Final

Sparks

A spark ignited by a gaze, a gaze that embodies power, emotion, that goes beyond the realm of beauty. This series culminates the glam of cosmetic makeup and the fantasy of editorial portraits to evoke solace.  The makeup accents the expressions of contentment, or longing. Like the ordinary makeup ads that are used to amplify features of the face, the cosmetics reflect the expression. 

Canteen Mag

Canteen Mag Naked Judging

Submission number 89, by David Jakelic shows strong photographic vision in his series of night photography images. He submits several series of night photography that are extremely strong in composition and uniqueness. Submission 89 I found to be most intriguing because of the saturation of colors found in each landscape unlike his other series. Each image has one predominant color that stands out among the rest. The strong tones of turquoise, purple, yellow, or red help amplify the portraits from other night images because it gives a living quality. They do not appear as gloomy or as solemn as normal night images do.

Portraits

 Edit: Butterfly lighting. Resharpen. White Balance.

Original: Butterfly lighting, secondary light on backdrop, and vellum to bounce color of the left side.

 Original: Strong split lighting.

Edit: Color balance, sharpen, slight saturation of skin and lips.

Lenscratch 2013 Portrait Exhibition

Melissa Anderson, Contaminated Water

The lighting in this image is cast down from above, creating high contrast and long shadows. The image is tightly cropped which makes the central focus in the details from the eyebrows and the nose. The dark, desaturated colors add to the grimy expression as reflected in the title. This image is successful because the lighting and shadows add to the dark message of the photographer. The expression is beaten, dirty, tired. 

Gritty/Ghostly

Gritty

Original:

Edit: Increase vibrance and exposure. Sharpen. Spot removal. 

Gloomy

Original:

 Edited

Desaturate background and most of face. Saturate around eye. Blur and clone areas

Documentary

Original: ISO 800

F5.6 at 1/60

Edited

Philip Jones Griffiths, Boy Destroying Piano, 1961

This image shows the city of Pant-y-Wean, once voted the most beautiful city in South Wales, not destroyed due to mining. The photographer shot at a lower angle than the boy to make him look grandiose as he prepares to drop the rock on the piano. It is a representation of the beauty in destruction, a piano which plays a beautiful tune now stripped to its elements playing its last notes as the boy is about to completely demolish it the way this once beautiful city has been destroyed by man. The boy v.s man is a reflection on the past and future, the past being the boy, a symbol of innocence, who is performing the act of man, destroying something beautiful.  Griffiths uses good contrast between the boy and the gray of the background to see all the pieces of lumber scattered across the grounds. 

Landscape

Original

In this image I increased the contrast in the snow and water. I used the burn tool to darken the tones in the sky. I sharpened the image to make the ripples in the water more crisp.

Original

In this image I originally kept it in color because I thought it had a lot of good shadows. After looking at it for a little while I became with the desaturated winter colors. When I changed it to black and white I thought it had a lot more impact because of the different tonal range.

Landscape: National Geographic

Fishing, Celebes Sea

Photographed by Liang Huan Chuan

The photographer used a wide angle lens to photograph this image. He may have used a low ISO and a fast shutter speed to freeze the waves in motion. There is a good rule of thirds in the division between clouds, sky and water moving vertically, and between the fisherman boat, the hut, and the sky from foreground to background. The rich blues of the sky gradient and the clarity in the water make the composition more effective. 

Stop Motion

Original: Focused lens on the bowl of water. Used the stop motion technique to capture the falling of the caps. 

Edited: Used the adjustments brush to desaturate the background and give a type of halo effect to the hand and caps. Sharpened the image to enhance highlights and shadows of the hand and bottle caps.

2012 Olympics Commentary

Photographer: Unknown
In this 2012 Olympics image of rhythmic gymnastics, the photographer used the technique of stop motion to literally freeze the gymnast in mid air. He used a fast shutter speed to stop the movement. He may have used a low F-stop to blur out the background and keep the gymnast in focus. He used a long frame to emphasize the length of her legs across the image. There's tension between where her toe nearly touches the hoop and the perfect form of her legs and bend of her back.

Abstractions

 Original

 Edit 1: Cropped, decreased sharpness, saturated with red and magenta.

 Edit 2: Cropped, Rotated, Over exposed, decreased grain and sharpness.

Edit 3: Cropped, Increase shadows and contract, add a Cyan temperature, soften red and highlights.

This photograph is part of a mini Noir series I worked on last spring for a studio lighting class. It's one of my stronger images as a photographer because it involved a lot of planning and setting up studio space to get the right dramatic lighting. I enjoy shooting fashion style images and coming up with different and interesting concepts that have a lot of detail and a good storyline. There is tension in the way she holds the phone and plays with the cord that makes you wonder what news she just received. I use minimal editing because I believe that the image should stand on it's own with only a few post adjustments. Here I sharpened the image to show the fine detail in the leggings and couch and to break the hat away from the backdrop.