Written Statement

The window is starting to be obscured by the ivy. The window serves as a portal of sorts - almost as if you were to go through it you would enter Alice's Wonderland. Or your own Wonderland. The window is the only serious highlight; it becomes a clear emphasis of the picture, in addition to being in the center of the composition.

The plant is growing next to the wall. I would imagine if I were to pan out to see more, I would see a cute little house that has plants growing all around the side of the house. There are no strong contrasts, but there are extreme darks and subtle lights. There is an asymmetrical balance with the taller plant growing above the rest.

The reflection is underlaid by concrete, giving a strange look. It has the feeling of a painting with the texture of the concrete coming through the glass. I'm not sure what kind of feeling I get from this photo - a sort of feeling of uncertainty and calm. I burned and dodged the pipes and myself so that there was more depth to the photo instead of a lot of gray area.

The legs of the ostrich are strange. They're so prehistoric looking - just two toes to balance 6 feet tall of feathers. One would look at this photo and they would wonder what kind of animal that these legs belong to. I took this photo at the zoo when I went with my drawing class. I increased the contrast so that the texture on the legs and leaves were very clear.

In all of these photos, the only one with a symmetrical balance is the first image; the rest are asymmetrical. There is a range of varying contrasts among all of them as well.

Assignment 2: Critique, Part II

My photos for the portrait assignment were well-liked by my peers, along with which came some great critique and suggestions for improvement.

For my self-portrait, I received praise for the detail of the eyes and nods of approval for the choice of crop on my face. Someone commented on how they liked how I was looking upwards and not at the camera. I could see myself doing an extension on this, going through different expressions showing emotion through just one part of myself (mouth, nose, etc.).

For the first portrait of Allegra, the close-up, the angle of the portrait was well-liked for its interestingness - the view is looking down at the figure and off to the side. Some suggestions that were given were to apply more contrast and to blur the background out more so that the figure is emphasized even more as the focus.

For the second portrait of Allegra, where she is sitting in the Gilchrist Pub next to the window, there were no suggestions given during this particular critique to make it more portfolio-worthy, although I do remember that there was a suggestion previously for if I were to do a re-shoot to make her eyes the focus because they're so striking with expression. There were several good notes on the expression on her face in combination with the angle of the portrait on her - the viewer is in the position to be looking down upon her, but she is giving the expression of looking down upon the viewer. She is quite intimidating.

For the third portrait of Allegra, they like the facial expression and the trees in the background, but one suggestion that was made to make the figure pop was to go and lighten up the figure in more highlighted areas so that she wouldn't be as gray - so that she stands out more.

All the suggestions that were made during the critique that day are things that I could go into photoshop and fix.