Dorothy!

'Dorothy' is a series of images I've been working on for a Creative Imaging assignment.

The brief was basically that I had to produce a body of work that had a narrative - a beginning, middle and end. It had to be at least 5 images and it could be anything I liked! Fiction, non-fiction, a recreation of a story... anything!

I chose to base my work on 'The Wizard of Oz'! I have a HUGE love for anything related to the 'Wizard of Oz' so I had a lot of fun shooting this and a lot of ideas! 

It was challenging trying to work in the freezing winnipeg winter temperatures and Janine was a TROOPER modeling for me in the 'outdoors' images! I faced a few challenges and limitations while shooting, so I would love to attempt this series again sometimes, maybe in a warmer month! lol! 

Overall, my version of the story is based on the character of Dorothy, as opposed to being a recreation of the whole story. I wanted to represent Dorothy's experience with the 'witch' alone, and in this instance didn't include the 'scarecrow', 'tin man' or 'cowardly lion' characters. Again, this was due to time, weather and model limitations! I really hope I can work on this series again in order to work on these shots as well.... so watch this space!!!

The Storm

The Wicked Witch is Dead

Follow the Yellow Brick Road

Hello My Pretty

Trapped

Dorothy Escapes

Ding Dong the Witch is Dead!

There's No Place Like Home

Fashion Fun!

Hello People,

So for an assignment last week, I had to take 40 shots of one subject, in one particular place. The other catch - I had to shoot at just 50mm, so I had to move myself around my subject in order to get my shots, as opposed to zooming in and out! Yay for my shiny new 50mm f/1.8 lens! I could put it to good use for this assignment!

I decided to have some fun with this assignment and do my favourite type of photography - portraiture - so I got Laura all dressed up and chose my Piano room as the place to shoot. I love the natural afternoon lighting that comes through the window into that room so it was perfect! I am so pleased with the shots and think that they are some of my best portraits yet - simple, yet stunning! Of course I couldn't have got such great shots without such a great model! Laura looked gorgeous and thus, so did the shots! Thanks Laura! 

Anyway, let me know what you think of my work... as always, I love to get feedback so I can keep improving!

Katy

xxx

Creative Imaging - Colour Block

I found this assignment quite challenging in some ways, as even though there is a lot of colour around us,  when I was 'looking' for things of particular colours, nothing stood out to me and I was finding it hard to make my images look interesting. I was beginning to find a new love for black and white haha, however, after a while I found that I started to notice things a bit more and came up with the following final images.

Magenta (pink)

This image makes me feel loud and energetic, which is fitting, because it's an iPod and I play my music relatively loud on it! It makes me feel this way because of the vibrancy of it - it's really bold, which makes it pop! 

Yellow

This image makes me feel happy and cosy! It's bright and the two shades of yellow make me feel warm. I think this is because the colour reminds me of the sun and therefore, I feel warm. Not warm in the same way as an orange hue would make me feel, more warm in a happy, homely way.

Red

This image reminds me of love and passion. I think that because there are white sections in it, it reminds me of those connotations of the colour red, as opposed to more negative connotations like anger, because the white blends in and almost softens the red. It also makes me feel lively too because its so bold and bright!

Green

This is my least favourite image, as I don't like the colour green as much as the other colours. I don't really know why, it's just not a colour I connect with much. It does make me think of the outdoors and nature though, because green is so much a part of the outdoors, e.g,  fields and forests etc. I find this particular shade of green quite a sickly colour however.

Complimentary Colours

I really like this image as I feel like the red and green, and the yellow and blue, both compliment each other! Its really vibrant and I love how the lines of colours combine in the overall image.

Similarity Colours

I think these colors really work well together. The different shades of yellows and oranges in the leaves create a warm, autumnal feeling. 

Overall, I find that colours make a big impact on how an image is perceived. The way colour is used in images can portray different moods and in turn affect how a viewer responds to the image. I think this assignment will definitely make me more aware of colours in my images and how I use different colours within my images in relation to the point or atmosphere that I want to portray.

Katy

Composition at home

Hey again!

So this week for Sarah's Creative Imaging assignment, we had to take photos in our house... and ONLY in our house... of anything that we wanted that would represent the following:

- Texture

- Shape

- Line

- Pattern or Rhythm

- Shape or Form

- Symmetrical Balance

We could take as many photos as we liked, but we had to have 6 final images representing the above. 

I found this assignment pretty easy in comparison to some of the previous assignments we've been given by Sarah. Maybe this is because she is opening my creative mind with all these assignments and notes she's been giving us, or maybe I just had a nice variety of objects in my house haha! Who knows.

So, just because I found this easier than previous assignments, doesn't mean I found it easy as a whole. It was pretty simple finding things to represent the above, however, trying to create an interesting image for each of them was slightly more tricky! I think I just find it difficult in general to make an interesting image out of a mundane everyday object. Now, this is probably just because I'm more practiced at taking photos of people, rather than inanimate objects, and that is why we have Creative Imaging as a class... in order to enable us to open our minds to this sort of thing... but doesn't mean I don't find it challenging! I guess that's the point though - to challenge us to be creative and make interesting images out of what you wouldn't necessarily think is interesting. I dunno, maybe other people will think my images are creative and interesting, maybe they won't. I'm not sure I'm entirely happy with my outcome, but I am my own biggest critic after all.

Texture

Depth

Line

Pattern

Shape

Symmetrical Balance

Katy

x

Working the Subject... 100 Creative Ways!

Assignment number 3 from Creative Imaging... and probably the most challenging one yet... why thank you Sarah!! lol

Being told to choose 3 objects a week in advance of our assignment, it was pretty obvious we were going to have to take pictures of them. What we didn't know until Friday was that we had to shoot 100 (YES ONE HUNDRED!) photos of the damn things! AND we had just 4 and a half hours to get it done in! (3 and a half if you take away the half hour it took me to get home from school to where my objects were situated and the half hour to make and eat some lunch to give me the energy to get through the afternoon of intense shooting!)

So my objects (as you can see in the above picture) were; my dining room chair, my parasole (new that would come in handy one day!) and my beloved acoustic guitar.

When picking 3 completely unrelated objects, it was certainly a challenge trying to make interesting photos out of them. 

What made it even more challenging was the fact that we had to shoot in one spot. We could move the objects around amongst this 'one spot' but couldn't change location altogether and had to have all 3 objects together. We couldn't do an individual shot of each object, BUT we could close in on one object with our camera so it was the only thing in the shot (thank god for zoom lenses!) So, with all these ground rules laid out, Sarah didn't make this assignment easy for us!

I kept thinking "how on earth am I going to get 100 different shots?!" I honestly was almost giving up the will to live...ok slight exaggeration! But never-the-less I was a tad stressed out! 

Luckily, once I got into the swing of things I seemed to be snapping away and I started to think "ok, this isn't so bad, I seem to be getting alot" only to look at my camera and find that I'd only shot 30 odd images! Still LOADS to do yet I was lacking creative ideas! There's only so many ways you can shoot a chair, a parasole and a guitar, right?! 

A little while later, after climbing on piano stools, lying on the floor and squatting in ways that no-ones leg muscles should have to endure, to get juuust that right height for my shot; to my surprise, I was finally getting there...50...76...94...almost done!

I was a bit worried that I was shooting the same angles and views of the objects multiple times, which stressed me a bit, but when I finally had my 100 shots and I looked back over them, it appeared to be okay...  at least I don't think I have duplicate or too similar images.

A few came out wrong, but apparently 'creative failure is the way to creative success'... or so Sarah tells us! I hope she's right! 

So anyway, it was an eventful afternoon, and even my dog was curious as to what I was up to (as one of my photos shows), and he liked to sit in my lap when I was laying on the floor trying to get my shot, but despite the curious dog getting in my way (and in my shots!) I succeeded! 

Hopefully my photos will reflect some creativity, rather than just looking like random photos! Hmm, we'll see... this creative thinking malarky is difficult! 

Until next time...

Katy