Even though our final projects for the course were cancelled due to COVID-19 and the move to online learning, I still wanted to document my collected photographs somewhere, as I was quite proud of the result. My initial plan for the in-class final was to print out these photos and clip them onto a karate white belt and black belt strung across the wall, representing the progression and journey the kids at our school undergo from the time they start martial arts onward. These images capture through the next generation my own progression from overeager eight-year-old white belt to earning my black belt at twelve, starting to teach at fifteen, all the way until now, nineteen years old eleven years later, and still training. I was proud of the photos I took, but not as proud as I am of the kiddos who feature in them, learning and improving every day.
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As I'm reaching the concluding stages of working on my journal, the main thing I'm noticing is how much better I feel like my pictures have gotten with practice. I'm no longer fighting my camera to try to produce the right light settings or focus points. Many more of my pictures are turning out to be more than just streaks or blurs. I feel proud of my ability to capture motion, refine framing, and depict the expressions and experiences that I observe at my dojo every week. This week's selection of photos include some that I consider my best - I particularly like the fourth, fifth, seventh, and tenth. These pictures were dynamic while still in focus, and to me represented accurately the activity and emotion of karate classes.
For this assignment, I wanted to focus around the concept of autobiographical still life. I wanted to explore what objects can reveal about a person, and how the things in our lives can represent us. I accomplished this by gathering objects from the bedrooms of my siblings and roommates and arranging them into displays to be photographed. I focused on light and color in my arrangements to make the objects stand out. I also strived to have my foreground in focus while the background was more blurred.
One interesting aspect of this project that came up in critique was the idea that I was choosing the objects that represented the people around me, rather than having them choose for themselves. This came with limitations: I did only allow myself items that they owned and that were in their bedrooms, so theoretically my array came from objects they had chosen to reflect themselves, at least so far as bedroom decor goes. However, this raised the question of perception. How was I perceiving and constructing the people around me? How is the viewer's perception of these photographic biographies affected by my gaze? This project allowed me to think about the way we view the people around us and the lives we construct for them based on their belongings, and our own positionally and perspective. I tried to theme my photos in rows this week. The top row represents my continued attempts to capture expressions and motion even when the kids are wearing sparring gear, as well as ensuring they're not merely lost to the background. The second row is my portrait shots, smiling faces with subjects aware of my camera. The third row is action and motion shots, with more interesting compositions due to the more dynamic activity occurring when they were taken. Finally, I have my 'partner activities' series during our grappling segment (like wrestling). I liked capturing the interactions between the partners in this activity, as well as the dynamic poses.
If I were to title this collection, I think I would call it "Expressions and Close-Ups with Zoë and Five-Year-Olds." I've found that zooming in or getting close up is a good way to ensure that my pictures are in focus. I also wanted to play with extremely small aperture levels, and being close up makes the effect much more dramatic. Plus who doesn't love the many faces of small, hard-at-word five-year-olds? The expressions they make when they're not paying attention (or when they suddenly remember a camera's present) are pretty priceless. I'm so happy once again about my pick of location. I've truly found joy in taking pictures of my kiddos.
Typology and Style Reflection
For my project, I chose to photograph one of my favorite books, Jandy Nelson’s I’ll Give You The Sun, on a variety of multicolored backgrounds, compiled from various blankets, sweatshirts, and other fabrics from around my apartment. I shot all of these pictures using flash to try to make the colors appear as bright and vibrant as possible. I chose to arrange the photographs in a circle, mimicking the sun of the title, and in color order. I wanted to emphasize the effect of the rainbow, as LGBT+ empowerment is an important theme within the novel. The assortment of backgrounds drew attention to the book as a portable object, existing within various contexts and audiences, yet still remaining constant. Through Photoshop, I attempted some brightness, exposure, and color corrections of my images, but learned that this process was much more difficult than I anticipated, and I still have a significant learning curve to reach mastery. I found my critique to be a much more positive experience than I anticipated. My classmates saw insight into my photos and arrangements that I hadn’t even considered. I particularly enjoyed hearing the different perspectives from people who had and hadn’t read the novel, and how these experiences affected their interpretations. This critique really highlighted for me the role of the audience in photography, as any art form, and the layers of complexity they bring to the work beyond the artist’s original vision. I was able to visit my location right at the beginning of this week, and so I completed my journal entry early as well!
My focus during the class that I photographed this time (another Juniors level) was framing and angles. I spent a lot of time during this session trying to approach images both straight on and at more Dutch angles to focus on how my subjects were framed in the final images. I also used the surroundings - the light in the room, the objects and other people surrounding my subjects - to create framed effects, which I discuss further in my captions. Finally, I did some slight edits, just cropping, to really frame certain pictures exactly how I intended. I also played with motion during this session, resulting in several pictures both in focus and blurred, to show the action and movement within the class. For this week's journal entry, I took pictures in another of our Juniors (7-12) karate classes. Students were preparing for testing this week, so I got some nice shots of students practicing their 'forms' for performance in front of their black belt instructors at the end of the week. Still working on capturing light and preventing blur, although the blur can add a certain effect to the photos in some instances. I also maintain that a lot of these pictures would look better with editing, but am still working up to mastering my editing skills (all this week's photos are unedited, subsequently)
This week for my journal photography session, I attended two karate classes: one Little Dragons (4-6 years old) and one Juniors (7-12). Each class and set of students definitely have a different dynamic. The younger students definitely were more interested in why I was there and taking pictures, resulting in some excellent shots when they intentionally posed for my camera. It was also a lot more difficult to take action pictures of these kiddos than the brown/black students last week - for one thing, their martial arts isn't as sharp and refined due to their level, and for another, they were a lot more wiggly :) It was a challenge to find moments when they were still enough to get pictures in focus. The indoor lighting at my dojo makes it so I can't turn my shutter speed up fast enough to capture true stop-motion images like I would like, though the room I was in this week definitely had better lighting than last week. I felt more at ease this time; I think I am slowly getting more comfortable with my camera, and more confident with the pictures I'm taking, though I certainly still have lots to learn. I also had the chance to put a couple of my pictures through Photoshop this week before posting (I intended to do all of them, but everything in Photoshop is taking me a lot longer than I expected). I have included the side-by-sides of those to demonstrate the changes. As with last week, each picture is captioned individually.
For my location for my photography journal, I chose my karate studio and workplace, Alpha Martial Arts. I have been a student at Alpha since 2008, and have worked there as an instructor since 2015. The dojo is one of the most important places in my life, and one I frequent often, sometimes up to six days a week. I chose this location for my journal because of the amount of time I spend there, and the joy I find being in this environment. I also felt this would be a practical application of my slowly-improving photography skills, as I am occasionally asked to take photographs for our classes and events, and this journal seemed like a great chance to practice. Finally, I chose this location because I love taking pictures of people, children in particular. I was genuinely excited to capture these moments in a place I adore.
For this first journal entry, I took pictures in one of our brown/black classes. These students have been training for at least three years if not longer, and are either preparing to test for their junior black belts, or already have and have continued training after. I spent the 45 minute class taking photographs (and only taking photos; this was not during my teaching shift), playing with light, angles, and motion in my attempt to capture these moments. I took hundreds of pictures, most of them bad, but came up with a couple I thought were decent, or had the potential to become something decent with either editing or more practice. I have captioned the photos individually giving explanations of what each represents. All of these pictures are unedited. |
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