Creative Photography Create a Series

We had our last class in this series of becoming a more creative photographer - I'm gonna miss the class! It was great and really pushed me to think and see things differently, and to pay more attention to what's around me in every day life.

Our final assignment was to take a series of photographs that work together - either based on photos we have taken in the past few weeks of class or on a whole new idea that we want to explore. So if there was something we liked from before, or maybe an inspiration from what other people have done in class, or just an idea of something that intrigues or interests you - think of a project and build a series that if it were hanging in a gallery would all make sense and go together. She showed us many examples of professional photographers doing "series", some were funny (smashed cakes, barbies posing on the beach) or sad (homeless children), some were self portraits, street scenes...you get the picture. Whatever inspires us!

I thought of my idea immediately based on a photo I had done for the category "reminder of your past" - in that one I took a picture of a pool behind a fence because it reminded me of living in a very small neighborhood growing up and only one house having a pool...with a fence around it...that all the neighborhood kids lined up against peering in on the poor homeowners that owned the pool...yeah, I'm still a little embarrassed about doing that haha. Anyway, I decided to combine stories from my childhood with single images to represent that story, and figured out how to print words on my pictures -

I'm very happy how they turned out and think I'm going to keep working on this project even though the class is over, maybe I'll make a little book of them :).

By the way, I googled how to print text on pictures and found a bunch of sites that do that. I used
befunky.com.

You don't have to be going to a class to think about a project that interests you - maybe a hobby or love of something - and take a few photos that tell a story or represent your idea. It was so fun to work on this assignment this week! Try it!

check out creativephotoacademy.com if you want to see more on classes at Pauls Photo in Torrance, CA.

Photo Class: Landscapes

This week in photo class the topic was "landscapes" which I mistakenly thought meant taking pictures of hills and trees - nope, it was more about paying attention to the landscape or environment you move through (both internal and external) and looking for themes that come up, repeated shapes or objects, things that remind you of your past, how light shifts, etc. As usual we were to create 20 photographs getting at different ideas we noticed, and were given a few categories to fill such as one image depicting or representing "home", one image referring to our past, and one image that is visually abstract.  There was also an alternate assignment given if we'd rather - to create a series of photos that went together (like a car collection, water towers, industrial buildings, etc.) instead of filling in the random categories.

(simple lines and form)

We studied the work of 9 photographers who are known for their specific series, ranging from cultural iconography (old signs, retro buildings) to abstract or all blurry, simple lines and colors, and abandoned places (buildings or objects). I decided to combine the assignments and took photos that inspired me from each of the 9 photographers work - so they didn't all go together other than that they represented all of the artists we studied. 

(abstract/meditation)

What was really fun about that was I got to take pictures of many different styles and objects - which I normally wouldn't do. We just shoot what we are interested in, right? So even though I'm not big on blurry impressions it was interesting to figure out how to make a cool blurry photo, and I've never thought about taking pictures of industrial buildings but I did and it turned out great. 

(power plant)

Because I was searching for different things than I would normally take photos of I ended up walking down many back alleys, the back side of buildings, out of the way places where I wouldn't normally go - Sarge loved it! He got to receive and leave "messages" in all kinds of fun new places.

(cultural iconography)

(abandoned places)

So this week maybe challenge yourself to move through your environment with intention. Pay attention to interesting things around you that you might not have noticed before - buildings, cool doors and stairways, things that remind you of your past...and explore the back sides of stores or buildings just to see some different things - it was a fun week!  

creativephotoacadamy.com for info on classes at Pauls Photo, Torrance, CA

Self Portraits

Week 2 of our creative photo class at Paul's Photo focused on taking self portraits - these are different then taking "selfies" in that we used timers and tripods (or in my case my homemade jerry-rigged camera holder which consists of my mini clipboard and a chopstick) to teach us about telling stories with photographs, how to set up shots with ourselves in the frame (and not our arms reaching out!), also how to photograph people in general. The thought is that by taking the time to figure out how to pose ourselves for the best shots - we are being our own guinea pigs so to speak - we will have a better understanding and sensitivity about photographing other people. Once again we received a homework assignment to fill a bunch of categories with photos of ourselves and we were encouraged to use props, reflections, and get creative about different ways to depict ourselves - some of the categories we didn't even have to be in the shot...I liked those the best. Setting the timer and then running to get in place to get my shot over and over again was exhausting! Try taking pics of yourself without doing a typical holding-out-your-arm selfie, it was challenging and fun to think of ways to take my own photo.

I decided to do a theme for my self portraits, so every one was based around shoes in some way. Here are some examples:

showing my face in a reflection

showing a feeling - I was going for "peaceful"

showing myself in my environment, I love how this shadow
makes Sarge look huge!

(check out creativephotoacademy.com for more info on taking classes if you're interested!)