Specialists

Next year (3^rd Year) we had to choose two specialists. I knew what I wanted to specialize in, Flower Photography, but my second specialist was the problem I didn’t have any idea what my second specialist was going to be. Then I started to think what other category I enjoy. I went through all my past photographs and then a light bolt went on, Black & White Photography, perfect!

We had to do a specialist proposal. Where we had to say why we chose the specialist that we did and it wasn’t an easy task. We also had to choose a master photographer for each specialist which was so fun to do research on.

Flower Photography

Imogen Cunningham - She became one of the major photographers of the last century. She established her own studio in 1910. In 1932, Imogen, Ansel Adams, Edward Weston and others, founded Group f/64. Imogen soon turned her attention to both the nudes as well as native plant forms in her back garden. These works are characterized by a visual precision that is not scientific, but which presents the lines and textures of her subjects articulated by natural light and their own gestures. Her refreshing, yet formal and sensitive floral images from the 1920’s ultimately became her most acclaimed images.

Imogen Cunningham - Self Portrait

Image - Calla Lilies



http://www.noevalleyvoice.com/2010/July-August/Leo.htm (Self Portrait)

http://sharonsdaughter.wordpress.com/2009/06/26/ (Image)

Black & White Photography

Josef Sudek - He was born on March 17, 1896 in Kollin. He studied bookbinding in Prague and enjoyed photography. During WWI he was on the Italian front where he also was taking photographs. He was hit by a grenade and lost his right arm. Because he could no longer work as a bookbinder, he focused on photography. He was a member of the Prague Amateur Association of Photographers. He studied photography at a graphic school under Professor Karel Novák. He photographed veterans at Invalidovna, still life’s, portraits and landscapes. In 1932, he had his first independent exhibit in Prague. He died on September 15, 1976 in Prague.

Josef Sudek - Self Portrait

Image - Studio

http://www.igalerie.cz/en/graphics-en/portfolios-etc/93-portfolio-josef-sudek (Self Portrait)

http://laurietobyedison.com/discuss/?p=783 (Image)

Work Experience...

Our Department decided for us to receive our Diploma after 3^rd year we have to have 31 days of working experience. Which I think is a great idea because it pushes us to go find work, but we are only aloud to work in the photographic industry to make our hours count. We have to work 31 days but 8 hours counts as one day so we have to work 248 hours and we only have until the end of our 2^nd term to complete these hours.

I was lucky that one of my class mates, Dena Churchman, got two job offers which she revered me to one of the photographers. I was so happy when I got the call from Samantha Maber. She is an extraordinary photographer and I love her style of taking images. She has a unique and different view and what I love about her the most is she likes to use minimum depth of field. Sam has such a down to earth personality and so easy to get along with.

Here is a link to her website so that you can see how an amazing photographer she is:

http://www.samanthamaber.com/portfolio/ 

I did a couple shoots assisting her and recently I started to do some editing for her I like because now my working hours started to become fewer. At the moment I’ve done 68 hours, so I have 180 Hours to go... and counting!

Portfolio - 3 November 2010

Sorry everyone I haven't posted in a while been so busy but I'm going to try my best to blog more and let you guys know whats happening.
Here is my portfolio:

Advertising Still Life

Architecture Magazine

Child at Play

Documentary

Environmental Portrait

Extrior Architecture

Fashion - Location

Fashion - Studio

Formal Portrait

Glasware

Interior Architecture

Macro Jewellery

Metal

Soccer World Cup 2010 Montage

Nature

Perfume Advert

Self Portrait

Senses

Sunrise

Urban Landscape

Hope you like it and let my know what you think about my portfolio...

CRIT 6 - 28 September 2010

1. Metal/Stainless Steel:
Here I didn't want to do what everybody else is going to do like cutlery. I decided on using my dads coins that he collected on his trips around the world. For my background I decided to use a world map to emphasize the different currencies. 

2. Advertising Still Life:

I not a big fan of advertising but it is one of the popular ways to go in photography. I knew that I wanted to use coffee beans but the hard part is, what to do with the coffee beans, so I did the Google thing and did some research. I found cool ideas and tried to the same but just put a bit of me in it.

3. Macro Jewellery:

This was another favorite assignment of mine because it is macro. The thing was what to photograph? I knew I wanted to use a ring never thought it would be so difficult but it seemed to workout at the end of the day.

4. Glassware:

We did this assignment a lot last year but luckily they said we can be creative which made it more fun. My original plan didn't work out as I wanted it to be, so I did plan be. Here I didn't really have an idea I just payed around using different glassware and background plus what props to use. I think the final photograph came out nicely.

 

 

5. Self Portrait:

This was another online crit that we had. Subject - Me holding 2 heads... The heads has different expressions because us girls can have one of those days that we are moody...  I have the flowers on my eyes because I want to specialize in Fine Art Flower Photography.
Background - I situated myself in a garden because this is were my passion for Fine Art Flower Photography began. 



CRIT 5 - 6 September 2010

1. Interior Architecture:
This category was a mission to do. I phoned how many guest houses and hotels to ask if I can shoot there interior and they just say 'NO' or they have so many excuses. But it sounded like they thought I will use the images and publish them in some magazine or newspaper. So I decided to go to the hotels and show them that I'm only a student and it's for an assignment. Then only did they agreed to let me shoot there interior.

The Oyster Box Hotel - Library

2. Exterior Architecture:

Here I had the same problem as for the above assignment. The first place I went to, they gave me a date to go and shoot there exterior and it was a horrible hazy day. So that image was just horrendous! I waited a couple of days later for the perfect day and we must shoot the exterior only in dusk, which was kind of a hard thing to do because in September its windy and cloudy at that time of the day! I decided to go shoot one of the hotels along the beach and it came out pretty rad. 

Suncoast Hotel & Towers

3. Perfume Ad:

(This was an online crit assignment that we got and was pretty cool to do.) 

Background - I used a rose but with a different angle of view. I also did it in my favorite style, Macro! Then I did a hue blending mode to change the rose from red to a pink-ish colour.
Bottle - We didn't get a studio booking for the perfume ad so I made a little studio at home. I used only two light sources, a back light and a light on top with two reflectors.
Slogan - This was hard, I just looked at the image one day and it just came to me, "Unleash your Femininity".

Black XS for Woman

CRIT 4 - 6 August 2010

1. Child at Play:
The one category I'm never keen of doing but it has to be done! I always wanted to do a shoot in a park where the child goes around that thing that spins. So I got a chance to do that but I must say it was pretty hard.



2. Documenting 2010:

2010 is the year for South Africa, tell us more about events taking place even behind the scenes.

For this assignment I went to the Fan Fest Park for a day and just tried to capture all the moments of that day.

3. Free Choice - Senses:

Feel, touch, smell, rhythm (hear), vision (see)... We had to choose one!

We were suppose to only choose one of the senses which I did but I also did another image with three senses. Because I want to specialize in macro I decided to use a fingerprint and to emphasize the wonderful texture on our finger tips to let us feel.

4. Landscape/Seascape:

It should show some depth, observe the difference between landscape and nature even though it falls in the category.

I decided to go on a boat trip to see Durban from a different view. I choose this image because I like when something pops out at you and then I used my land-/seascape as my backdrop.

5. Specialist - People in Environment:

Contractors, car washers, street vendors, etc.

After my boat trip I asked the skipper if I can take a photograph of him and because it's a specialist I tried to make the image look like an old black & white photo.

6. Urban Landscape:

To get the perfect location was a mission so I did some research on our city, Durban. Before I knew of a location, I knew I wanted to do the shoot at night. I finally got the perfect location and come up with this...

7. Architecture Magazine Cover:

Here we had to use our architecture photograph from CRIT 3.b. My biggest problem was that I didn't have much space to have any headings, so I had to create space around my image. I did some research and got great ideas from two different magazine covers. So I used those two elements to create my magazine cover.

8. Photomontage - Documenting 2010:

With this assignment I used my images from our Documenting 2010 assignment. This was a hard assignment I only got it right on the second montage I made, I used my images to create a contact sheet and then I used one of my images that I took on our tour around the Moses Mabhida Stadium. I decided to recreate the South African flag into our awesome stadium.

CRIT 3.b. - 21 May 2010

1. Architecture:
With architecture I like to show the pattern or lines of a building to emphasize it. 

Blue Water Hotel

2. Black & White Portrait - Studio:

120mm Black & White Film

Self processed and developed in the darkroom

I used my dad for this shoot because he has a bit of grey hair and some wrinkles and with black & white it shows texture awesomely.

Jakes Meiring

3. Fashion - Location:

120mm Transparency Film

I always wanted to do a photo shoot on the beach and I knew the perfect model for it. The coolest thing that happened on the shoot was some surfer guys coming up to me and asking me if I'm doing a shoot for 'Roxy'?

Jade Johnston

CRIT 3.a. - 7 May 2010

1. Fashion - Studio:
120mm Transparency Film
I got my boyfriend to be my model, luckily he doesn't mind! I wanted to give the image and feel of the image a funky-modern-vintage look.

Werner Louis Strydom

2. Free Choice - Body Art:

Luckily my one friend has quite a few tattoo's, so I took him to the beach at one of the peers. It's a free choice category so I gave my image a grunge effect to it. I like having a part of my subject in focus, so when I get the chance to do it...I do it!

Christopher Oelsen

3. Specialist - Sport:

This is a hard category because you have to have the right lenses but I tried my best...

Westville Boys High

CRIT 2 - 15 April 2010

1. Free Choice - Culture:
I did some research on this topic and found that a bonsai is a symbol of Japanese culture. Because it was a free choice I wanted to do nature, so it was really hard doing this, to get the right angle and to make it look like a bonsai.

Sherwood Nursery

2. Graduation:

I don't have much to say about this assignment but we had to do it so that the lecturers can see if we can shoot for the DUT graduation. For some reason we had such problems with the lighting haha... still don't know what we did wrong!

Kristyn Swanepoel

3. Nature:

120mm Colour Negative Film

This is my favorite category but what made it so hard was because we had to use the Mamiya RB67. This camera is kind of hard to maneuver especially if you have the wrong lens. Here I used my brother's matric dance date's corsage. 

Orchid

4. Specialist - People:

Here I did my brothers matric dance. I liked that the corsage is in focus and they are out of focus. Because it is a specialist category I decided to give it a sepia effect.

Stefan Meiring & Samantha Strydom