Film Work
This past semester I’ve been taking a film based class. Here are some of the prints I’ve made recently.
Zoe and William
For my final project I wanted to explore child photography. I think it’s interesting to see how emotionally open they are and I wanted to try to capture that. My collection was of Zoe and William: two kids i’ve been babysitting for years. Zoe is outgoing and talkative while William is quieter and more reserved. I really enjoyed shooting this assignment because I love spending time with these guys. We had a lot of fun. Zoe is holding a baby fairy in picture #11.
This is a baby fairy
School Street
We had a guest speaker come in to give us a new assignment the other day: Allie Cottrill. She wanted us to shoot a story instead of a series like we might in other projects. A story has more variation to it than a series which might be focused around a single object. I wanted to shoot in Rockport because I love the “cottage” architecture and feel to the town. After I looked through the pictures I’d shot, I wasn’t happy with how they turned out so I decided to scrap the collection and start over.
On the way to riding every week we pass this rundown car repair shop called the School Street Garage. I shot here and really loved how grimy the whole place is. It’s such a contrast to the rest of concord which is generally very neat. Throughout the lot there were interesting subjects and I found it really fun to shoot here.
Link to Allie Cottrill’s site: http://www.allisoncottrillphotography.com/
Boston 2015
On May 1st, the entire advanced photography program went on a photo-field trip to Boston. This field trip was interesting because in almost all of our assignments we shoot in Concord. Although Concord is gorgeous, it’s small and difficult to get much variation between pictures. Boston is big and allows for a large range of things to shoot. I found it interesting to look at the variety that could be found around the city.
I typically don’t like shooting in cities. The size intimidates me and I often dont know what to shoot. Oddly, I ended up really enjoying the field trip. I wasn’t overwhelmed and I got to see a change of scenery. Unfortunately, I brought the wrong lens with me. It’s a portrait lens with very specific focus and while that’s great for planned portraits, I struggled to use it for street photography. Everything was so fast paced that a lot of my images were out of focus. Street photography isn’t always about being technically perfect but a good portion of my pictures were just too blurry to work around.
April Break
Over April break I visited one of my favorite places, Road’s End Farm in Chesterfield NH. The farm has a herd of over 70 horses and in addition to shooting much of the herd, we also visited the Chesterfield Gorge. Although they’ve had a much colder spring than MA there was still a lot of green. On the way home we stopped at Westport Town Beach and shot there as well. I really loved this project because it gave me the opportunity to shoot places that I treasure but don’t get to visit that frequently.
Irish Step
I am an irish step dancer. My class has some world qualifiers (something that I strive to acheive one day) and there are many extremely talented dancers. There are about thirteen of us in my specific class. I love these girls so much and it was an interesting experience to look at them more as subjects than as team mates and family. We spend so much time at the studio and together that at this point we’re as much as a family as my biological one is.
As it turns out, irish dance is a tricky sport to take photos of. It may be my lack of ability to time pictures accurately, or it could just be how fast everything is going but a lot of my pictures ended up blurred. Many of them are out of focus and certainly nowhere near to the beautiful work professional photographers produce when shooting at major competitions. However, I really like this collection because of how personal it is. I stuggled a lot with the techincal aspect but the story behind it is 300% there. I put so much of myself into this sport and these girls that it’s impossible for me to truly dislike any of these pictures. They’re just too close to me to pass off any of them.
Vintage Cameras
I am fascinated with old cameras because they show how much we’ve technologically progressed. For the holidays, my best friend gifted me a folding autographic camera made by Kodak. I haven’t used it yet considering the price of film and the fact that I am currently in a digital photo class instead of a film one. However, at some point I would really like to use it and compare the prints between my standard film camera and this autographic one.
It is becoming more and more trendy to purchase and use vintage cameras. Although many people are against these “fake” photographers: I disagree. I think part of the appeal for a lot of people is how different they are from what we typically use to shoot. People are fascinated by them not only mechanically but also aesthetically. Photography has turned into a hobby and casual thing for a lot of people and I think that is great. In the photography community snapshots of time are so highly valued but we seem to forget to apply our affection for them when it comes to anything short of professional. I don’t think it’s right to disregard the less serious photographers that exist. People tend to discourage the arts and disregard them and as a community it hurts more than helps to put down the people who do it for fun.
“Kodak Stereo Camera.” N.p., n.d. Web. <http://www.3dham.com/stereo_cameras/>.
Fisher, Jay. “World Class Knifemaker.” Photographic Mastery, Professional Art Photographer, Photographic Services of Jay Fisher. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Apr. 2015. <http://www.jayfisher.com/Photographer.htm>.
48 Hour Photo-shoot
The 48 hour photo shoot was challenging but also a lot of fun. It allowed an interesting perspective on time. Instead of taking time to plan out a shoot or a finding a specific subject, it was more about taking a snapshot of time. I liked the idea that not every picture would have perfect focus or enough light, instead it revolved around the story behind the the image.
However, I struggled quite a bit. After experiencing the luxury of a digital camera, I found it extremely difficult to limit myself to only one picture. More importantly, I spent way too much time thinking through each image before I shot it. I think I may have cheated this project by taking the time to plan out what I was going to shoot before the hour was up. I valued the “snapshot” theme to this project but I struggled to just shoot and trust my work. Although it’s good to be conscious, I took it too far and over analyzed each shot. I was stressed about this project not because of my inability to stay organized and take a picture every hour (although, admittedly that was a problem), but because of my desire to produce quality work in one image only.
San Francisco’s Homeless – Photo Journal Review
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/02/robert-okin-silent-voices-homeless-san-francisco. Author: Gabrielle Canon. Photographer: Robert Okin. MotherJones magazine. February 19, 2015. Photo’s and stories of San Francisco’s homeless.
Living such a privileged life makes it incredibly easy to forget about people who aren’t living in such a cookie cutter world. It also makes it easy to ignore things that might evoke unpleasant emotions.
Homeless people make me sad. It’s such a contrast to where I am economically and emotionally that I have a hard time wrapping my head around it. The article about San Francisco’s homeless is somewhat disturbing from my viewpoint but also incredibly important. It tells stories the stories of homeless people: how they got there, who they are, their past. Most of them have been through trauma, or abuse, or addiction. Most of them aren’t emotionally stable anymore, if ever. It’s upsetting but also so so relevant and people tend to turn a blind eye on things that are uncomfortable.
Robert Okin shot this collection beautifully. His subjects seem more like friends than strangers because they each offer such an honest piece of themselves to each photo. The framing of each image is incredible; it doesn’t leave room for questions. It displays just the bodies and faces of each subject. This collection is so incredible because you get so much of their story out of just a portrait. The lighting of this photo set is light and airy, and it helps paint the subjects as good people. Not scary, or to be avoided like how homelessness is usually portrayed. This collection is both technically and personally stunning and I would love to see more of Okin’s work.
Okin, Robert. Mary “told me she had once been very beautiful, but that was a long time ago”. Digital image. MotherJones. N.p., 17 Feb. 2015. Web. <http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/02/robert-okin-silent-voices-homeless-san-francisco>.
Winter-Not-So-Wonderland
For the place assignment I shot pictures in several different locations and with several different subjects. Originally I planned to shoot city architecture but when I looked back at my images, I wasn’t inspired by most of them. However, I felt as though a few captured the essence of New England Architecture and stayed within the range of grey’s that appear in all of my other pictures. I also shot at my barn. I really loved the contrast of the bright subjects and the damp looking background. Even the light blur picture plays into this because of the cooler tones found throughout the picture. Although all of these pictures were shot in different places, they all portray the feeling of run-down winter weather.
As a photographer I tried to approach subjects with the idea of this winter-not-so-wonderland. I looked for lots of neutrals with pops of color or interesting textures to shoot. The lighting throughout the entire collection is fairly dark but I think it adds more support to the “dismal” feeling. I shot hundreds of photos for this assignment and surprisingly most of my images were very bright and vibrant. Most of the pictures felt bland and uninspiring. They seemed unrelated and random instead of looking like lots of puzzle pieces of one idea. I’ve learned that its easy to feel uninspired by your own work and that sometimes it’s because you’re just looking for the wrong story.
Elise Kaplan 