Best of Nan Goldin Inspired Series

I included these photos in my best of series, not only because they most represent Nan Goldin's work, but because they most reflect my progress this semester. I have gained so much from this project, and have found real enjoyment from putting words and effects to my self portraits.

Series 3

In my third series I attempted to be my own subject in more subtle forms than in my previous series. I also attempted to make each photograph have a different tone, but as a collection to fit together. I think that I did not do as well of a job as I had hoped of making them all fit together, but I really enjoyed trying out many different editing techniques. Although I have altered from Nan Goldin's style quite a lot with each new series, I think I have been successful in conveying a meaning or conflict in each of my photos through the image and words.

In this series, I tried experimented with new effects on picmonkey, and attempted to use more thought provoking phrases and lines in my pictures. Many of the lines I have thought of myself, but I have also used lines from Slug from Atmosphere, MF Doom, and Madlib. I attempted to directly contrast or correspond my photos with the phrases or lyrics. I attempted to use a tripod and more self timers during this series draft, but I also just took many of my photos with my own hands, which Nan Goldin also believes is very effective.

In this series I attempted to use Nan Goldin's photography techniques to capture a conflict or a meaning. Nan Goldin uses self timer and her own hands to capture her own emotions. I added words to convey a meaning in my photos in a way that is specific to my interests and passions. This is just the first draft of my series, but I believe I have already started to replicate the mood that Nan Goldin sets in her Photos.

In this series I attempted to convey some emotion or even moral from this three picture sequence. I tried my best to create small stories, that sometimes are predictable, and sometimes are ironic. I also tried to use different lighting, coloring to convey different themes for each sequence.

In this series I attempted to portray some type of meaning or emotion through capturing toy subjects. I used images from books and computers as backgrounds for the toy characters. While taking these pictures I found that I made little stories in my head and already knew what I wanted to do with the characters after I took a picture. Although not all the pictures relate together, when they are side by side they form overarching themes such as power, forbidden love, and friendship.

Avedon Portraits

In this week's collection we tried to follow Avedon's rules of no distractions, plane white background, only particular subjects, and black and white. I found that this was much harder than it seems to find honest and pure photos of my classmates, when we all tend to automatically pose when a camera is pointed at us. It took long conversations and pondering questions in order to get these honest expressions from this beautiful couple.

The goal for this collection was to play around with the exposure and the sensitivity to light. When we adjust the shutter we can control the speed and light of each photograph in order to move a little further away from reality. The coolest part of this photography tool is if you follow a moving object, the background will be a blur but the object will remain mostly defined and clear. My last photograph is a good example of this.

Depth 2

In this collection I attempted once again to capture depth in my photographs around my community, but this time through repetition, patterns, as well as near and far objects. In each photograph I also tried to tell a small story, or show some sort or mood that reflected on how I was feeling at the time. Although I added some effects to these photos to add to that mood, I also really wanted to catch a glimpse of reality, and show a contrast of beautiful and loathsome aspects of our community.