Lost... in... SPACE!!!!!-ESSSSS

Unlike many of the assignments I have had this semester photographing spaces is something that I actually have experience with. Since I began taking photographs seriously my main focus was to photograph spaces (particularly landscapes) in interesting ways. However I'm not really one for a straight on landscape picture, there has to be something unique that catches the eye, whether it be the tones of color/lack there of, a strange angle or perspective, or some kind of unscripted mysterious action taking place. With this in mind I took the following two
photographs which have their own stories.

Before diving in I believe I should first explain a short story behind where I was and the feel of the day. Whenever I am home I go a little bit stir crazy. I love my family and being around them but I'm so used to going off and doing things on my own that sometimes I do just that. I decided that I was going to go on one of my photo-adventures as I call them, where I go off on my own with my car and my camera, driving around aimlessly in search of something to catch my eye.

Since last summer I had not been to the beach being that the cold had consumed it much like it had consumed Ramapo all winter. Since it's not far from my house I decided to take a short drive to Belmar, shoot some photos, eat some Fins (better than Moes )and just relax. As I pulled into town I noticed a deep fog rolling in off the sea and at that moment I knew I was going to have a long day of walking around Belmar, camera in hand.


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This one of the first sites I saw while driving into town, and I knew that after I had taken some shots at the beach and filled my stomach that I would return here. When I had first driven past it a fisherman had been standing out on the pier but by the time I had returned it was another photographer. I immediately set up my tripod and began taking pictures of the seascape as she seemed to be taking pictures of me and the Belmar water tower behind me. It was comical in a sense as the time went on and we slowly traded places (myself on the pier/her on the beach) and I can't help but wonder how well her photos came out.


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This was a bit riskier than the last shot, I had been taking pictures underneath a pier on the beach when I slowly started to catch view of the jeti through the fog. It was packed with fishermen who seemed a territorial and a bit annoyed that I was wandering around. As I climbed up onto the jeti I attempted to quietly say hi being that two of the men had been staring at me my entire walk up; but I was treated by silence. Whether they couldn't hear me above the waves or they were ignoring me I'm not sure of but I don't especially care either. So I nonchalantly set up my tripod facing the end of the jeti, away from the two original fishermen, and took this shot, attempting to catch the intensity of the moment.


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This last one is the last of my non digitally manipulated "spaces" I thought I would stick with the shots all from this day as many of them came out pretty well. This shot was probably the scariest to take since the tide was coming in as I was setting up for it, had a couple close calls that consisted of me running away trying not to get soaked. As with all my images I really suggest viewing this one larger, the wood had an almost hair like material covering it in streaks and you can only really see it when the image is blown up.



And last but not least...

View Larger On Black Pleaseeeee

Self Portraits.

Okay. So here it is. I LOATHE self portraits. I don't know why, but for some reason they just aggravate me. In a previous assignment when asked to do self portraits I attempted to cleverly avoid it by taking both very close up obscured images of myself or pictures of objects that related to who I am. I did everything in my power to avoid being the true subject of any photos during my time in this course but now... the time has come and I find myself the subject, of 4 photos. I will admit despite my dislike for the process (setting up camera on tripod, setting up timer on camera, setting up shot, setting up shutter speed, running in front of the camera, having no idea what to do, look like an idiot in numerous pictures of my face looking back at the camera as if I was there telling myself what I should be doing, after doing this 8 times finally figuring out how I might pose, finally pose right, shit. the shutter speed was too high, shoot photo again, damn. moved the camera while previewing that last picture, shoot the same photo 10 more times, finally get a picture that I enjoy.)I actually somewhat enjoy the photos that came out in the end. However I can say with a lot of certainty that I do not plan on taking an more self portraits this semester after I finish with these.


In the 15+ takes before this photo my face wasn't quite as red but after repeatedly going through the process above I couldn't help but be a little sweaty.

Get Closer

So this turned out to be my first trip to the Met in recent memory and probably the first time that I felt I could truly appreciate everything. The "Get Closer" assignment asked us to photograph specific details on bodies of artwork that we found especially beautiful or interesting and these 5 photos are what I came back with.

The second assignment that had been ongoing was our editing assignment. We were asked to divide 300 photos we had taken and to separate them into two different groups, I ended up choosing newer and older photographs that I have taken to see how my style has changed over the past year or so. I can say with confidence that I have greatly matured and I've gained a much larger affinity for directed portraiture as opposed to the spontaneous landscapes that make up much of my older works. These are 5 photos that remain my favorites of those 300 photos. If you would like to check them out in higher quality take a visit to my flickr where you can see these and most of my other photos.

Portraits

So I've yet to do my self portraits but over spring break I did finish up my portraits of friends and I decided to do something a little different rather than following the normal formula. I went with a zombie theme, the idea seemed to appear after a bottle of fake blood was combined with a night of partying. The next morning when I awoke to found this blood smeared on walls and... my face, I decided that a zombie theme would be perfect. After finding some friends to model and a place to shoot (Marshall's house where the party had taken place) I went ahead with it and spent the majority of my day making my own fake blood and applying make up rather than behind the camera. I was quite proud of my work as two police cars soon showed up at the scene thinking that someone had been murdered. Here's my 4 favorites of the day after all was said and done.






The streak of blood on the wall in this shot is the very one I woke up to the morning after the party. I felt it had to be in at least one shot being that it inspired nearly the whole shoot.


The gory fleshy stuff in this is actually cheap toilet paper mixed with glue and soaked in the fake blood. The fake blood actually had cocoa powder in it to make it darker, however it didn't dissolve enough into the blood so I had to heat it up in a microwave. By doing so I inadvertently created hot chocolate flavored fake blood making it much more appetizing for Morgan to put that soaking wet gob of toilet paper in his mouth.

Once Upon A Time

After looking into a bunch of narrative style paintings and artwork I caught a familiar glimpse of Edward Hopper's work. Soon after I felt compelled to make an attempt at recreating two of his paintings, one of which is this.

"Excursion Into Philosophy" by Edward Hopper




I tried to stylize it and make it my own while retaining the same emotions and feeling seen in the original. I added some noise to it and played with the contrast and saturation to give the image a dulled down feeling as opposed to the sharpness of my original photograph.



Pablo Picasso's "Blind Man's Meal"

This one took some pretty heavy photoshopping, but I feel like it now retains the look of a photograph while sharing the feel of a painting.

And here are a few of my originals in the narrative series

Iron Pour

I'm part of the intermediate sculpture class and as such I participated in Saturday's iron pour. These pictures aren't any kind of assignment for class however I just thought they turned out pretty awesome, enjoy.

One Hundred Twenty Photos of My Choice, Hmmm...

So this assignment was not exactly my favorite, finding photos that related to me just seemed sort of difficult, especially since I'm not one for self portraits. Not sure why but they have just never struck me as something I'm interested in. I feel like everything and everyone I take pictures of is/are related to me or have peaked my interest in some way. Due to this I found it really difficult to take photos that really represented me in the way that I believed the assignment meant it. However the 25 or so photos that I was allowed to pick my subject were of great interest to me. Being that I have a macro lens that I received over the holiday season I have been loving experimenting with it. It was used in almost all of my hand photography and I believe the results are very telling of how well it works.

From this entire project I've chosen two photos that really stood out to me.
"Counter Parts and Number Them."

This photo was taken of my usual subject, Rob. As almost always I went into his room upon receiving the subject for the assignment and began taking pictures. After experimenting with different sources of light and different angles of his head I was able to capture this with my macro lens once again.

"Some Stop Feeling Love."

This photo greatly represents something both myself and most of my friends are very passionate about, music. The subject is a recording microphone along with a pair of Bose Headphones. Music has always been a substantial part of my life, whether I'm listening to it or creating it. Much like art it has always been an important tool in expressing my emotions and dealing with the everyday occurrences of life. Due to this I entitle the photo after a line in a song belonging to a band named "Set Your Goals" the full lyric reads "Some stop feeling love for every word that they once sung, may I never lose my youth and if I do may I be forgettable."

Just adding all of the photos I'll be presenting today now
Macro category.

"Champagne"


"Cologne"


Landscape/Spaces category.

Favorite Photos From The Past

These are several of my personal favorites that I have taken over the span of the past 2 years


This picture was taken at an especially tough time during my life, and for me the symbolism of climbing to the top of a mountain on which I had never been before and seeing the entire valley blossoming in spring seemed to be very uplifting. This is still my favorite photo that I have ever taken.


This was a complete spur of the moment shot. I had been sitting in my house itching to take pictures of something when a violent thunderstorm began to develop in view from my neighborhood. I ran out into the middle of the street with camera in hand and began shooting pictures of the sky in which I captured several great images of which this was my favorite. I used some post processing and texture work to enhance it further until I felt that it was finished.


This shot was taken in New York City on a night during which my girlfriend Kelly and I were there to see the comedian Danielle Tosh. We had spent the majority of the day walking around and it had now begun to get dark out. We sat outside the venue waiting for doors to open and I began to take some long exposure shots. Through the combination of my shivering from the cold, my hands already being abnormally shaky and the lack of a tripod I was expecting every image to come out as a blur of brightly colored lights without any rhythm or reason. However to my astonishment this shot surfaced and it has since been my favorite long exposure shot I've taken to date.


This picture reminds me of home and good times in general, I have lived within 20 minutes of the beach all of my life so I frequently find myself there shooting pictures. On this day I had met up with several friends at a restaurant where we shared some beers and great food. We then wandered over to the beach only a few blocks away where we took up position on a lifeguard stand. Slightly inebriated I was very camera happy and taking pictures of everything in sight, but this photo truly stood out to me in capturing the essence of the beach which I love so much.

First Post

Guess I'll just dive right in.

The following photos are five of my favorite pieces from my photography project on hands entitled "Obsession"

"See Some Evil"


I had previously had the idea to include a picture of someone covering their eyes as part of my hand series however I feared it might come out as a mildly boring photo. The idea then evolved into someone with a brightly colored eye peaking through the spaces in between two fingers. The final idea came when the thought of the three monkeys came into my head that I used to have figures of as a child. "See No Evil. Hear No Evil. Speak No Evil." As cool as it would've been to replicate the three I decided I would rather make something original. That is when I decided to make the series "See Some Evil. Hear Some Evil. Speak Some Evil." To represent all three I had my model throw slight variations on the original poses, such as the eye peaking through the hand in the photo above.

"Morgan"


Like many of my photos this one was not premeditated but rather the result of observing my surroundings and working with what was at "hand." <--(first pun)One of my best friends, Morgan agreed to help me out with my project and model for some of my pictures. I wanted to focus on Morgan's hands while retaining an interesting setting for them that represented Morgan as a person. After taking some pictures of the bite that had been taken out of his finger by a friend of ours on a long night I began to explore the rest of his room. I spotted a notepad which Morgan had been writing down ideas for a story he has been writing, I thought this perfect as Morgan is very passionate about writing. We experimented with several different focuses and various DOFs but in the end this photo turned out as one of my favorites. "Peter"

Peter is a great friend of mind who is quick to come to my aid although it may not always be the most pleasant of tasks. Peter had been over on this day during which I was shooting photos for my project and due to a lack of models I asked him if he wouldn't mind helping me out. For this photo I asked Peter to splash his face with water while keeping his hands close being that they were to be the subject of the photo. Peter repeatedly splashed his face for what must have been 5 minutes as I ran back and forth experimenting with different lenses, angles, and uses of my external flash. Although this photo isn't my best work the amount of effort that went into it makes me appreciate greatly.

"Lemon Zinger"

Not much to this photo besides some luck and a macro lens. This is completely candid and was another result of my unplanned exploratory advances into art that I so love to do. Rob had been sitting at his desk working on some form of school work on his macbook when I wandered into his room, camera in hand and asked if I could take some pictures. He agreed and I was quick to be pointing my macro lens inches from his hand every move it made. Within a minute or two I came away with this jewel and happily left Rob to finish his work.

"Rob"

More than anything I love the focus and composition of this one. This truly captured the goal of my project which was to convey emotion through the hands. I feel that more so than any other picture the feelings are strongly visible to the viewer and portrayed in an aesthetically pleasing manner.