Final Artist Statement

From the beginning to the end of this school year, I’ve learned so much in digital photography. I feel like I was mostly successful with my surreal project because I actually put my time and effort into this project and getting it done on time. I also feel like I was successful with this project because I thought it wasn’t going to be fun at all, but in the end, I had fun creating my surreal project. The project I had struggled the most with was the quilt square. I had a hard time putting the squares together and coming up with ideas, except for my future square. One thing I could improve more on is my creative skills and managing my time more in the future to get my projects done on time.

My favorite thing that I learned in this class was how to use Photoshop and its’ tutorials. I also liked working with the camera. I liked what I learned about Photoshop and its’ tutorials because I learned a lot from it. I learned how to create a bubble, make a surreal picture (making a shadow to an object, making the landscape look real, etc.). I like what we learned about the camera because now I know how to take pictures in the dark, but still come out with enough lighting in the picture. I most likely will use this knowledge in the future probably when I’m out with my friends or family. I’ll also use this knowledge if and when I make photos for fun with Photoshop.

In this last semester of school, I have seen a little bit of growth and improvement in my creativity skills and Photoshop skills. I still believe that I could have done a better job with my projects if I put my time and effort into them. The most meaningful project I created in class would have to be my quilt square. Even though it's not all that creative, it still means a lot to me. It's important to me because the quilt shows who I am and what I am. It's also important to me because it shows the side of me that some people haven't seen before and it shows my past.

Blow Out and Panning

How I created the blow out effect was I changed the ISO to 50, the aperture to F8, and the shutter speed to 1/2.5. The best way to capture the blow out effect is to change the shutter speed, and ISO. Panning your pictures creates a very cool effect which almost is like your subject is moving as fast as the speed of light. Panning should look like everything around your subject should be bright, or almost gone, and your subject should have some features showing. I think I did a decent job on the panning. For this picture, I changed the settings to where the ISO-50, aperture-F8, and shutter speed-1/.2.5. What I could have done better was try to make his clothing brighter than his face. What made the panning difficult was capturing the light.

Shutter Speed

Shutter speed messes with movement and light. It's how long the light gets to come in. The setting in the room is dark. I don't remember what we set our camera to to activate the shutter speed. Experiencing shutter speed was fun because I liked how we created pictures with the light that we had. I would choose shutter speed over ISO and aperture because it allows me to take better pictures in the dark if there's enough light to complete the picture. My favorite picture is the picture of Frank because how Patrice and I outlined him looks cool :]

Aperture

Aperture is the pupil of the camera. It messes with the depth of field and light. It's how big of a hole the light goes through. For the top picture, the hole would be small and the f-stop would be big because of the depth of field. For the bottom picture, the hole would be big and the f-stop would be small because of how close the camera is to the object.

ISO

Flash

50

400

800

5000

ISO is the film speed which means how fast or slow the camera retracts to the light. The difference between the flash and the is that flash is just one bright light, but with ISO you can add or take away lighting to the picture little by little to the point where you want just the right amount of light. Over the course of my pictures, by increasing the ISO on the camera, it's adding more light to the photo. I would chose to use ISO over flash because the flash can create too much light that I don't want in the picture, and the ISO can add the right amount of light that I want. When I use a fast ISO, I have to be careful of creating a blur.

Flash

The pros of using flash are, 1. It adds light and 2. It freezes time, and eliminates blur. The cons of using flash are, 1. It may disturbe the subject, 2. It creates ugly lighting situations and 3. it creates red eye. Flash would be a good idea to use when you're outside in the sunlight, and you would want to eliminate the shadows. Flash is not a good idea if you're outside at night time, with a lot of light surrounding you or an object already because if you use the flash, that'll just eliminate the lighting around that object and the picture won't turn out so great. The picture I chose is better for the flash not to be used because there's already enought lighting to light up the whole city of Downtown Long Beach.

Metering

What light meter does is that is measures light for middle gray. The differences between two pictures are that one is brighter that the other. The reason why they're both different pictures is because on the bottom picture, I measured the light from the computer screen and on the bottom picture, I measured the light from Frank's skin. Spot metering can help me in the future by eliminating light that I dont want or bring in light that I do want.

Surrealism: "Under The Sea"

When you dream that you are underwater, it means that emotions are becoming overcome by the sleeper and that life is not organized and needs a greater way to get organized. Dreaming about fish shows that there is a part of your life that wealth will show up in its way. To dream about toothbrushes means that you are feeling defensive about any criticism directed towards you and that you are putting up a shield around you to protect yourself from potential harm. To dream about mermaids signifies the female aspect of yourself that is mysterious and secretive. Bubbles in your dream represents merriment, fun, and childhood joy. To dream about a lighthouse represents you are seeking guidance during your times of hardships and turmoil. And last, to dream about a starfish represents a period of healing and regeneration.

Surreal Practice Tutorials

The different things we did to make the Desert tutorial look realistic was we took one simple picture of the desert ground, and duplicated it. After all the duplicating we did, we transformed the ground by distorting it, making it look as if we were really standing in the picture, looking out in the open. Another thing we did to the ground was take a gradient, and change the color of the ground making it look like the dirt was real. We also worked on the sky. What we did with that was we took a gradient tool, and colored the sky. We also made clouds, making the picture realistic. We also put a post lamp in the picture, making it grow out of the ground, and dropping a shadow behind the lamp.

By doing both of these tutorials, they will help me creat my own surreal picture by making my own landscape, making sure I put shadows behind objects (if necessary), and puting a picture in a sertain spot and blending it in with another picture (the eye pupil and brick wall on the face for example).

ART SHOW "Fa'a Samoa"

This picture that was taken of me is a portrait picture. In photography class, we were assigned to take pictures of our partner as if we were taking pictures for a portrait. I chose to take this picture of my portrait because to me, this means something more than just an ordinary picture. It means something to me because the costume is a part of my Samoan culture, and when we were assigned to bring in a costume of some sort, I wanted to bring this costume. What I like about the picutre is the angle that I'm positioned in. I also like how I added the colors on top of the picture. I used those colors because blue and red are the main colors of the American Samoa flag, and I thought I should add a little yellow to it.

Graduation Program

I didn't get to see the other students programs, but I don't think I have a strength in my design. Graphic designing was harder than I thought it would be because it's difficult to come up with a layout and imagine how you want it to look like. The most important part of Graphic Design is to make the picture look cool and different than just an ordinary picture. Graphic Desigh plays in the roll of advertisment like magazines, billboards, newspapers, movie covers, show titles, etc.

Alternate Program: Si Se Puede and Academic Letter

I didn't get to see the other students covers, but what I think was the strength of my project is the two pictures of STUGO and the Champion Pegasus on the Si Se Puede. What I struggled with the most is making the Academic Letter program cover. I think I did my best on the Si Se Puede because I put more effort into this program than the Academic Letter program.

Personal Quilt

QUILT

OUTSIDE

INSIDE

FUTURE

PAST

I'm happy with some of the decisions I've made for my quilts. I'm really happy with my future one though because I like how I set it up and made the pictures go together into one big picture. I don't really have a favorite square, but the two I like the most are my future and past squares because the future one shows what i want to do in the near future, and my past quilt shows who I was in my past. The quilt(s) I struggled with the most is my inside and outside me because I didn't know what to do with those quilts.

The difference between my past and future quilts are how I set them up, and what's in the quilt. In the past quilt, I put p[ictured of me and my family members, and in my future quilt, I put a picture of me surrounded by what i want to do in the future. There is a difference between those two quilts is how I set them up. It feels like the same because they both have to do with me and they are about me.

Artist Statement

My portfolio contains photos that I have taken, or ones that are taken of me. What will be found in my portfolio are pictures and statements of my pictures that I have taken, or ones that have been taken of me. The pictures I have posted are some pictures that I have edited on Photoshop and gave some cool effects. The photos are also some of the tricks that we have learned throughout this school year. I feel that I have done an okay job with my portfolio. It’s not the BEST out there, but it’s decent for a school assignment.

Over this course of the semester, I learned many tools and tricks on Photoshop. For example, in the scary effects, we did many tricks to make the pictures look scary and creepy. I felt I was most successful with the scary effects photo because working along with the teacher, and making the special effects was easy. What I struggled with the most is the social issue because it was difficult for me to think of what an issue is that is around me. It was also difficult to come up with a strong statement.

In the future, I could improve on taking better photographs. Another thing I could improve on is making better effects to my photos. Although I feel like I need improvement on taking photographs, I feel that I have seen some improvment in that categorie. My experiences with this photography class has made an impact on my life. From being in this class, I learned many photoshop tips and tutorials. I know that in the future, I'll someday use those tips and tutorials.

THANKS MS. COOK :]

Personal Words

The Lyrics I chose for my project are Angel of Mine by Monica.

“When I first saw you I already knew there was something inside of you, something I thought that I would never find, Angel of mine. I look at you, lookin' at me, Now I now why they say the best things are free, I'm gonna love you boy you are so fine Angel of Mine. How you changed my world you'll never know I'm different now, you helped me grow You came into my life sent from above, When I lost all hope you showed me love I'm checkin' for ya boy you're right on time Angel of Mine. Nothing means more to me than what we share, No one in this whole world can ever compare, Last night the way you moved is still on my mind Angel of Mine.”

I chose these lyrics because the words of the song are true towards how I feel about my boyfriend. This is one of my favorite songs and it’s a cute love song. I love how I can relate to this song because it expresses how we both feel about our lovers. What it means to me is that she’s expressing her feeling towards her relationship, and that’s exactly how I am with my relationship.

Social Issue: "Do You Think We're the Same NOW?!"

In this photograph, there is a collage of pictures of women from the different groups of the Pacific Islands. The colors that were used in this piece were black, white, gray, and red. I used red color on my text and the white boarder to pop them out of the picture, but still focus on the main subject of my issue.

While creating my social issue, my message is to show everyone that not all Pacific Islanders are the same or alike; we all have a different culture. I ask in the picture if you can tell the difference between us Pacific Islanders by putting together a group of women and their traditional costumes from around the Pacific onto a photo. I have the Samoan women in the center and bigger than all the other picture because I’m half Samoan, and sometimes it’s an issue to me. The reason why it’s an issue to me is because when I tell people that I’m Samoan, and the first thing they ask me is, “Oh! Isn’t that Hawaiian?” and I would tell them no and try to explain the difference between Hawaiians and Samoans. Even though it may not seem a big deal to other people that all Pacific Islanders are different, they should understand the fact that we’re not the same and learn the difference between the Pacific Islanders.

Scary Effects

My favorite picture was the Alien because I like all the effects we made to it. Some of the new tools that I learned making these photos is the Liquefy (in the vampire for the teeth), adding the blood, the dodge tool, the pen tool, and duplicating a layer. Some of the difficulties I ran into was changing the backgrounds to the photos. Some jobs that these types of photos can be used for are for book titles and illustrations. Also for Halloween stuff.

Critique: Robert & Shana ParkeHarrison

A man stands alone on a bridge floating on top of water. He’s working alone in the afternoon time, trying to finish the bridge to get across to the other side of the water. To make it less difficult for him…he carries the other pieces of wood on his back so he doesn’t have to keep walking back and forth to get the wood. There is a leading line that takes us to the emphasis, the Guy. I like this picture because it’s something different, it’s not original.

Photographic Effects

My favorite trick that we learned was the Gradient tool because I like changing the color effects on the photo. The trick that I would like to explore more with is the effects of changing the eye color and whitening the teeth.

Portraits

1. The portrait that I think I was most successful with is the artistic one becasue that was the photo that I did my best on.

2. To create an artistic picture, I had Andre sit on a rock, under a tree, with the sunlight coming straight down on him. The mood that I caught was a sad, and worried mood.
3. The prop that I had him use was a nice shirt long sleeve because it was a nice shirt and I rarley see him in this shirt. I like this picture because he pops out from the stairs.

4. What makes my surprise photo unique and different is nothing.