Color of The Week Proposal #2

The color that I will be exploring this week is yellow. I want to play around with the effects of sunlight since the forcast is calling for alot of sun this week. The patches of snow when melting can produce some cool effects with direct sunlight.. 
Along with the sunny shots I also plan on exploring other elements of the color yellow.

Collaboration Research

The conclusion we came to yesterday was to explore a promiscuous theme for our genre photos. We want to use a lot of symbolism and metaphors, instead of taking these genres literally. We all discussed what each photo could be and came to a few decisions yesterday when we met.

We pulled the genres from a hat to decide who would be in charge of directing which shot:

Dane- landscape - landscape of a body

Myke- still life - flowers

Brenna- portrait - cat

and myself- architecture - either high heels or pointe shoes

We all discussed the painting Olympia by Manet, in which there is a symbol for promiscuity in the form of a cat at the end of the bed by the reclining nude. This painting was scandalous and promiscuous for it's time, and in today's context it could still provide the same meaning, but in a much subtler way than it originally had.

For the still life, we considered the flower as a symbol. We are all going to bring some fake flowers to have many to chose from, although i discussed the orchid as a possible candidate due its sexual connotations relating to the female anatomy.

My shot of architecture is quite figurative in nature as we decided to stray from the norm of photographing a building. We discussed the form of a body as architecture and creating shapes with the body. We then moved along to explore a high heel as architecture. it holds up the body in a way that neccessitates a strong design, or architecture. I brought up the historical context of ballerinas. While studying Edgar Degas I learned that ballerinas were high end prostitutes. Ladies of that time would always be covered up, it wasn't acceptable for a woman to dress in anything but a long dress. Ballerinas pranced around on stage in tight, body forming leotards and rich businessmen and aristocrats would go to the ballet to watch them. After the show they could go backstage, and quite literally buy a dancer. I thought this connection would be another layer to promiscuity that references art history in the same way as a cat refences many paintings. The focus of my shot would be on the feet, showing how pointe shoes can hold up an entire body on the tips of your toes. Along with the architecture of the shoe, it would be interesting to note the shape various positions in ballet make with the dancers legs. Another link to architecture would be the design of muscles of the body, which is the emphasis of ballet.

High heels are definatly a symbol of promiscuity, and as well they are designed like architecture. The straps have to be in the right place to suupport the foot, the rise can't be too high as to make for an uncomfortable and wobbly walk. We discussed Helmut Newman's photo in which the ladies in heels are statue-like.

 I do like this photo in terms of arcitecture and shoes, but the focus should be more on the shoe. I found a cool photographer, Alex Maxim, who does some shoe photography. Here's a few of the photos that I found to be relevant to how I may direct my shot.

Thinking About a Flipbook...

A really cool link with lots of video examples of flipbooks:

http://www.flipbook.info/typology.php



An idea I'm playing around with for my flipbook. Only one screenshot here, there's a few more photos but I didn't have my tripod the day I took these photos. So I'm praying for another good dumping of snow soon so I can go back there and take pictures continually for a much longer time. This snow pile is on 43rd St South, behind the exhibition grounds. It's monumental. Like huge, I felt so weird just being by it.

 

Red Feelings

Working in black and white got me thinking about color. I thought my fire hydrant photos were interesting in the sense that the actual hydrants could have been any color in real life, but in a black and white photo, people would naturally assume they were red. So I started thinking about what other things people may identify with red when it is viewed in black and white. What is red? Warmth, protection, energy, compassion, lust, frantic, overwhelming, passion, direction, attention, love, anger, blood, berries, bricks, raw meat, fire, soup, power ... So here are a few of the things I photographed to convey the color RED this week.

Seasonal Change



This is an ongoing project of mine, none of these images are final. This tree is out in the country, east and north of 43rd St North.. its by a spot that me and friends all hang out (usually when the weather is good) but it is definatly a spot that hosts a lot of memories for me. As seasons change, trees stay the same. They grow, lose leaves and grow more. Memories don't change either. The people in them might change, or not be around with the turning of seasons.. just as the leaves on the trees. I thought that capturing the tree in all of it's seasons would be an interesting way to relate my feelings to the area. I don't have the photos I plan on using in the final project yet, because after compiling the photos into a collage I notice small differences in them (the barn in the back isn't in the same spot). I'm going to have to use a marker for exactly where to stand for the rest of the photos. There is a water pipeline sign that I'm fairly sure will work :) I was hoping that the irrigation pipes would only be in the summer shot.. I hope they are moved for next year's photos! I want to capture snow falling in the winter one as well before the season is over. I also wish that there were some leaves blowing in the wind in the fall photo... 



Fire Hydrant

I seriously just love fire hydrants. This one caught my eye at Tim Hortons on 43rd today...  

Compositionally Speaking..

Over the summer, my family got together for a family photo. This is my family, my parents, grandparents, my brother and his ex-girlfriend. I was in charge of getting a good shot, and since I had never done a photo shoot of this type before it took me a few shots before I got accustomed to having an eye for geometry in posed photographs.

This photo is really unsettling to me because it is not balanced at all.



Here I arranged everybody to be somewhat symmetrical. If I had have thought about it before we had started the shoot, I would have requested everybody wore the same color shirt (or the boys one color and girls another, etc.). Overall, for a first attempt at sitting subjects for a photo I think this photo turned out pretty well composed.





I took these photos at Tim Hortons for my color of the week project, but decided not to use them. I wanted a clear indicator that the photo encapsulated Tim Hortons as being a popular hot spot for those cold days.



This photo lacks any point of interest. There is a lot of extra information that confuses a viewer in what the point of the photo is. In viewing it, you may wonder why the white car is included, and what is at the bottm of the frame and what it's purpose is. (I was not driving at the time this photo was taken, by the way.. :) ) 



After exiting the drive through i noticed the garbage can had the Tim Hortons logo on it and it offered a much clearer shot of what i wanted to capture. There is no confusing elements in this photo, it's right to the point. Although there is no snow in the photo to suggest the cold weather, I think the name speaks for itself.