S. P. WILKEN
INDOOR/OUTDOOR CATS: THE FABULOUS FIVE
FINAL PASSION PROJECT
Meet Skipper, Skittles, Jinx, Attention, and Archimedes–the stars of my show, the stars of all shows. This was not my intended final product, but you're probably used to that by now. It seems I can never stick to my first ideas. My first idea this time around happened to be pretty gory...to illustrate my undying love and dedication towards rowing, I had this whole project planned out, where I would photograph me and my teammates' hands (which are blistered and hideous, to say the least) and feature them alongside a portrait and mini interview. I got about two days into shooting that project, then started having second thoughts. Gross was to be expected, but those photos were making me uncomfortable. And I have the same hands! While editing some of the first few, I had to draw the line. It just wasn't the right project for the digital media classroom, and certainly not my final passion project...I still like the idea behind it, and will attempt it again someday, but this was not the right time. So, I found myself sorely in need of a new project.
I thought, and I thought, and, while browsing through the class website, I was reminded of a faraway project idea: pet portraits! How perfect! How completely opposite from bleeding and pus-filled palms! Better yet, relevant to my own life: my family and I have suddenly and surprisingly found ourselves surrounded by cats. We already had Jinx and Attention (the tuxedo cat and Little Precious–with the white boots and tubby belly), then Mom agreed to babysit these two little Bengal kitties, Skipper and Skittles (a mama and her baby), THEN, as if that weren't enough, we discovered Archimedes. Archimedes is the real wild card here. He's completely black, whiskers and all, and we think he has a doppelgänger, seeing as he sometimes shrinks and becomes a little stinky and his fur goes bad. So really there's six cats, but we can't prove that Shady (the doppelgänger) really exists, and I couldn't get pictures of him. Anyway, I wanted to challenge myself to get as many good photos as I could, because cats are so particularly difficult to work with, and to do so in a variety of settings. I'd say I've accomplished that, and to prove my point, I uploaded all 72 of my favorites. Enjoy!
PASSION PROJECT: The Commercial Photography of Jewelry
If you scroll down just a little ways, you'll see that commercial photography was not my passion project of choice. In fact, I had mapped out and committed to an entire series of nighttime photography and portraiture. Clearly this series is not one of nighttime photography and portraiture–so what happened? Partly the weather (rainy, rainy, rainy), but mostly reluctant family members and scheduling issues with friends. As time to present grew nearer and nearer, I realized I would have to switch directions, and the end result was this: a commercial photography series, focusing on vintage jewelry, and designed to challenge both my technical photography skills (i.e., shooting in manual mode, and using shallow depth of field as well as an extreme close up in all images) and my post-production editing skills. I used Polarr to edit all of these images.
I wanted to tie my images together using identical backgrounds and lighting, as well as their content...all of the jewelry I photographed was vintage and nearly all of it was designed with that nice, warm gold. Because my aim was to create commercial images, I was not looking to find any particularly sentimental themes, but I was reminded of our "Lost Things" genre from the Scavenger Hunt Shoot while editing, and have thought of these objects as such since then.
SHOOTING IN MANUAL MODE
Shutter Speed and Stop-Motion... a series of three photos that freeze fast action.
f/3.5
f/5.6
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f/11
f/16
f/22
Aperature... a series of six images with bracketed depth of field and consistent exposure.
PASSION PROJECT PROPOSAL
The project that I am proposing is going to be a series of images (between 15 and 25) highlighting the beauty of nighttime photography. Images will include portrait and still life shots, and will be shot in color. They will be displayed in gallery format on my website, in the Photography page. Because this project is first and foremost one of technical improvement, my goal is to create a series of images which individually exhibit similar tones (of mystery, elegance, and calm), using newfound technical skill (manual adjustment of ISO, shutter speed, and aperture). At this moment, my passion project goes by “Untitled,” and it seeks to bring to life the feeling we sometimes get, in the dead of night, when our worlds are fast asleep.
I have already acquired all tools necessary to complete this project. I will be using my own Nikon D3400 camera, tripod, lenses, and SD card. For those of my images which are portraits, I will be using my mother, father, and brother as models–they have already agreed to this and consent forms will be filled out before shooting. I will ask my models to wear similar, casual clothing. The shoot itself will take place on the same night (weather conditions are too unpredictable for this to happen more than one night) in three separate locations: my home, back yard, and the Eastern side of Brentwood-Darlington park (at the park benches, specifically).
Again, this project is an exploration of technical skill for me. I want to be able to produce high-quality images even in low lighting–at night–and after the lessons we’ve finished on shooting using the manual setting, I would love to test myself. I will know that I have achieved that goal if I am successful in eliciting specific feelings from my audience (as seen above) using only my images. I want to bring to life the feeling of nighttime...the freedom of it, the strangeness of it. Technical feedback is also something I look forward to.
PORTRAIT PROJECT
So, this is Kalea Gebhardt: a beautiful model, and wonderful friend. I wanted this shoot to do her justice, and started it with many elaborate dreams having to do with flamboyant dresses, dramatic shadow, and ethereal landscape. However, as the hours went on, those visions began to fade, and what was once about theatrics and setting, became more about confidence, comfort, and a love between two friends. We found ourselves talking about life, in all its grandness, and (in relevance to the shoot) insecurity. We did not feel safe in front of the camera, and it showed: there was hesitance behind our eyes, tension in our shoulders, an unnatural way about us.... And so the shoot became a journey of self-love, a journey of finding safety in front of the camera–not anything obscure or groundbreaking, as I had first imagined, but a completely relatable and human story. I could not be happier with how this experience has made me feel, and with how much more genuine and relaxed Kalea became throughout the shoot. Here are ten of the 757 total photographs we took:
BASIC SHOOTING ASSIGNMENT
Trying to show that I vaguely understand at least the most basic of technical terms.
Less shallow depth, but also definitely focused on one part of the image more than the rest.
SCAVENGER HUNT SHOOT
I chose five words/phrases: blue, pure, unclear, light and shadow, and angles. Then I had to take pictures which I felt, metaphorically or literally, represented those words/phrases. Here's what we ended up with.
I took most of these pictures from a pretty literal perspective, but BLUE is the most straight forward of them all. Really, there isn't very much to analyze here. What's more blue than the sky?
Purity and water, in my mind, go hand in hand. Water is life, and water is cleansing. Fresh, bubbling, silky water is everything natural. This is PURE.
UNCLEAR wound up being strangely abstract, which is maybe fitting, because abstract art is very confusing, very unclear, to me. Just because you probably can't quite tell, I'll let you know that this is a picture of a rose, taken in the reflection of a watering can–the blurred object in the image.
Okay, the original plan was to take a silhouette portrait, because those are artsy and cool and technically challenging, but I liked the way the sun was making these spiderwebs too much, so here's some more nature. Some glow-y LIGHT AND SHADOW.
I felt like I had an obligation to choose ANGLES as one of my words, just because I knew I could take this picture. There's a construction project going on in my backyard, and it's crazy full of satisfying symmetry and natural lines. Again, no deep meaning, just a literal take on the word I chose.