College is Exciting!!

Sorry for SUCH a long delay, College and Life got in the way of my photography, but I'm finally picking it up again. The First Series of Pictures was a Photo Essay on the destruction in Alabama after the huge Tornado last year. These photos are pretty recent, and show how much work needs to be done, but also how much hope lies ahead.

This next series is me fooling around with this decorated tree on campus called the "Tree of Life". I loved the broken mirrors... so many possibilities, so little time!

I hope you enjoyed!!

-Babs

It's 21 for a reason!

My latest project was making a public service announcement against teenage drinking! I really liked this project, I feel like my shots came out just as dramatic as I wanted! I hope you like them as well....BUT, before that, read this:

During the past 3o days:

• 42% drank some amount of alcohol.

· 24% binge drank.

· 10% drove after drinking alcohol.

· 28% rode with a driver who had been drinking alcohol.

Also, 72% of students have consumed alcohol by the end of high school, and more than a third have done so by eighth grade. This brings me to my story. When I was in eighth grade, I watched a boy nearly die from drinking too much, and now, I want to make sure that never happens to me, or any of my friends. Don’t you want to save your friends too? Underage drinking is strongly associated with many health and social problems among youth including:

• School problems, such as higher absence and poor or failing grades.

· Social problems, such as fighting and lack of participation in youth activities.

· Legal problems, such as arrest for driving or physically hurting someone while drunk.

· Unwanted, unplanned, and unprotected sexual activity.

· Disruption of normal growth and sexual development.

· Physical and sexual assault.

· Higher risk for suicide and homicide.

· Alcohol-related car crashes and other unintentional injuries, such as burns, falls, and drowning.

· Memory problems.

· Abuse of other drugs.

· Changes in brain development that may have life-long effects.

· Death from alcohol poisoning.

Why take the chance? That’s why the only thing in my cup is water.

The age is 21 for a reason.

Love,
Babs

WARHOL time

Hey Guys! Here are my Warhol impersonation photos! :) And a little on the man I'm being inspired by.

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”

-Babs

The HAUNTED LIBRARY! Boo!

This, my gentle reader, is the picture that I think expresses how much I love the magic of Photoshop. This photo is called “Haunting Memories”.

I started off with as basic and empty picture of a library I could find (which was actually kind of hard!). The picture was a little on the light side for me, so I heighted the contrast, and then fixed the lighting levels so that the “highlights” were darker. From there I decided to add a very light, white gradient to the top of the picture, which added a surreal look to the place (at least, in my opinion it did). Then, it was time to add the people. The first steps were same for all the people, trace the outside edge of the people with the “Magic Lasso” and delete everything BUT the people, then use the eraser to clean up the edges, and copy and paste the person onto the library. Once there, I adjusted their size to fit the perspective (the people on the top floor were also skewed a little to fit the angle of the original shot of the library) and then I adjusted their opacity. This is what made them look like ghosts. From there I did a simple clean up of the photos (The people on the balcony had their mid-sections erased so they looked like they were behind the banister, and the two women in the center were partially erased for the same effect, only with a table.)

I wanted this photo to be very similar to the “party scene” on the Haunted Mansion ride in Disneyland. Since I was recently there, the image was seared into my mind, and had a great influence over the final product. But, I also wanted to go deeper than that. Each of the black and white photos is from a different era (Victorian, 1900’s, 1920’s, 1930’s and 1950’s to be exact) like a stockpile of memories. I wanted it to seem like things had happened in that library, and here were the people to explain why it was important to them. Some of them notice the “onlooker” (which is you at the moment!) while others are wrapped up in their memories. Do I know their stories? No, but I would like to. It would be interesting to be in a circumstance like that. Paranormal, Right? Awesome, Correct? Yes. And it just goes to show that a little imagination and Photoshop can go a very long way.

-Babs

The Adventures of a Sock Monkey

These shots were taken at my house, and also in DISNEYLAND! It's the adventures of my Sock Monkey! Hope they make you laugh! They sure made me laugh.

This is Sock Monkey Chilling in on Tom Sawyer's Island in Disneyland near a waterfall.
This is Sock Monkey with his new friends Duffy, Duffy, and Duffy.
He went a little King Kong on me, and kidnapped me and took me to the Empire State Building. So unoriginal of him...
Need I say more?


-Babs

Photoshop Effects!

These are some photos I've created! The first is where I copied and pasted 3 photos together, the second I blended two shots together. Enjoy!





-Babs

Architecture and Landscapes!

Recently our class has had two separate projects, one on Architecture, the other awesome nature and landscape shots.

Here are my favorites from these two projects:









-Babs

FISHEYE!

Today we fooled around with a pretty funny filter called "Sphere-ize" where we made it look like we had a "fish eye" lens on our camera. While most people made people's head 100x larger, I decided to go with the nature approach. I took the two extremes, concave and convex.

Enjoy!



Oh the wonderful world of photoshop....

-Babs

Notes~Landscapes

Hey guys! Our next section is NATURE and LANDSCAPES! Here are some cool notes on it!:

Composition:

Composition is THE MOST important aspect of landscape photography, it can really change a photo.

Viewpoint is the most important part of composition

Images with large of amounts of tone variation can be more dramatic while those with smaller amounts of tone variation come across as more serene and quiet.

Unity: results when all the parts of an image work together cohesively.

Variety: refers to all the diverse art elements.

Camera Settings:
f/64 is the smallest, but, the smaller, the better!! It gives you a better field of depth

Lighting:
In Landscape photography, there are two VERY AWESOME times when one should shoot, just after sunrise, and just before sunset!

However, when dealing with closer shots, you should probably do it in more direct light, so you can see the shadows and highlights, and give the picture a more realistic feel. (Try during overcast! This reduces the blaring

lights that can sometimes distract in pictures)

Film:

For Landscape, digital is the way to go!

100 ISO is the very very best for a good landscape, al

so black & white works wonders for the pictures, as it s

hows more value,

texture, and possibly patterns too!

Lens:

The wider, the better! But also consider macro, because it can help for closeups!

Hint: To make the clouds look cooler and more prominent in a photograph, try a red, yellow, or orange filter.

Hint: USE A TRIPOD

The Grand Landscape:

What does this mean? It's simply a really, really BIG picture of the natural world. (Picture an awesome shot of half dome in Yosemite, pretty majestic, huh?)

But always keep in mind the Rule of Thirds! For example, the horizon should land inside one of the thirds, like the top or bottom

Abstract:

This type of picture should be artsy, a photo of something almost barely recognizable, but still beautiful.

And now... some Photographer Biographies!

Ansel Adams: (Feb. 20 1902 — Apr. 22, 1984)

Adams is a very famous classic photographer and also environmentalist! He discovered a love of nature at a very young age, and began with his Kodak Brownie, taking pictures of Yosemite. 1927 was a pivotal year for him, when he met Albert M. Bender, who changed him from a concert pianist to a full on photographer! He took pictures for the National Park Service, Kodak, Zeiss, IBM, AT&T, a small women's college, a dried fruit company, and Life Magazine.

He was an advocate for the national park system. Over the years he attended innumerable meetings and wrote thousands of letters in support of his conservation philosophy to newspaper editors, Sierra Club and Wilderness Society colleagues, government bureaucrats, and politicians. He took only Black and White pictures, and was an avid member of the f/64 club.

(I love the middle shot! The value is amazing, also the line caused by the dead tree that is repeated in the reflection. It really comes off as serene and calm.)

Carr Clifton:

Carr Clifton is a large format landscape photographer, with his years of experience as a wilderness guide and traveler, enjoys taking shots of "endangered, wild landscapes most people will never know". He, like Ansel, is also a resident of Northern California, and he started taking pictures in 1977. The reason he started was he was very inspired by landscape photographer Phillip Hyde. He tries to find the most remote and beautiful places he can and photographs them for the world to see.

(I love the shot of mountains. It was used in a National Geographic Magazine. I love the dark line caused by the shadow of the mountain. I also love the diversity of the shot, the dark, jagged mountains, compared to the light, puffy-cloud filled sky, which also shows a little value.)

That's all I have for now with notes! Watch out for me actually doing shots like this!!!

-Babs