Self Portraits

For our Self-Portrait project we were to take three self-portraits. They were all to be in black and white, and they were all to capture a mood of some sort. We were also challenged to be as artistic as possible, and stay as far away from normal, cliche portraits that we see on personal pages etc. as possible.One had to use the rule of thirds as the base for the composition; One had to incorporate leading lines, and one had to be taken from a more extreme angle.

My most successful picture is the rule of thirds portrait. I think it is the best because it shows my artistic side better than the others. Next time I will use different strategies to get an artistic picture.. I could've used more props in the pictures. I felt that I did pretty good overall.

Contact Sheet

I feel that my contact sheet came out impressive. I lined the pictures up pretty well so I could have room in the middle of the picture to put text in vertically. I couldve picked a better text font because I dont feel that it fits the contact sheet. Out of all of the compostional tricks I think that my Rule of Thirds picture came out the best. I enjoyed Extreme Angles because it was very out of the ordinary and I had to do some pretty funny things to take pictures like laying on the ground.

Compositional Trick #5 Cropping

I changed the composition by cutting out the extra parts in the picture. I focused on the emphasis which is the caution tape. I like the cropped photo better because it eliminates the extra and unimportant features of the picture. I used the crop tool to make my picture smaller and I also used the crop tool to extend the borders of the picture.

Compositional Trick #4 Extreme Angles

In order to get this angle I stood over the model who was doing a hand stand. I like the color contrasts in the picture. I also like the model's pose. I could've stood back a little more to improve this picture beacuse (as you can see) my shadow is visible. Photographing from an extreme angle can make the shot more interesting because people dont see each other at extreme angles. It is out of the ordianary. I chose to photograph at an extreme angle because it enhances the picture.

Compositional Trick #3: Macro

Macro is when you get close to a picture. The macro button a camera has a flower. U can use macro when you want to get close up enough to see a texture. You can also use macro to take a depth of field picture, which is when the main emphasis of a picture is clear but the backgorund is blurry.

Macro is a good trick to make a picture more attention grabbing. My favorite macro picture was the texture of my hand. I like this picture because it is very artistic. Macro made this picture more definite. You can see every detail in the hand.

Compositional Trick #2: Leading Lines

The lines you see in this photo are called Leading Lines. These lines lead you into the main emphasis of the picture. They also lead you straight into the photo and takes you somewhere else. The purpse of the lines in this shot is to draw you to the rag stuck in the celiling.

Compositional Trick #1: Rule of Thirds

The Rule of Thirds is a way to make a picture more interesting by not putting the main object in the middle of the picture. You make a Rule of Thirds picture by diving the picture into a 3x3 grid. Then you put the main object in one of the intersections. In the photo above, I placed the surveillance camera in one of the intersections.