Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Final Project

I have been meaning to post these for the last few days. I'm finally getting to it. I was going to procrastinate on it some more, but I decided to procrastinate on the procrastination. Besides I want to feel like I got something done on my off time today. I had a fourth project, but I decided to extend it and submit it as my final. Overall I was happy with it. I wanted to make sure that my final was a cohesive unit. I think I accomplished that. Some of the work at final critique in class made me feel vastly inferior. My hands were shaking as I hung my work up, because I just knew that I was going to get ripped to pieces. I really didn't get as much negative criticism as I expected, and far more positive than I anticipated. After all, my work was not so dynamic as some of the portraits I saw, and creating variety with the subject I chose proved to be a challenge. The good part was that my instructor used my work as an example of how to create interest and variety in a subject that normally wouldn't catch the viewers attention like a portrait would. People are naturally more interested in the human face. It's just our nature. He also described my work as not being about a product, but more of an art piece on my chosen subject matter. As an artist I guess that makes sense that I would have that description put to my work. I wasn't selling something. So perhaps I might not have a future as a product photographer. Maybe I just like to have my creativity left in tact and not taken away by art directors and companies. OR I MAY just want to make money someday. Would that make me a sell-out? I guess I have a good amount of time to ask myself that question. So as I let you all in on my work I'd like to only ask you one favor. That is to look at these photos as one body of work. As the artist I am tempted to comment on every little thing about it. I can't allow myself to do that. In fact, in class we aren't even allowed to open our mouths during the critiquing of our work. No explanations, no excuses, no nothing. So I'll shut up now and let you all just see my work for what it is.
I'll try to come up with some interesting stuff for my next post since I don't have Lighting for Photography II until the Fall. Oh! Another class I'll be taking is an astronomy class and the nerd in me is jumping for joy and excitement that this class actually fulfills a requirement for my degree. Since it will be an online class I can actually do it on my own time. With as much interest as I have in the subject I don't think my tendency to procrastinate will come into play. Wish me luck!