Advanced Color Photography Assignment 1

So I've been working on an assignment for my Advanced Color Photo class. The description of this assignment couldn't be much more vague or difficult for me. The teacher's description of the assignment is that he wants 10 prints using color that gives the illusion of space (or lack of space) or three demensionality. This teacher has been teaching for 21 years and is actually a known and published photographer, so he must know what he's doing. However, this assignment just seemed so vague to me that I had trouble completing it. I just had no idea what he wanted, so I was left to my own devices.

I shot the assignment using my Mamiya 645 S100 Medium Format camera (aka "My Precious") but mostly my Nikon N70 and Kodak Portra 160 and 400 NC (natural color) professional color film. Have a look for yourself and let me know what you think.









Now that you've decided what you think about my pictures, let me tell you what the teacher thought. First of all he said that the pictures of the flowers don't do anything for him. Ok that's fine, I don't necessarily like pictures of flowers but somebody (my wife) wanted me to take that picture and I thought it would fit the assignment. He liked 4 of my pictures although did not like that they were digitally printed. The four he liked are: the one of the red sculpture in Chicago, Lincoln sitting on a bench in Niles, IL, Superdawg Hotdog stand and one not pictured here. A few of the other pictures he called "pretentious". I think I'm just going to have to shoot things that he likes for his class...

-Joe

The Latent Image

"Haunted" and H.P. Lovecraft

I haven't posted in a while due to a busy schedule of school work and what not. I've also been addicted to this book I've been reading. I just finished it last night before bed. The book is "Haunted" by author Chuck Palahniuk who also wrote "Fight Club".
For a review of this book, which will probably not do it justice, click here. This is his latest book and I think his best. It is really strong and well written. It's more of a horror story than his past books. Usually I'm not interested in the horror or sci-fi genre with the exception of "The Dark Tower" series by Steven King. Recently however, thanks to my friend Mike, my interest in the horror genre has increased due to a lent copy of a few of H.P. Lovecraft's audiobooks. (If you are interested in obtaining a copy of one of these audiobooks email me at latentimage@unleadedlogic.com)

So now that I have listened to these audiobooks, my favorite being "The Rats in the Walls", I am really getting into the horror genre again. "Haunted" is a book that helped push me deeper into this genre. The good thing about H.P. Lovecraft and Chuck Palahniuk is that they're so far above other cheesy horror authors. So you'll never see something like this in their books:
"and then the man walked down the dark stairs into the basement and from the corner of the room he saw a ghost and it said: 'BOO!'.
No no no. Their stuff is intelligent, not something stupid like Goosebumps by R.L. Stine (although I did read several when I was in fourth grade). Their stuff is so good that it's starting to inspire my artwork.

I'm starting to enjoy these darker images, although I've always had an affinity for dark, creepy or depressing sort of images. A few years ago, in fact I made a book entitled "Depression and Anxiety" for a final project in a Color Photography class. This book consisted of depressing images coupled with a depressing dialogue. For a while after I made it I felt that it was pretentious but looking back I can see why I made it; I actually enjoy making these images because they are personal to me and a part of who I am. You can't deny who you are when you are working creatively or else your work will suffer. This is not to say that I don't enjoy making the occassional "beautiful" image too. Images that are dark or gloomy can be beautiful too.

A picture is worth a thousand words but a Polaroid costs 4 bucks a sheet...

This is my first full week of school which means it's time to buy supplies. I've gotten all the text books that I need, I rented a school locker and I checked out my view camera for my View Camera class. For those of you who don't know what a view camera is, it's a large format professional quality camera used for fine art and advertising photography. Here is a picture of the very camera that I am using.



Today after my classes I went to my local photography store to buy some 4" x 5" black and white Polaroid film for my view camera. Much to my chagrin it cost about $70 for 20 sheets of instant film! That's a hell of a lot of money to pay in my opinion but then again I've shoveled out big money for school before; last spring I had to pay $100 for 50 sheets of 13" x 19" Epson premium luster print paper for my digital imaging classes and I spent another $100 today for my "Art History: Renaissance through Modern" textbook. Despite my complaints of how expensive Polaroid film is I do feel that it is worth it. With Polaroid you can see exactly what your picture will look like in 20 seconds! This is great if you're trying to take a tricky shot with mixed lighting or you're trying to achieve a certain mood but you're not sure that you can pull it off. Polaroid gives you instant feedback of what your negative and ultimate what your print will look like. If you don't like what you see on the Polaroid then all you have to do is re-setup your shot and take another Polaroid until you've got what you want!

My first assignment for class is to take 3 different pictures of the sky using the view camera. Before I took the picture with film I did a Polaroid test to see what I'll come up with. Here it is:

I'm pretty happy with it, so I took two different shots of it using film. The wires and the telephone pole are almost black which is to be expected when you're shooting against a bright sky but I think it'll be fine. This is the second scene that I shot for the assignment. I need to find 1 more good sky shot, so here's hoping that we'll get a day that's not so overcast or I'll have more boring pictures of plain white skies.

-Joe

The Latent Image

This next picture is another one I took w/ the Polaroid and view camera. I like the result of this one more because I had MUCH more control over the light and focus on my subject.

Chicago Botanical Gardens

Since last Monday was Labor Day the college that I go to was closed and the first day of classes was cancelled. So instead I went with my wife and two of our friends to the Chicago Botanical Gardens.

It was a first time going there for all of us and despite it being ninety-some degrees that day it was really a nice time. I took a few pictures with my Nikon N70 (film) and Ginnie took a few with our Nikon Coolpix 885 (digital). I'll post a few of the digital pictures that she took until I get my film processed. The same roll of 36 exposures has been in my camera for almost a month now! I was pretty much in photographic hibernation for the month that I was off school.



This is Ginnie at the garden, looking away from the camera. The wind was blowing her hair around and she was also pissed off at me for not taking the picture right! She's quite a photography coach if you don't mind a little abuse.

The gardens are a great place to go and get lost because the walk way system there is winding and circuitous. If you have time to spare and want some exercise this is great, but if you want to go to a specific place and you haven't brought your GPS with you, then you may get annoyed. But all in all I think this is a great escape for Chicagoans who want to get out of the concrete jungle and be as one with nature. I could seriously see myself sitting for a few hours with a book in some of those fields on a crisp autumn day.

Admission is free, but you have to pay $12 to park your car/van (or in my case... caravan by Dodge). My advice is pack your car full of people to take advantage of this high parking cost. The garden itself is totally outdoors and surrounded by beautiful ponds, fountains and waterfalls (in the waterfall garden). There is also an indoor Education Center where you can use the restrooms, buy cool drinks, tour their 3 or 4 green houses and look at whatever exhibits they have in their gallery. Last week they had a really interesting show up. It was about endangered or rare plants from Japan and it consisted of watercolor paintings and drawings of various plants.

I enjoyed the waterfall garden and the fruit and vegetable gardens most of all. I liked to see the apples and grapes growing because it reminded me of when I was little and used to go apple picking with my mom and dad. The orchards seemed so huge when I was small and it seemed that possibilities were endless in that huge space. Now... in the fruit and vegetable gardens you're no supposed to pick or eat anything there, but that's kinda hard when you're surrounded by juicy apples and rasperries. Luckily I was still in pain from my tonsilectomy and couldn't really eat anything anyways, but my wife sampled a few things. I would say wait another week or two if you plan on going for the "free" food tour. Nothing is quite ripe yet.

New Banner. New Site?

This is a banner I just made in Photoshop CS. I'm thinking of using it for my new site that I am working on. Things should go a lot smoother and quicker w/ the site now that I got my copy of "Dreamweaver MX 2004 for DUMMIES" in the mail. It's a pretty nice reference and it's certainly an asset to someone like me who has never successfully used Dreamweaver before and has only had minimal traning in html.
The blog part of the site is already up thanx to the help of my friend Mike of Unleaded Logic. Click here to see the new blog He is kindly hosting my site on his server. Thanks Mike! You done a good thing lad. So go ahead and look at the new blog and .... surprise, it's pretty much the same thing as this except now I have FREEEEDOM! oh yeah and a banner graphic of one of my photos courtesy of Mike. More soon.

-Joe

The Latent Image

Mother Nature's Monthlies

Thank goodness for the Midwestern USA. Nothing too bad weather related really touches us here except the occassional tornado and I haven't had one so much as ruffle the hairs on the back of my neck for years. Hmm well we've had our share of floods along the Mississippi and we even had a tiny earthquake here a year ago, but tuck yourself in the Northeast corner of Illinois and you're safe from mother nature. Yeah we got it pretty good here but unfortunately it's Hurricane and Typhoon season in the coastal areas and things are lookig bad. Katrina made a big mess of the Gulf region and angry people there are helping to make a worse mess, what with looting shops and shooting at those who try to help them. I don't think it was very nice for the rescue teams to give them the cold shoulder for a few measly gun shots, right? What is Kevlar for anyway?
Anyway, it wasn't Blackhawk Down (although it was pretty similar, minus the actual crashing of helicopters, if you think about it). Another big swirly rainy wind is having it's way in Taiwan right now. A typhoon is pissing rain and blowing wind all over the place out east too(east coast of China). Let's hope for them that there isn't any damage or lives taken but that seems too good to be true. Mama nature is an angry bitch lately... maybe all the pollutions is going to her head or she's tired of being drilled and humped all day for oil and having us kill each other for it. Blow some sense into us Mama Nature, you're going have to try harder because your last hissy fit just made a bunch of people loot stores and a bunch of big oil companies loot the people's pockets.

The Road to Recovery

Hello everybody,

I'm putting up a quick post on this, the 4th day after my tonsilectomy. I wish I would have gotten it done when I was little because then it would all be a memory. The surgery itself was fine. It went really quick and I got shot up with steroids and morphine among other things. I only wish they would have given me a little doggy bag of some of that stuff, but instead I got a bottle of liquid extra strength Tylenol which doesn't help a whole lot. The worst part of it all, I'd have to say is that I cannot eat anything! In the past four days all I've had is a hockey-puck sized container of apple sauce and some Easy-Mac, which was a bad idea because a noodle got caught in my throat wound. I am going to gain probably 50 lbs. after I recover. I'm going to eat so many things that I miss eating. I may actually use up this semester's school tuition at Buffallo Wild Wings snarfing down Teriyaki and Barbeque boneless wings washed down with several oh so mellow Captain and Cokes.
To make things worse I've had to endure laying in front of the TV all day, which means crappy daytime television. I thought that would be awesome but, nope, it's not! I thought maybe I'd feel well enough to play video games but so far I haven't.