Monica Photography

The theme of the portfolio is icons remade. The pictures that are iconic, or if the person in the iconic photo is an icon, I would try to remake the photo, or something similar to it. I found 6 people that fit this criteria. Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn, Betty Grable, James Dean, Jimi Hendrix, and Elvis Presley. All of these people were famous at one time, or even presently, and revolutionized pop culture.

I am very pleased with all the photos as they turned out much better than expected. They all look similar to the original photos. One problem that occurred was that one of the possible models was not capable of doing the shot, which was very disappointing. Thus, Elvis Presley was not a candidate for being part of the portfolio project.

The individual shots each had character. They all resembled the people. Photographing these pictures were fun. It was fun having the chance to recreate these photos and to capture the personalities of these old time hollywood stars.

Many problems occurred throughout these five photographs. In the Marilyn Monroe shot, it was difficult to get the hair to be blond on the final picture. Eventually it turned out relatively close to Monroe’s platinum locks. For both Audrey and Betty, there was the hair problem as well when shooting. The hair to fall in the same way as Betty’s was difficult, but it one way it was put looked similar enough to shoot as the final. Also, in Audrey’s shoot, the hair to stand upright in a big bun was hard. AS seen in the final, it still did not stay in the correct position, but it was close enough for the time being. There were no real difficulties with the shoot for James or Jimi, as their shoots were pretty straight forward. One difficulty in Jimi’s shoot was when cropping in photoshop, his hair was very difficult to be exact.

Overall the shoots for all the photos were very well done, in my opinion. I am very pleased as all the shooting and prepping, and later photoshopping took time. The end products are very aesthetically pleasing and can relate to the original photos in one way or another.

     The theme of the portfolio is icons remade. The pictures that are iconic, or if the person in the iconic photo is an icon, I would try to remake the photo, or something similar to it. I found 6 people that fit this criteria. Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn, Betty Grable, James Dean, Jimi Hendrix, and Elvis Presley. All of these people were famous at one time, or even presently, and revolutionized pop culture. 

     I am very pleased with all the photos as they turned out much better than expected. They all look similar to the original photos. One problem that occurred was that one of the possible models was not capable of doing the shot, which was very disappointing. Thus, Elvis Presley was not a candidate for being part of the portfolio project. 

     The individual shots each had character. They all resembled the people. Photographing these pictures were fun. It was fun having the chance to recreate these photos and to capture the personalities of these old time hollywood stars. 

     Many problems occurred throughout these five photographs. In the Marilyn Monroe shot, it was difficult to get the hair to be blond on the final picture. Eventually it turned out relatively close to Monroe’s platinum locks. For both Audrey and Betty, there was the hair problem as well when shooting. The hair to fall in the same way as Betty’s was difficult, but it one way it was put looked similar enough to shoot as the final. Also, in Audrey’s shoot, the hair to stand upright in a big bun was hard. AS seen in the final, it still did not stay in the correct position, but it was close enough for the time being. There were no real difficulties with the shoot for James or Jimi, as their shoots were pretty straight forward. One difficulty in Jimi’s shoot was when cropping in photoshop, his hair was very difficult to be exact. 

     Overall the shoots for all the photos were very well done, in my opinion. I am very pleased as all the shooting and prepping, and later photoshopping took time. The end products are very aesthetically pleasing and can relate to the original photos in one way or another. 

For the self portrait. I had no idea what I was going to do. I wanted to do something that greatly impacted my life. However, I could think of nothing. At least nothing that would be original. I made a list of everything that was important to me. Still nothing came to mind. I did a shoot of certain body parts that my life revolves around. It didn’t feel like me though.

I shot a picture of myself on couch with food around me and wearing my sport sweatshirt. This is me. I lay around and sleep most of the time and I am also constantly eating. The sport sweatshirt is what my life is. I love sports and would not be able to keep sane without it. This picture would then seem completely like me. I also love music, which also keeps me sane during tough times.

I had food on a table next to the couch. The ipod was on the edge of the table and the earphones were dangling off and then connected to the couch. This is the line that directs the viewers eye to the main subject. The main subject is lying on the side with the last name and number the main focus of the picture. The subject is in focus and all other elements are unfocused. This was completely deliberate. After, I went into photoshop and desaturated the picture. I felt that color was not the real purpose of the photo and made it just so the yellow would stand out. I also felt it gave the picture a little more artistic touch. The picture is simple, but describes me. This is why I am pleased with the picture. Although it may be simple and uninteresting, it is a self portrait.

The piece that inspired me was ‘Seeing Red’. I loved the color and the contrast with the red of the scarves and the model’s eyes. It was eye catching and almost mesmerizing. The aspect that I wanted to capture was the tone of red in the picture. I decided that what I was going to shoot for this project was a scheme of red.

At the beginning, I went around the school and tried to find elements that contained just the color red. This was extremely hard and nearly impossible. I went to the bike racks and found four red bikes in a row. This attempt failed. Also, another element I tried was finding flags that were all red. This too was a failed attempt. I decided that I should just set up a photo shoot.

The picture that ended up good was one that I took a girl’s feet in red shoes wrapped in a red scarf. This was to remain true to the red scheme of the original inspired piece, but also adding a flair of my own. The feet are slanted and placed apart.  The scarf drapes between which gives a nice composition to the photo. Also, the light from one side contrasts the red and the skin. The whole photograph is in a reddish tone. The girl’s skin color is dark, and almost emanates an almost reddish glow. The color of the floor is a dark reddish brown. This is the aspect that I had wanted. A picture with red throughout the photo. With the right leg twisted at an awkward angle, it gives almost an absurdist aspect of the picture.

Some problems faced when shooting for this picture was there was not enough light. The light was not very strong, but it did eventually work to give the product that I wanted. Also, at the time, I was not using a tripod. This was very inconvenient as most of the pictures turned out blurry. This picture isn’t even fully sharp. The camera was also having troubles focusing, so the shot did not turn out as sharp and crisp.

Overall, I am pleased with the photo because it turned out the way I had originally planned. The scheme of red is evident and I kept an aspect of the original picture, a red scarf.

     During this shoot, I went to Koh Kred. It is a small island on the Chao Phraya River about 10 minutes away from Nichada. It was interesting coming to the island, as the lifestyle of the people there were relatively different even though they were just about 300 meters away from a life of civilization. Their lives revolved around the river with a majority of the houses were on the river. This island’s economy surrounds the occupation of clay making. They make clay pots and figures with huge clay ovens. Also, the only forms of transportation were motorcycles, bicycles, or walking. 

     It was hard to shoot here as it was difficult to create images from different vantage points. This disallowed a wide variety of unique images. However, some pictures came out pretty well. 

     There is one picture which I like preferably over the others. One of them is a boy riding a bicycle on a bridge. The boy is on the right side of the picture. Only his back is showing. This use of negative space is utilized as the boy is looking to the right. The right side of the photo is weighted greatly as compared to the left side. This guides to where the boy is looking off to the way right of the picture. The contrast of the photo is emphasized as the background of the photo is dark while the subject is very colorful. The railing of the bridge and the bicycle are bright colors as well as the clothing that the boy is wearing. The line of the railing also guides the eye to the boy. The double parallel lines greatly emphasize the boy. 

     Originally, there was another subject to the right  of the boy. I had to crop the photo so there was no distracting object from the main subject that I wanted to employ. Also, with everything being so dark, I had to lighten the photo slightly to avoid the entire photo to be in darkness. With the subject having already bright colors, I had to be careful not to allow those colors to be too bright. If I were to shoot this photo again, I maybe would’ve allowed more negative space to the right space, however, I do not think it would have as great as an impact as the current photo.

     In the end, I was very pleased with this photo. The layout of the photo is very well planned and has a aesthetically pleasing layout. Also, the contrast and lines of the photo complement the main subject of the boy greatly. 

In this project based on the advertising of a certain product, the subject I was given was the idea of water conservation. When I started to plan on this project, I wanted to have an advertisement that would capture the audience and force them to think. I also wanted something that would affect everyone, and not relate to just a couple people.

There were several ideas that were used in the brainstorm process, however, they did not seem to meet the requirements of what was needed from the advertisement. To assist in the affectiveness, I looked up statistics of water use daily by individuals, and by populations of the US. None of which were very useful. Many stats included amount of water usage each domestic item used. Then, there were the statistics that showed the amount of water used to produce certain products, many of them shocking, one of which was the production of paper. 10 liters of water were used for the production of one sheet of A4 paper.

From this information, I thought of any way there was to convey the information and make the population think about their personal consumption of water. Looking at the statistics, the idea of having two piles, one pile of paper with the equal amount of water, seemed good and informative.

The final product turned out better than expected. The simple phrase “Would you throw away this much water?” is simple enough and yet straightforward to get the point across to the audience. The white background allows for the neutrality of the idea, as well as all the negative space. It’s a simple concept, thus a simple advertisement to reflect that. The little pile of paper on the left hand side and the water bottles on the right hand side show the importance, as the later one is the central idea of the advertisement.

The contrast between different textures of the hard, bumpy surface of the paper contradicts the big, round smoothness of the water bottles is the opposing forces of this piece. Though, not entirely intentional, it creates a balance between the oppositions. Also, with the bigger pile of the water bottles, it forces the eye to move more towards the bigger pile on the page. Therefore, there is an unbalanced weight on the two piles, showing the water bottles as a more important aspect.

The problems I faced while doing this project was shooting the water bottle and the pile of paper. As easy as it sounds, there were obstacles that were needed to avoid problems later on. One of the problems, was shooting the water bottle and allowing for enough light to pass through the bottle, so to capture the water in the bottle. Also, if the bottle was on the ground, shadows would pass behind the bottle, and disallow for a soft plain look of the bottle. It was to be placed on an item, so the shadows would not show through the bottle. After some trials, the water bottle was eventually placed on other smaller plastic tubs.

Another problem faced was the photographing of the pile of paper. This was difficult because the right aperture was needed to keep the contrast between the background and the paper evident. This would make it easier in photoshop later when cropping the image. After, some difficulty with one set of photos, another set was needed to have better contrast. This was achieved, and a little photoshop additions were later added such as changing the lighting to make the paper more white.

If I were to change this project, I would change the arrangements of the pictures in the advertisement. The images could be placed in the numbers they represent or maybe change the product. Instead of having a piece of paper, have another product that would also influence people into being more conservative in their water uses.

Overall, I am very pleased with the advertisement. It turned out much better than I expected. It makes the audience inquisitive, as well as amazed at the statistics. This is what I wanted to capture in the advertisement. It is aesthetically pleasing and simple, and informative.

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