Personal Metaphor

Shattered glass in my backseat
I chose the metaphor I did because about a month ago on April 6th, 2009 I was in a car accident. It was my first car accident and it scared me to the point where I don’t like driving anymore. Although it may not have been a really major car accident it still scared me to that point. Thankfully everybody was okay and able to walk away from it. Even though it’s already been about a month it still feels unreal. “Did that really happen or am I having some bad dream that I need to wake up from?” I have a daily reminder when I leave for school and see my car just sitting there in the driveway collecting dirt and any leaves that get stuck under the windshield wipers. I compared myself to shattered glass because after that day I felt like my life shattered along with the back passenger window. Nothing seems to be going right and I’m always constantly reminded about what happened. My life feels like shattered glass its fragile, it’ll cut you if you touch it, and it’s hard, nearly impossible to put back together.
Something I did well was fading the image of my car into the image of the shattered glass in my backseat. I wanted to use both images to show what happened to the car and the glass that sits in the backseat day after day.
Something I could have done better was mess with the shattered image of myself to maybe distort it a little more.
The one difficult thing that I think I struggled with the most was where to place my shattered image because it seemed like no matter where I put it, it was in the way of something.
I love the final product I did what I was trying to accomplish, even though there were a few problems, it came out the way I thought it would.

Shutter Speed

ISO: Film Speed

ISO is the film speed of the camera. This is how fast or slow the camera reacts to the light that the picture is being taken in. In class we experimented with the different ISO film speeds. We used flash, ISO 50, ISO 400, and ISO 5000. When flash was used it made the christmas ligths look like they were not on. The next photo used ISO 50 and you can barely tell that Anthony is sitting right in front of the camera. Next was ISO 400, now you can kinda see him but it looks blurry. Last was ISO 5000, now you can see Anthony completely and see that the christmas lights are on. Choosing and changing the ISO instead of just using flash would come in handy when taking pictures outside and the lighting isnt the best. So the camera will pull in whatever light there is, but the camera has to be set to the right ISO otherwise its not going to look as great as you might have wanted it to.

Fill in Flash Experiment

Fill in flash is the lightening bolt that represents flash on a camera. This means that no matter what when taking a picture the flash will go off. Even if you are outside in the bright sun the flash will still go off. For example if you are outside taking portrait pictures dark shawdows will be created. Using fill in flash gives the camera enough light and the camera will meter the background. My photos are examples of this because they were taken outside in the sun and there was a shawdow over the my partners face. Then using the fill in flash created light where there wasnt any before in the foreground of the picture.

Metering

Surrealism:

Surreal Practice Tutorials

Graduation Program

After looking at the other students program covers and designs, something I think I did well on was the creativeness of my program. I wanted to try and do something that nobody else was doing and try and stay away from cliche graduation program covers. I could have done differently or better with the way I used the stamps on the front of the program and I could have used the burning affect to burn the words or something else besides the paper. Graphic design was harder than I thought it would because you cant just place words, objects, or pictures randomly, there has to be some sort of balance in your graphic design. Also you have to be as creative as possible. The most important parts or aspects of graphic design are being aware of what the client wants and what is and is not appropriate for that specific design. Another important part or aspect is the amount of time you have to work on and complete your design. Some advice to give to next year's students would be to use your brainstorming time wisely because when time is cutting close and you do not have an idea, you may not come up with something as great as you would have, if your brainstorming time was used wisely. Also be creative and do not use too many pegasuses.

Alternate Program:

Effects

The effect I like best is the emphasis picture. I like this effect because it made me obviously stand out in the photo, it helps to emphasize on a person or make an object stand out. Although it was quick and easy to do in photoshop, it helped to make the simplest pictures a little more interesting.

Frames

For this project we used frames to create artistic self-portraits.  I like all three of the pictures I posted, I could not pick just two.  So it'd be difficult to choose just one, but if I had to I would pick the picture with the sun.  I think the photo being in black and white, the way i captured the sun, and the shadows from the trees is what makes my photo artistic.  Something I could do  to make it more artistic would be to position myself in a way that would go along with the artistic feel of the photo.

Color!

Balance: Asymmetrical vs Symmetrical

For this project we were to work in a group and compose a symmetrically balanced photograph along with an asymmetrically balanced photograph.  Symmetrical balance is when an image has the exact same thing on both sides, if it were to be folded or cut in half horizontally or vertically.  Asymmetrical balance is when there are different things on both sides of the picture, although it still looks visually balanced.  I think balance is important in art because it can make something very powerful, or if not used wisely it could make the picture very boring.  

Group Collaboration

The most difficult thing for our group was trying to figure out how and where to take the picture. Also figuring out where to place everybody and what pose each person was going to do. We had to think on our toes, so if we had a little more time to think about the photo it may have come out a little different or better. Something I would do differently if I had to do group shots over again, I would find a place that would compliment our group and the amount of people we have. Find a way for our group to be original and think outside the box.