Defy Ms. Seal

This project forced me to deal with the technicalities of what makes a good photograph. In previous projects I had been able somewhat to ignore the use of lighting, aperture, etc., and simply leave these elements up to chance, but my lack of technical skill was very obvious at the outset of this project. Because of the white background and straightforward composition of the photographs making up this digital collage, bad lighting was very obvious in the color of the shadows, the brightness of the photographs, and the tint of the background. Because I had to normalize every photo to create a homogenous collage, I became more aware of these elements, and became more adept at photoshopping to remove these discrepancies.

Future Tense

REPETITION

Sample Images

paintbrushes 

vicegrips

matches

shingles

tasses

I printed these images and others on transparencies and assembled them into a book, depicted below:

The transparencies can be lifted off of their white backgrounds.

the binding of my book

the cover of my book: A transparency against a background of the text

REPEATREPEATREPEAT

I intended to explore in my book the relationship of the parts with the whole. Each image captures several of the same item, so that the success of the image cannot depend on any one of the objects, but on the way they interact. Thus the reader is forced to see the image as a whole. To create an intriguing whole, I employed several distinct techniques: symmetry, focal depth, oblique lighting, etc.

My images are all set against a simple background. They are nearly all deliberately crafted to point out the details of everyday items; that is, I staged the photos rather than capture a preexisting moment. Many of my photos capture the subject in such a way as to obscure its identity: it is not obvious at first what the subject is. None of my photos have a natural subject; I avoided documenting the repetition found in nature in favor of the repetition man creates.

It is very important in attempting such a project to be deliberate with one's lighting and one's arrangement. The objects in and of themselves are nothing extraordinary, but their arrangement and the composition of the photography create interesting interplay between them to create intriguing wholes.