LHS Digital Photography Blog - Amanda Taylor

I was very much inspired by the minimalist, yet surreal style shown by the strange backgrounds like the covers and the absurdist advertisements. I will most likely be implementing a similar style. Covers: Spreads: Advertisements:

Fine Art Portraits: In creating this piece, I first did a simple profile shot against a tiled wall in soft light. Then in Photoshop, I introduced an inverted pattern beneath the original layer and cut out some of the tiles. to give the illusion that the two layers have dimension, I stretched the edges of the tiles surrounding the openings to increase depth. I finished the photo by enhancing some colors and removing all the shadows. I would classify this piece as fine art because it does not glorify any particular attribute that may make the audience want to buy anything associated with the photo. It also portrays a very specific intention from the artist, something commercial photography does not do. This next photo was accomplished by first projecting vertical, black and white lines onto the subject's face and taking a close-up picture. In Photoshop, put the image in grayscale and increased the contrast and exposure over and over again until the dark stripes appeared t...

Fine Portrait Photography: a picture of a specific character that expresses a specific mood or story coming from the person or the photographer. The photos often use composition, lighting, color, and contrast to enhance the meaning or mood. Eric Lafforgue Lee Jeffries I love how both of these photos portray the life in the subjects despite their cold environment. The first one showing a North Korean soldier puts all the focus on the woman. High contrast is implemented to emphasize the paleness of her face, the dark green of her uniform, and the pale-golden glow of the shoulder-pads and the cap. High contrast and a high focus on the subject is also used on the second photo, but the contrast rather emphasizes the age in the woman's face, beautifully showing the harsh mood of the picture. I believe that both of these photos portray the subjects living in a dark world: the soldier as an invisible pawn in an oppressive dictatorship, and the homeless woman as a weathered ...

My intent for the two photos was to show the emotions that may hide to the people around you. The first expresses stress over trying to avoid remembering a certain painful memory. The world is hot and overwhelming, the ground beneath you feels almost like liquid, and the memory(represented by the maroon and white castle like building) keeps appearing in your mind no matter how hard you try to focus on your surroundings instead. The second reflects an Alice in Wonderland-type journey, but this one into the subject's nightmare. Often dreams when looked at from a waking perspective seem illogical and highly emotional (just like surrealist work), but because the dreamer is feeling this dream herself, it is presented as completely real and terrifying.

Surrealism: Starting in the early 1920's, the surrealism incorporates unexpected juxtapositions, illogical scenes, and strange twists to reality to "resolve the previously contradictory conditions of dream and reality into an absolute reality, a super-reality"(André Breton). It has evolved greatly to be implemented in an abundance of forms in an abundance of ways. From the twisting abstract figures of Yves Tanguy to the magical realism of Leonora Carrington, surrealism has been a massive contribution to the history of art. "The Elephants" by Salvador Dali "War Paintings" by Yves Tanguy "Untitled" by Suzanne Moxhay This piece is among several others showing a tour of a decaying home with nature scenes incorporated in the rooms. I felt this photo stood out to me as it portrayed a common theme of life being founded in unexpected places and the vibrance of nature while also portraying a surrealist setting. "C...

This original image was modified into a cyanotype and daguerreotype, whereas I chose different images to recreate infared photography. Cyanotype: Daguerreotype: Infared: The original photo was very tonal with rich browns, reds, and greens. Therefore, the infared version of it is very cold and pale. I recognized that the color of the sky and trees along with the high amount of white in the photo reminded me of wealth (well, my first instinct was that it looked like a Tiffany box, but I then thought about it more in the sense of themes). Therefore, I edited the picture to have some of the leaves look like gold flakes.

Daguerreotypes Daguerrotype of Edger Allan Poe Daguerrotypes were the first publicly available process. It was introduced in 1839 by inventor  Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre, and it quickly became the most commonly used practice at the time. To create the photo, one would first treat a sheet of silver-plated copper with fumes to give it a light sensitive surface. They would expose it in a camera for as long as was judged by the lighting, make  fume it with mercury vapor, remove its light sensitivity with further chemical treatment, rinse and dry it, and finally seal the final photo in a protective case of some kind to prevent it from getting destroyed. Needless to say this process requires a lot of sensitive work, the handling of extremely dangerous chemicals, and time. Should any step go wrong and the entire image may be irreversibly damaged. Resources: What is a Daguerreotype? How to Spot a Daguerrotype Cyanotypes "Algae" by Anna Atkins Cyanotype...