People and Places Project

Plan of Action:

For this project I plan to explore portrait photography. Since portraits try to capture who a person truly is, I want to make the theme of this project hobbies. I will try and capture various hobbies which people have from sports to arts. Like my previous project, I also plan on incorporating some of the compositional devices we learned about last year in Digital Photography. This would help me to enhance my photos as compositional devices direct the viewer to and provide an emphasis on the subject(s). For portraits, I was thinking that the devices of rule of thirds and point of perspective and maybe even framing would work really well. I would like to experiment with different distances from the subject as well. For some shots, I might go close up and take a zoomed-in photo.

Images of Inspiration:

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• This is my first image of inspiration. I really liked this image because it really captures the player and his movement. I really like how the photographer was able to capture this photo so that the viewer feels that they too are part of the scene. I might try to incorporate this idea into my photography as well, because this would allow for a great image. 

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• This is my second image of inspiration. I really liked this image because it is simple, yet it captures the subject very well. I really liked how the sole subject of this image is the pitcher and how it captures his emotions and seriousness really well. I also really like the blurriness at the back and I feel that this really helps the subject to stand out. I might also try to focus in on just one thing as well because this would allow for a powerful photo.

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• This is my third image of inspiration. What I really like about this image is the intensity which is shown. I really like how it captures the game as it is being played and I just thought that it was really cool to have the other person, as this shows or tells a story. In my photography, I might also try to incorporate more than one person/subject to produce a more creative photo. This would really help to create a unique photo which tells an interesting story and I feel that this would also help to create a powerful photo. I also like how the ball is blurred and this really helps to show the motion in the photo. 

Think Tank #1:

• Color themes? 
• I would decide based on how photos turn out and see whether high saturation or Black and White. I was thinking that black and white would look very cool for sports photography (with person in color) as it would show details and subject really well. 
• Are you only doing sports?
• I was thinking of doing a mix between arts and sports as this would capture the different hobbies which different types of people had. My sister really likes the arts (dancing and music) so I would try to capture some images of her doing this. Furthermore, I would also try to capture some images of my friends playing sports (specifically football/soccer or even running) because many of them love playing. 
• Compositional Devices and Editing Techniques?
• I was thinking of incorporating rule of thirds and point of perspective, but I also want to try and incorporate framing and leading lines. FOr my editing techniques, I'll have to see how my photos turn out but I feel I might be looking forward to using the black and white filter or gaussian blur.

Digital Contact Print:

This is my digital contact print for the project. This was very important to me when I was working as it allowed me to look at all my favorite photos and then choose the best ones for editing. This was a critical part of my work flow as it made the editing a lot easier (as I narrowed down the best images). I will explain my favorite ones now:

• The first image I would like to describe is the third image in the first row. This is of my sister reading. My sister absolutely loves to read. I wanted to incorporate another side of hobbies apart from sports in this project, so I decided to capture this. I feel that reading is a very popular hobby which people have as it allows them to go into another world. I also feel that the image captures the relaxation many people have when they read. However, what I especially like about this photo is the fact that it is taken from a lower point of view and I feel that this gives a really cool perspective.
• The second image I would like to describe is the sixth image in the first row. This is also of my sister, but this is of the third side of hobbies which I wanted to look at which is the arts. My sister got her ukelele about a year ago and she has literally played it every day since. It's another thing she loves to do in her free time and I feel that music is a hobby which millions of people have and thought that this represented that very well. 
• The third image I would like to describe is the sixth image in the third row. This is of my friend playing football, but this incorporates the ball in the shot and is of him in action taking a free kick. I feel that this image was tied quite closely to my theme of hobbies because one of his favorite things to do is play football and this image also shows that he is really into the sport. I feel that this picture really shows his seriousness and concentration when playing the sport. I really like this image as it was an in-action shot. I tried to incorporate the rule of thirds so that the composition of the image is better. 
• The fourth image I would like to describe is the seventh image in the fourth row. This is of my same friend who plays football, but this is of him facing away from the camera. I really liked this image and thought that in general, it just looked really nice. I feel that this image could be really successful with the black and white filter too. The reason I took this was because the name at the back is his favorite player and I thought I could take this as it shows his passion. I also tried to take it from closer view to make the image more interesting for the viewer.

Think Tank #2:

• Do you feel like you have taken enough pictures for this project?
• No, currently, I only have photos of sports and still need to take photos of the arts and intellectual side of hobbies.
• Do you feel that all selected final images bring a unique perspective to the theme?
• Like before, I still need to capture arts and other hobbies. Right now I only have one dimension of hobbies and want to capture the other parts to it.
• Which images are your strongest and explain why they stand out for you?
• Right now, I feel that my strongest pictures are the ones of my friend taking the free kick and that of his back with Neymar Jr written. I feel that these are the strongest firstly because they are the most interesting, but also because they show the most about the person compared to the other photos. This relates strongly to the idea of people (part of people & places).
• Will the editing of the images be mostly the same and what type of editing would be focused on (exposure, contrast, color, blur, sharpening, cropping, filters, blend modes)?
• Yes. I want to make a similar theme, so I might be using the hue/saturation filter and the black and white filter to assist this. Furthermore, I might also use the gaussian blur and high pass filters in all because I want to really focus on the people part of the photos and not really the background.

Final Edited Images:

This is the first image I chose to edit. It is of my friend taking the free kick. At the start, I basically just increased the contrast, added color by increasing the vibrance and saturation, and then I added to the blacks as well as the temperature. This gave me a bolder image which looked really nice. All of this was in Camera RAW and this allowed me to get a good foundation.  One of the problems I had at first with this photo was the golf cart at the back. It was very distracting and the focus was moving away from my friend. To prevent this, I first decided to use the hue/saturation filter to make the background less distracting and dull and my friend more colorful (led to more focus on him). Next, I increased the blurriness of the background using the gaussian blur tool and this also allowed for increased contrast. Lastly, I used the high pass sharpening tool to make the details of my friend's shirt and the ball pop out.

This is the second image I chose to edit. It is the one with my friend wearing his favorite player's shirt. I really liked this image, I don't know what it is, but I feel that it is really aesthetic in general. However, let me get into the editing part. I started editing this image in Camera RAW. My first step was adding a little blue by reducing the temperature a little. I also increased the contrast and clarity for a bolder image. In photoshop, I used the black and white filter to make it clear that my subject was my friend, and this also made his shirt pop out a lot which I really liked. Next, I used the gaussian blur filter to further increase this contrast between my friend and the background. Finally, I used the high pass sharpening filter to show the details on his shirt.

This is the third image I chose to edit. It is the one with my sister reading her book. To edit this image, I started off by increasing the temperature to make the picture "warmer" and also increased the green tint to add color to the grass. To make the grass even more colorful, I increased the saturation and vibrance. Lastly, I increased the blacks and shadows to add more focus to my sister. I really liked the editing which I did in Camera RAW, and didn't really want to mess around much with the image as I also liked the colors (contrast of green and my sister). Therefore, I decided to just use the gaussian blur and high pass sharpening filters to add contrast between the background and my sister and also add detail to the overall image. 

This is the fourth and final image which I chose to edit. It is of my sister playing the ukelele. I also decided that this was the image I wanted to show my editing techniques for. For this image, I first decided to adjust some of it in Camera RAW. Firstly, I added a little tint (towards the greener side) and made the picture warmer in the temperature section. Next, I lowered the exposure as the image was very bright and some parts were not coming off as well. To adjust this I also decreased the whites and highlights and increased the contrast. In Photoshop, I decided to use the high pass sharpening filter to make my sister and the ukelele look sharper. I used the gaussian blur filter to make the difference between the background (the floor and walls) and the main subject (my sister). Finally, I used the hue/saturation filter to decrease the color of the background. There were two reasons for this. Firstly, I did this to decrease the viewer's focus on the background. The second reason was because I really also wanted the focus to be on my sister and her shoes (which were very rich in color), allowed for this if the background was less colorful. I feel that these techniques along with the Camera RAW editing really helped to create an enhanced and successful image.

Final Print Document:

Successes and Challenges:

This project was a major success for me, but I also faced a few challenges along the way. By far, my biggest challenge was trying to find the best type of images which would support the theme of hobbies. I wasn't sure how to capture each image. I was confused on whether to take photos with multiple people, or just single shots. I also wasn't sure which hobbies I wanted to capture and how exactly I was supposed to capture each one. There were so many ways I could take a photo of a person playing football (Was there supposed to be movement? What about the distance? Should I include the ball?), and even reading and music (Indoors or outdoors? Where would she be playing these things? What background would looks good, yet natural?). I was having difficulty thinking where these places would be and it took me a while to decide where I should go. Another challenge I had in this project was waiting for the best time to take the photos and what time of day I should go. I had a pretty busy schedule during this project, so I didn't have much time to take photos. I was also confused whether I should do them when it is very bright outside or whether I should do it in the evening. I later had decided that the best time would be late afternoon or evening because the lighting was the best for me at this time.

Although I faced many challenges, I had many successes. I feel that the greatest success of this unit was being able to shoot sports photography in a sense. I am really into sports and wanted to explore this genre of photography for a very long and this project allowed me to do so very freely. I feel that this really let me be creative and take the best photos. Another success which I had was capturing portraits of people doing something (an action) at the same time. Last year, I only took portraits with people looking at the camera and everything was very still and somewhat dull. However, in this project, I was able to capture photos of people doing things and I feel that this really showed who they were and their mood. This project really gave me more interest in portrait photography, specifically sports photography (more interesting to me in this project than arts). I feel that after this project, I might continue to take sports photography.