An even smaller face appears in this shot by Loren.
This is another vertical shot that flattens space, with eyes closed to mask the emotions of the subject. A curious photo that raises more questions than it answers.
This photo by Julie Miller sticks with the green theme.
The intent gaze that goes off to the left and the face being covered by the shirt all imply that she is responding to something important, yet we do not know what. Great framing, close focusing and nice defused side lighting make this work. This gets into the idea of ‘Implied Information’ where the photo includes information that is outside the frame.
Ashley comes back again with another double exposure.
This is a beautifully crafted photograph overlaying organic forms with a face that has a somewhat forlorn expression with a downwards and sidewards glance. This one is emotionally charged yet in a very subtle and minimal way. The reduced color palette and even the reduced tonal range really enhance this work. (The shadows don't really go down to a deep black, which is good in this case because it is obvious that it is intentional. The same thing can happen with a lower highlight level.)
Then Thomas takes us in the completely opposite direction.
He uses bright oversaturated color that is softened by motion blur (This is achieved with a longer exposure time, aka slow shutter speed. There is no recipe at the bottom of his post or in his self-evaluation to explain exactly how he did this. Maybe he will tell his what app he used.) The low angle of view provides added interest and the party lights along the edge of the ceiling give us some hint of what may be happening. This is a stimulating yet mysterious photo.
The next self-portrait by Jonathan uses some great pin spot lighting.
The angle of view with the smart phone in the foreground makes our eyes jump between the phone, his hands and his face. The headphone wire combines with the sunglasses and the chains to provide an interesting secondary visual.
The last photograph by James takes us out on a humorous note.
It is sort of an inside joke to say, "The heck with all this art. Let's watch football and drink some beer!" I cannot agree more.
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Thanks again for all your hard work on these photos. Lets see how much of this gets incorporated (or excluded) in the next batch.
