DT 27.1 Editing Portraits

Movie week

The 3 movies I watched during movie week Extravaganza were Pecker, Born Into Brothels and O Brother, Where Art Thou?.




Starting out with Pecker. Pecker was funny! Did I enjoy it? Not really, It was the obvious kind of funny where you know when the joke was coming, and a lot of play on words. I did like some of his images and the way they made fun of the snoby aspects of Photography and the social inferiors of the photographic industry and to make light of it gave me sense of not to take that aspect of photography so seriously.




Born Into Brothels was an awesome movie! I loved it! This is a must see for anyone. This documentary about a photographer (Zana Briski) who sets out to teach children of prostitutes in Sonagachi, Kolkata's red light district and then ends up teaching them so much more about whats out there and helping them to escape their current living situations. To see where photography can take you and to see how good these kids were was really inspiring.




Then Finally to O Brother, Where Art Thou? I liked this movie a lot. I think the story is great and it has an awesome sound track. But what it really had to do with photography I don't know... Good thing we watched the extra features on the DVD. I really can appreciate the warm tones and unsaturated effects they added to the movie really gave you the sense of how hot and dry the "dirty 30's" (great depression) were. I can appreciate this because I've recently learned at school the advantages of making an image seem warm and cold feeling.

Ahhh blogging the holidays...

I have to first mention that Christmas for me this year was actually celebrated on the 26th, Boxing Day. This is because that was the day my sister Aurelle came from Boston to visit with her husband Lui and their new baby girl Leonila (our grandmother's name). And also my other sister Arlene from Brandon was coming at the same time and she also has a new baby boy named Mason who is only a week apart in age they are both 6 months old. This is their first Christmas and the first time in 4 years that we've all been together. These two kids are soooo adorable. They are both showing off the presents I got them


I had to post this image
My cousin's kid Gingee kept bringing me books I have and she brought me the newest coffee table book and asked me to read to her so I did and like a kid she laughed at everything I said, so did everyone else but my mom, she smacked the side of my head (lightly).

Yes there was a little drinking at the Christmas party.
This is my cousin Alvin and my dog Scruffs. My dog is a large breed and I don't know why but my cousin really wanted to hug him Scruffs didn't mind being held for so long either, it was so funny I had a hard time taking a picture of I was laughing so hard.

Babies in Brandon
Sooo... My sisters, husbands, sister came to visit us while we were visiting them in Brandon and this is them trying to get the babies to play with each other. The holidays this year was all about these babies entertaining us.

Toasting to 2010!
Here's to 2010! This is us freezing our butts off in -30 something weather somewhere outside of Morden, Manitoba in the Valley where no one else can here or see us. Why my friends decided to buy a barn and convert it to a house is beyond me but it made for an awesome party place. Good thing I wasn't holding a drink! This is my 5th year being sober.



Go on without me it's too cold!
This is our first snow shoeing extravaganza in 2010 with Scruffs our dog. The weather was cold but made for a beautiful backdrop .


New years day at night and you want to ice-skating and nothing is open?... Well then just build your own ice rink! That is what my friends did, and to also avoid figure skaters on their ice.


Old school friends!
I cannot even believe I went to the bar and then having to run into friends I haven't seen in years... Crazy!! I have to clarify why I was even at Gio's I was taking pics of a drag queen for a school assignment. And that Noam was just there because he was just taking a break from making B movies...


Deemed the Paparazzi for the night.
A lot of people at the bar were calling me the paparazzi and were begging me to take a picture of them. I thought the paparazzi took pictures of celebrities and people who didn't want they're pictures taken?... Crazy drunk people!

DRAG FIGHT!!! (not really)
This was all a joke I promise. I went to an after party and it was 5 a.m. and all the drag queens were getting out of face and getting back into man clothes so I mentioned that I've always wanted to see drag queens fighting and they told me it looks the same as drag queens defacing and to prove it they gave me a little show. I figured black and white cause drag queens fighting just screams really bad colors clashing!

AT 11.2 Karsh

Out all the images in the Karsh exhibition at The WAG the one that stood out for me was the one of Peter Lorre, 1946 a Gelatin silver print. I loved the way Karsh places his subject in the frame, dramatically lights the subject, and captures Peter Lorre's eyes. For me the eyes say a lot and Peters eyes were captured in that sinister character he always plays in Alfred Hitchcock films. Peter Lorre was introduced to Karsh through Alfred Hitchcock who often cast Peter as a villans in his movies. And that is what Karsh was trying to invoke in this image. Setting up this shot seems to have been really hard seeing how he shoot it in such a low light setting, he must have taken a long exposure and got his subject to stay a still as possible. You still get a sense of blur coming from the smoke. Which brings me too the printing aspect, to me it seems like he would have had to use yellow to get the high lights in as bright as possible and then having to burn in on the dark parts to get the dramatic effect.
I've been to Karsh's exhibit 3 times now and it never gets old. His work captures the true face of each character he photographs. His images scream and tell more about the character then some of the read ups I've done about these people.

True colours

I really liked this assignment because colours are everywhere! But at the same time I found it challenging because I don't use a lot of colours in my art work, with black and gray as my favorite colours I tend to work those more often. So I wasn't sure if my colour block assignment was going to be good at all but by the end of it, it really surprised me.

When I decided to take images of colour I wanted the colour to be dominent in my images so I first thought of foods because I always associate red with apples, green with lettuce, and yellow with bananas. But when I took the image for my yellow it was an image of a cupcake with yellow icing this made me very happy, yellow just seems like happiness! And on top of a cupcake! It’s a very happy, delicious match. Then when I photographed for the colour green I got the leaves of something I can't remember but the image feels organic and fresh. With the image of the pink flowers (fake flowers) I got the feeling of warmth and cuteness I'm not sure why cute though... Then when I took the image for blue this image made me feel calm and smooth
easy going.

When I asked my girl friend how the colours made her feel she pretty much said the same thing. The yellow made her happy (and hungry), the blue felt calm and green very earthy.
The thing I found most surprising was the image I got of a man molding glass with fire. At first you see the bright orange glow of the flame but before the flame you see the blue flames and when you think of blue you think cold and not of fire but at the hottest point of the flame its blue then it goes orange where as you usually you feel warm and hot from orange.
By the end of it all I felt successful with my images by showing their true colours...
*insert song True colors, by Cyndi Lauper here *

To the Zoo!

Going on a field trip after a hard test, while it's cold outside, on a miserable rainy day... Sounds lovely doesn't it? Well after a crazy week of tests and a week intensive shooting we needed to have some fun. We really didn't expect it to be fun but it turned out to be a fun time hanging with the girls. Andrea, Sheldean, and Hannah made the cold experience easier to handle with all the laughter. After we let go and sucked it up we took some awesome pictures. I'm not sure the animals were really happy to be out either but they still looked cute enough to take pictures of. We also ended up finding other interesting things around the Zoo other then the animals to take images of. Like each other, and the fact that it was Boo at the Zoo and Fall time made things a little more interesting to Photograph.
Enjoy the pics.

Walk towards the light.

For this class assignment we were required to take images of the sun rising, sun setting, night time light, mid day light and of a cloudy day. I loved it! I got to sleep in the Pembina Valley and wake up to the best sun rise, and end the day with the perfect sun set.