Photobucket Reflection Journal

Slideshow Link:  http://s1066.photobucket.com/albums/u403/TRAPTinaStang/Art%20Inquiry%20Project%201%20-%20Elements/?action=view&current=2385abad.pbw

Since there are no questions to answer about this project, I will just explain a little of what I did and why.
Most of my photographs were taken at Tillman nature preserve in Clarence, NY. I got lost with my mother for over 10 miles, so I had plenty of time to be picky with pictures. For the photograph 'Line', it is showing a boardwalk continuing into the woods. There are boardwalks everywhere, and I kept my eyes open for one that seemed pretty consistent in the line space down the middle, and not warped/turning like most of the others. For 'Shape' I chose my bathroom cabinets. There are different two dimensional shapes on top of eachother, showing squares and rectangles all on one large rectangle.  The image for 'Forms' is these ceramic spheres my mother found in my grandfathers garage. I thought they were originally the white ball for lawn bowling, but they are very heavy. Anything three dimensional would work obviously, but these also kind of gave the illusion of eggs, to add some flow with the rest of the nature pictures. The photo for 'Space' is obviously taken upwards from underneath a small branch with leaves off of it. Simply made to show the negative space of the sky around it is also a basis of concentration throughout the image. Now, the photo for 'Color' seems very plain, I kind of wanted to keep it that way. You can have a simple portrayal of an element like color, without going crazy and needing every color in the rainbow in the picture to display it. The screaming yellow wild flower satisfied me in that element. I had originally taken a TON of photos to show 'Texture', including tree bark, moss, pebbles, etc. I decided on the pussy willow, wild field straw piece because as I walked (very lost) through a boardwalk that went through these things, I just had to touch them, they looked so soft, and I hope the picture makes the viewer wish they could touch it also. 'Balance' is one of my favorite pictures taken on this adventure. The description on the assignment under balance said symmetrical or asymmetrical. This photo is ALMOST symmetrical, but clearly not, they way the one tree looks like its dancing away from the other in the smallest way. The image for 'Emphasis' was the first one I had planned out in my head from the day I first read the assignment. I read the definition a few times, and thought to myself about when I was mowing the lawn, "there are tons of plants in the garden that are green but we only have ONE grape tomato". I chose to have it off center so the viewer kind of has to look for a second to find it, and because there were mums to the right that would obviously ruin the photo by adding a huge splash of unwanted color. 'Movement' was a little difficult for me, my camera was not cooperating. I had pets running, flags flapping, people walking, and cars driving. I chose the rain picture because again, it flows with the nature aspect of a lot of my shots, and rain is always moving, people may not think about it as much as a moving vehicle, but gravity makes rain always a moving object we try to avoid. 'Pattern' is pretty self explanatory, a blanket my grandmother made, where I took it so the angle shows that the colors repeat, creating a pattern. The picture for 'Repetition' was easy, I work at a pizzeria at night, where you are surrounded by the same things over and over. Whether its the redundant job itself, or being caged in by mountains of the same boxes around the walls. The photograph for 'Proportion' was also taken at the restaurant, I was trying to think of things that were pretty much the same, but maybe different in size, or color, so I chose my chef knives. 'Rhythm' was by far the most difficult one for me to understand. I looked up several different definitions, asked professional photographer friends, and still didn't feel like I had a grasp on the word and meaning. A friend suggested a book shelf, and how the uneven flow of books stacked almost symbolizes the peaks and drop offs of volume on a stereo. As I was trying not to take the word too literally, I feel that picture and suggestion made me understand it a little better. The image for 'Variety' is well, literally a variety of shells. They are the same object, but very different in shape, color, etc. Hundreds of shells surround our pool from Emerald Isle, NC. And lastly is 'Unity'. As we were walking through all of the wooded trails, we came across these man made teepee's. Obviously the purpose of these being built were for some not so good reasons, judging by the beer bottles and cigarette boxes inside of them. Regardless, I thought that since it was just moving nature and not disturbing it in any way, and how all the branches come to one point at the top, which shows that they are all working together for the end result.
This assignment was actually very fun to do, other than being dead exhausted after the little trip. This has been my first photography project ever, and I really enjoyed it. I had taken SO many photographs, and some are much better than the ones I used, but they do not explain the words as well. Hopefully there will be more assignments like this, so I can try and become better at photography.