Mentor - Richard Avedon

For this photography assignment I chose the famous artist, Richard Avedon. He was born on May 15, 1923 and died on october 1st, 2004. He was an american photographer, people said his sense of fashion and portrait photographs helped define Americas image of beauty, style and culture. 

Richard was born in New York City. After attending the university of columbia he became a photographer for the merchant marines, taking the crewman’s identification photos, which started his life as a photographer. He then began working as an advertising photographer for a department store, but then was quickly discovered by Alexey Brodovitch, the director for the fashion magazine Harper’s Bazaar. His career was also promoted by Lillian Bassman at Harpers magazine. After working at a magazine, starting his career for the marine crew and working at the department store he then decided to make his own studio and began providing images for magazine, such as Vogue and Life. He was then offer the job of chief photographer at Harper’s Bazaar. He moved to different positions as he got his career started and became more well known to the public for his work. He never conformed the standard techniques most fashion photographers used of having their models stand emotionless and seemingly indifferent to the camera. Instead he made the models show emotion, smiling, laughing and used many action scenes. During his career in the 1950 he got tired of daylight photography and open air locations he then started the trend of studio lighting using strobe lights.

In 1966 he left his career at Harper’s Bazaar and moved to become a photographer with  Diana Veerland. He later proceeded to become the lead photographer at vogue and photographed the most covers from 1973. In an addition to continuing his fashion career he then began to take photographs of mental patients, civil rights movements and the Vietnam war and the Berlin wall. At the same time he also took photographs of famous artists such as the Beatles. Which then later expanded to more rock and roll artists of the time. Richard was always interested in how to capture the subjects personality and soul in his work, instead of something posed. He became widely known for his work and his change in photography and brought in many famous faces to his studio and photographed many photos. His work is very easily known as his subject looking right at the camera, posed in front and a sheer white background. Richard would evoke reactions from his subjects by putting them in awkward and uncomfortable areas and discussions. Using these methods he would produce images revealing aspects of his subjects character and personality that were usually never shown to the public. 

Richard Avedon’s started his career as a student just taking simple identification cards for the men and working in a department store to becoming a well known photographer at magazine and then working with famous artists. I chose Richard because he was different then every other photographer he took the rules of photography and bent them to suit his idea and his meanings of what should really be captured. He took a simple photo and added character and a humans true beauty and personality to it. Not many have the courage to do what they want but he did.

Breaking the Rules

 In my first photo here, it is breaking the rules because one tree is bigger then the other making the photo unbalanced. This was taken outside of my house at the school st. vincent











In my second photo, it is breaking the rules because there are two cars on one side of the driveway and none on the other. This makes it unbalanced. This was taken at my house.

Alternative Process - Gel Medium

This is a photograph of Andie Weese and Me when we were younger. We meet at pre school and have been best friends since. I chose to use this photo for my assignment because not only is it one of my favourite photos of us, but because I love that expresses how crazy and weird we both are. I also love the look of old photos. For these assignments I didn't want to use any photo, I wanted one with a memory that I always want to remember. I love her and wish to always have her around.

Alternative Process - Cyanotype

This is a photo of my Grandma, Carole Shipley, it was taken when she was in her 30s. I used this photo for this assignment because I liked the look of the old photo and how the light captured her face. My grandma loved posing for pictures, which was another reason I chose it, to show her true self and what she likes. I also wanted to use it because most people used photo just taken not long ago but for this process and the Gel medium I used photos from my past or family past to show that even old can still be just as good as new.

Renaissance

For the renaissance assignment I used Jennifer to be my model and placed her face into Raphael's portrait. Raphael was born on April 6, 1483. His full name was Raffaello Sanzio. He was born in Urbino. Raphael was said to be a handsome man, pensive and fair. He was born very talented and received training from his father, Giovanni Santi. He also learned new techniques from famous artists such as Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo. He used beauty and serenity as his themes in his paintings. In 1499 he went to Perugia in Urbino and became a student and assistant of painter, Perugino. Around 1508-09 he was 25 and called to Rome by Pope Julius II to direct the decoration of the state rooms in the Vatican Palace. In 1509 he was hard at work on a suite of papal apartments. In Rome, in 1515, Raphael became the first Superintendent of Antiquities. In 1515-16 he painted ten large water color scales. He found the cultural and intellectual climate very exciting in Rome.

In 14th and 17th centuries it was the Renaissance Era, it began in italy and spread to the rest of Europe. The renaissance is best known for its artistic developments and their contributions of such polymaths as Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, who inspired the term “Renaissance man”. At this time art flourished especially in Florence. During this era light, colour and space were incorporated into the artists paintings.  Renaissance art marks the transition of Europe from the medieval period to the early modern age. During the renaissance era artists got a new place in society and art began to expand and became more beautiful to society, they realized the true skill and technique and recognized that art was more then just a  “craft”. Renaissance art and Middle ages art were different in many ways, they focused there art on the beauty of the human body and religion where the Middle Ages didn’t. Christianity was a main theme during this Era. The paintings became 3D  art, using horizon lines vanishing points and introduced techniques using depth to make the paintings and artwork more life like. 

Portraits

 .For this assignment I picked Jennifer as my subject. In the first photo the aperture was 5.6. This photo had the least amount of light. I used the schools camera for this assignment, it
was Nikon 1300 camera. The lights were farther away from Jenn, I used the two regular sized lights. In photoshop I just softened up her face. The positioned Jenn is in shows that the light is highlight one side of her face then the other.

The second photo is was used by the
same camera with the aperture of 5.6.
This photo had a little more light added
to it then the first one. I placed the lights a closer to her which gave her more of a glow and made the the light even. This was my favourite pose she did.

 



The last photo here was used by the same camera as the others. The aperture was 5.6. For this photo the light was placed between my first and second photo. I used it because it was a fun and goofy photo, something different then the others taken. I loved the way the light caught her hair. 

Mixed Lighting

In this assignment I was capturing mixed lighting. I used Jennifer Kyle as my model. After many ideas and takes, I found this photo. I liked it out of all of them because of the way the lighting caught her face and how her hair was lighted up and having the natural affect as it blew in the wind. For my lighting I used the sunlight shining on her and the gold circle to highlight her face being the main focus of the photo. Using a Nikon camera I capture this photo with the shutter speed at 1/250 and the aperture at 5.6 seconds. My inspiration for this photo was to capture the nice weather we have gotten and using nature around her as the background.

Painting with Light

In this assignment we had to capture an image in the dark of what we drew using lighting. My first photo I captured my name, the shutter speed was  f/30 and the aperture was 18 seconds. I went through a few tries to make my name, either my timing was to short or the letters were to close to one another. The second photo is of me writing love. It was a little bit harder, because I wrote it in cursive. The shutter speed was f/30 and the aperture was 12 seconds. I found this assignment to be a lot of fun. I like the idea that we got to try a different style of photography. 

Letters You Come Across

My name was separated into two different settings. My first name Olivia were all objects taken in Washington D.C, U.S.A. For my last name Grinton I had some from the United States but most of them were taken in Oakville, Ontario. Finding my name was not only interesting but also very hard at times. The letters I had a difficulty finding was the G and the N's. Finding the curve in the G or just the basic N was difficult unlike the other letters in my name where they were very simple. I found this assignment very fun and interesting to take a look at the world and look very closely to see if a simple structure of a building or the way a leave blows in the wind could make a simple letter from the alphabet. 

Galen Rowell - Landscape Photography

Galen Avery Rowell was born on August 23, 1940 and died on August 11, 2002. He was known as a wilderness photographer and climber. What made me love Galen's photographs was that he was able to take a simple photograph of a landscape scene and make even more beautiful by having the sunlight shine in the background. By doing so, it created a even more beautiful scene. In the first photo Galen used the sunlight to highlight the colours of the sky and to emphasize the plants branches and the grassy landscape. In the second photograph, called Mountain Light, He took a ready mountain top scene and used the light reflecting on the mountain to show the colours and sense of beauty the scene created on its own. 

What made me love Galens work the most was that he didn't take a beautiful scene and add objects or lighting to make it beautiful, he used the natural beauty and colours the earth creates on its own. I find natural beauty is even prettier then one thats been staged. I enjoy all kinds of photography and everyones own personal choice of what to capture but I have always loved the look of a landscape scene; where the lights is hitting the main object and also adding new colours to the picture. Even how everything around the main object has it's own beautiful touch to it. There are many styles and kinds of photography but of them all, Landscape is my favourite. 

For background history about Galen Rowell and his 

photography's, click the link. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galen_Rowell