Final Critique

I ended up showing twelve of my strongest pieces for my final critique. Over the course of this semester, I have learned what my strengths and weaknesses are when it comes to photography, and I will continue shooting and growing in this media.

My weaknesses were mainly in my portraits. Not only do the photos look a bit awkward, but the actual sessions with the person were awkward because I am still unsure of how to direct people. I showed four different people in portraits for my final, because I wanted to show a bit of variety, but I feel that in order to have shown my strongest pieces I could have left them out altogether. My most successful portrait was of myself, and this was pointed out during my critique. This version is not enhance in any way, because my hard drive has been configured for a Mac, but it still shows the strong composition I ended up with.

Of my pieces, the ones that were pointed out as the strongest were the panoramas, the laundry reflection, and the fence. I enjoyed the panoramas a lot, and even though I went in other directions - rather than showing a large area like a landscape - I feel like they are strong images and I like the way they came out. Two of my other pieces were pointed out as "photographs" because of their compositions, colors, contrast, interest, etc.

One is of a reflection of a sign. The colors turned out well, and what people liked about this was that it keeps interest. Usually text is what a viewer sees and reads first, but in this case, the text is skewed and so it kept attention a lot longer than I anticipated.

A second photograph that brought about conversation was of looking down a fence at trash. I consciously used the rule of thirds while shooting it, and I love the composition because of the balance of the fence vs. the ground and the cast shadows were appealing.

Overall, I feel like this semester has successfully helped me grow as a photographer,  and I'm definitely going to continue learning.

Favorite Photographers

Technically, I've only been in the photography business for a semester, and before now I had never even thought to research photographers. I may not have "favorites" yet, but I have definitely come across people throughout the past few months who have proved to be exceedingly interesting. The two I would like to talk about are Andre du Plessis and Danny Santos.

I stumbled upon Andre du Plessis towards the beginning of this school year and I was blown away by the photograph below:

This photograph captured my attention. The wrinkles, the hair, the expressions shown by the man and the dog, the textures. It seems so simple. I looked into his gallery and found that his work revolves around black and white images of everyday life. He depicts interesting people in interesting settings, yet they all have that candid quality; they all seem effortless and natural. I admire his eye for composition and "seeing the moment," I guess I should say. His gallery can be found from 1x.com, and I encourage you to see his work!

The second photographer I happen to come across is Danny Santos. His work is also of a candid nature, as he purposely wanders the streets for hours in search of interesting faces. He has different projects, one is to collect many different photographs of strangers on a particular main street he lives nearby, and others include actual model shoots and spur-of-the-moment shots in the rain.

I was fascinated by his portraits of strangers most of all. Not only are the photographs beautiful, the concept of seeing beautiful faces in crowds and capturing them is inspiring. Especially after learning of Cartier months ago and realizing that photography can take place without poses or plans. The more I see his work, the more of a favorite he becomes because the photographs are so down-to-earth and personal.

Fortunately, his work on Flickr is copyrighted, so the crazies can't abuse it. So, here's the link to his site [http://www.flickr.com/photos/dannysantos/4723946673/] and I hope you enjoy.