PHOTOGRAPHY
A series of photographs I've taken and touched up in Photoshop.
"Metaphoric Light"
For this series of photographs, the concept in mind was the idea of capturing light as a metaphor. I have always loved light, especially sunset light and so while taking photographs for this series I wanted to capture various locations and perspectives where light was the main visual element creating the atmosphere.
This was one of my very first full series of images with an idea prior to capturing moments. In this set of work, I learned a lot about how to adjust the exposure, ISO, shutter speed, and F/stop. After selecting my images from the bunch, I made simple edits, like adjusting the exposure, contrast, and saturation to help enhance the existing colors and lighting in the images.
"Portraits"
For this small series of photos, I explored the terrain of portrait photography both of others and myself. Most of the portraits I took of others are the "traditional" portrait style but when it came to the self-portraits I wanted to capture who I am as an individual with more than just my face. Instead, my self-portraits show a glimpse of who I am in a more abstract way.
I found myself taking away so much more than I initially thought. I am not as passionate about portraiture and the figure as I am with landscapes and nature photography. Regardless, through this exploration, I learned so much more about how to make edits to make the figure the focus of the image. For example, adjusting the exposure, skin tone, highlights, and contrast. It was a great learning experience to work with the figure and realize how different and challenging it is to make good edits without distorting the image.
"Afternoon Stroll"
In this series, I wanted to capture a relaxed, afternoon stroll downtown—starting with an image outside and then going through various storefronts, sidewalks, trees, plants, and eventually an image once you get back home. For this collection of images, I wanted to continue my exploration of light and its effects on emotion in a scene. At first, I wanted to do this in black and white but later decided that color gave me more of the warm and comforting feeling that I was trying to highlight in this series. In addition to the exploration of light, I also wanted to continue working on my storytelling abilities in my photographs. So, rather than just having random photographs of scenes with similar light, I wanted the viewer to look through each image and feel like they were truly there in the scene on this walk.
For this series, I practiced bringing out selective colors in my images and working with natural lighting to emphasize shadows and light streaks. Overall, I think there is a consistent sense of warmth in my photographs (in present and past work), whether they were intentional or intuitive. I think it is something that has become a definite recurring theme in my work and will help establish my personal touch as a photographer moving forward.
