LIS5313

Student Posts

Looking in the eyes of Love

“Apple of my Eye” by Channetta Stafford is Copyright 2022″
“Apple of my Eye” by Channetta Stafford is Copyright 2022″

The top picture is a photo I captured of my son Elijah on portrait mode on my iPhone. He is enjoying tummy time and just really grasping the concept of holding his head up. Because the photo was taken on the bed, it had a lot of extra things on the sides and showed the wrinkles in the cover. I couldn’t really see his face very well so I wanted to fix that as well. Now I’m biased but I think he has the most gorgeous eyes ever and looking at the photo I knew I wanted to zoom in on his face and create some depth there.
With my cropped photo at the bottom, I used the rule of thirds and placed his face at the left intersection. I also used the vignette feature on the iPhone to darken the edges of the photo. to me the dark edges brings my eyes to the center of the photo. I also changed the filter and applied the vivid cool filter on the photo which gives it almost a blue overtone and dims down the light in the photo creating a more softer photo.

February 1, 2022 by Spring 2022 2

Sky High Castle

Swabian Castle by David Kracht is licensed under the Creative Commons License
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Sky High Castle by Austin Dudley is licensed under the Creative Commons License
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

German castles are some of the most unique structures in the world. The ability to carve them into the side of a mountain or bring materials up to a remote mountain peak long before paved roads is certainly impressive. This photo is one example of the engineering feat. Nothing is wrong with the original as I believe the photographer was trying to capture the natural beauty the castle is surrounded by along with demonstrating the shear size of the structure. However, this photo is a lot to process with much detail everywhere. The main structure is centered in the middle of the frame with nothing specific focused on the one third. Also, there is a tourist on the left side of the frame which slightly takes away from the all natural feel.

In my crop, I decided to focus in on the details of the main structure, specifically the high contrast, tall, white lookout tower. This allowed my eyes to easily focus on something in the frame and see closer details of all the other structures. To crop this photo, I used the one third rule emphasizing my focal point on the white tower. This uncenters the photo and also simplifies some of the background as my focus was the tower and not the whole castle. Though you lose the mountain top feel, you can more easily see the large door protecting the castle on the bridge along with the ability to raise that bridge for protection. The ability to view these smaller details was the result of a tighter crop and high resolution photo.

February 1, 2022 by Spring 2022 Student Posts 3

Frustrated Inc.

Copyright by Andrew Pannelli 2022
Copyright by Andrew Pannelli 2022

Frustrated Inc. is my photo of a record I just received in the mail this past week or so. The album is Grave Dancers Union by Soul Asylum and is one of the most influential albums of the mid-1990s and a significant influence on me personally.

I took a large image of the stereo area in this set of photos, which had no focus on it. It was just a wide shot of an area of the living room. I focus much more heavily on the second photo by cropping the area around to make the album, turntable, and lamp stick out. The album has more focus, but you are also drawn to the old turntable and vintage lamp. The lamp is turned off. Most would have the lamp turned on, but I titled the photo Frustrated Inc., a song on the album. Frustrated is that there seems to be no light at the end, no way home, yet the record is playing; life is still moving. As someone who struggles with mental health issues, I feel that in the song’s title deeply. I am frequently frustrated and feel there is no light at the end. The light is there; you just can’t see it yet.

Are you familiar with the album and can resonate with any of the feelings of frustration that the album portrays in the many songs about losing hope in tough times?

February 1, 2022 by Spring 2022 Student Posts 3

Different Views

“family photo preparations” by Ronny. is licensed under the Creative Commons License Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)

Using Adobe Photoshop, I cropped the photo in order to alter its perspective. Pictures have the ability to tell stories in many different ways. The picture I selected is a great example of how this works. In the original picture, we can observe a large family posing for a picture. However, while some seem interested, others appear distracted.

“Different views” by Amaka is licensed under the Creative Commons License Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)

By using the rule of thirds, I cropped most of the people out of this picture, leaving only two people, one of whom is staring into space and the other amused by what is happening in the background. We are left wondering what the ladies are looking at. They are each staring at something different. This is funny because people could actually use the image as a meme.

February 1, 2022 by Spring 2022 Student Posts 2

My Princess Anna !!

“Dressed up as Anna” by Annie Thomas is licensed under © “All Rights Reserved 2021”

In this picture is my daughter dressed up as “Princess Anna from Frozen” during Halloween last year. Everyone knows toddlers are one of the toughest to photograph. One needs a whole of patience to capture a good picture and this is one of those many photos. Although it was her second Halloween, it was the very first time she was about to go for a “Trick or Treat”. She was so excited that she kept moving here and there, and never stayed in a place. So it was hard to set a frame to capture her in her Halloween costume. I decided to shoot her in burst mode and did not worry about the framing of the shot with the plan of editing it later.

“My princess Anna” by Annie Thomas is licensed under © “All Rights Reserved 2022”

Here is the edited version of the photograph I captured last year. I removed the unwanted details in the picture such as the pathway and the vehicles parked. I followed the rule of thirds to make the composition more interesting. The original picture was shot in iPhone’s Portrait mode in Natural light. During the editing process, I switched to Studio light so that the face is brightly lit and increased the exposure of the picture. Finally, I adjusted the depth of the photo to blur the less important details in the background and emphasize the focus on my daughter.

February 1, 2022 by Student Posts 2

Looking Eye to Eye

“Looking Eye to Eye” by Keith Bennett is licensed under © “All Rights Reserved 2020”

I was at the Jacksonville Zoo in 2020 and came across this elephant and I was standing in this cave section but the Elephant appeared to be so much closer than it appeared. The elephant stopped walking dead in its tracks and was just looking at me while I looked at it. I’m not sure what it was thinking but I was in pure amazement. The funny thing is as it approached me I never heard it coming towards me. How could something so big have such a light step is what I asked myself.

“Looking Eye to Eye” by Keith Bennett is licensed under © “All Rights Reserved 2022”

I cropped the photo this way because the elephant in the first picture was so much closer and bigger than the photo captures. Everything around me did not even matter to me in the moment. All I saw was the elephant and that it was looking or what appeared to be looking directly at me. The first/original picture was beautiful to me but it just didn’t capture the spacial appearance to what it felt like in real life. I felt like a few more feet and I could have reached out and touched it. This elephant must have been extremely used to humans to allow us to get this close to each other.

February 1, 2022 by Student Posts 1

Then it became two plants

“Three Indoor Plants” by Cynthia Bermeo © “All Rights Reserved 2022”

I chose my newest indoor plants in selecting an image for this week’s project. These plants are placed next to my WFM desk. In the original photo (featured above), there are many vivid colors/background noise behind the plants between the sky, outside trees, and windows. I wanted to create a more focused and new narrative by eliminating the plant closest to the viewer. Using the rule of thirds and my grid line, the new image is now centered with the most significant plant located in the top-left grid and the succulent situated at the bottom right of the grid. This creates more focus and light for the two plants and brings the plants closer to the viewer than before. It also enriches the main plant’s color than before. I also like that the plants are neatly lined up and centered in the original. The cropped photo centered the two plants while also cutting off a chunk of the main plant, almost like getting a hair cut! The cropped image simplifies the background more than the original.

And just like that, then it became two plants.

“Two Indoor Plants” by Cynthia Bermeo © “All Rights Reserved 2022”
January 31, 2022 by Spring 2022 Student Posts 2

New Eyes, Newer Life

“New life in busy city” by Maxime Guilbot is licensed under CC BY 2.0
“New eyes in a busy city” by Elizabeth Gerace is licensed under CC BY 2.0

This photo stood out to me from the outset of my project. I enjoyed the fast moving colors and moving streaks that truly show that this is a photo of movement. However much I liked the original photo, however, there were a few important ways it could be better. The subjects are centered in the middle of the photograph, with no use of the rule of thirds. I was going to just attempt to crop the mother and daughter so that it looked like they were moving towards something, but then I thought about making the child the focal point of the picture. By applying the rule of thirds and cropping most of the mom out of the photo, I was able to completely change the feeling of the image. We now wonder where the child is going to go, anticipating the space on the left to be filled, and making the already dynamic photo truly kinetic. This also simplifies the background, allowing the viewer to focus in on our single subject. Given a child’s eyes, the viewer now follows the girl’s gaze to look with wonder and fear into the distance, experiencing for the first time a “new life in the busy city.”

January 31, 2022 by Student Posts 2

Future Baller in the making

My 5-year-old nephew loves to take pictures and is now starting to get a love for basketball. This year he started going to a weekly basketball camp, learning fundamentals: dribbling, passing, defense, and shooting. I like to take videos and pictures of him playing to see his progression. The photo that I chose is of him getting in his shooting stance.

Before crop
“Shooting Stance” by Latasha Baker © “All Rights Reserved 2022”

Looking at the picture, I realized I would love to focus on his expression as tho he is thinking of his next move. He is almost in a 3 point stance. I love the way this photo looks, draws you to his face instead of the cars in the background.

Cropped image
“Shooting Stance Cropped” by Latasha Baker © “All Rights Reserved 2022”
January 31, 2022 by Student Posts 2

Near or Far?

“Out to Sea” by Sarah Tallant © All Rights Reserved 2017
“Out to Sea” by Sarah Tallant © All Rights Reserved 2022

I chose a photo from my time in Cape Cod, Massachusetts. While at the beach in Falmouth I saw a ship sailing by and decided to take a quick photo. There were a couple of reasons why I chose to crop this photo. The original image has a glare on the left side as well as a buoy in the middle of the water. I wanted to leave out unnecessary details, so that the ship was the main focus on the water. I uncentered the ship in the picture and cropped out the beach so it would seem closer than in the original!

January 31, 2022 by Spring 2022 Student Posts 2