CRIT 3 - 9 June 2011

Flora Photography:

This image I took at the Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens. I photographed this flower because of the backlighting and it showed how hairy the flower is.

This I took in my mother's garden. I wanted to show the neutral colours of the plant and that such simple colours could look so beautiful.

This flower I also photographed in my mother's garden. This is a pink flower and also very delicate. I decided to make this image black & white because you can see all the veins in the petals of the flower but when the image was in colour you couldn't see the veins and thats what made this image striking to me.

Close-Up Photography:

When it comes to my close-up images I like to photograph objects with texture even when it is something simple. In this image the blue and red popped out to me and that with such striking colours there is rust in-between...texture!

This was a tricky thing to photograph because the wire heart was hanging in the tree and it was spinning around in circles.

When I saw this metal rusted suitcase at a antique shop in Howick I just had to photographed especially that it is rusted and rusted objects is best for black & white images and if you want to show texture.

General:

We had to photograph Urban Decay. I found a dark room in a building on the Bluff area that had chipped paint, mould, etc. on the walls so I knew I had to photograph it. Because of the room being so dark with one tiny window I used a 2 second exposure. When I started to edit the image it didn't scream urban decay so I used HDR toning which gave me the effect that I wanted.

7 Deadly Sins - Insanity

Some of my previous posts I blogged about my idea for our CRIT (05/05/2011) and how I'm going to accomplish my idea. We had to have a background, subject and our first sin which I chose Envy.



Insanity - Envy

CRIT 2 - 5 May 2011

Flora Photography:

Here I taken an image of an Drosanthemum Hispidum flower. This flower is a very small magenta flower. When I changed the colour of the flower to Black & White it gave the flower another meaning, and I'm sure everyone will feel something different about this image.


Drosanthemum Hispidum

Close-Up Photography:

When it comes to my second specialist, I like taking images of random objects you see everyday and you don't realize how beautiful it is until you go very close and see all the detail of the object. I took the first image of a green wired garden chair. I like the pattern the wire made and the back lighting against the wall behind the chair. My second image I took at a jewellery shop in Howick. They had a little basket full of shells that they changed into pendants. What really attract me to take this image was the colour of the shells.


Wire

Shell

General:

We had to do a Chocolate Advertising on location. I think the most challenging thing was to find a 'good looking' chocolate to photograph. After much thought I decided to work with Ferrero Rocher.

Ferrero Rocher

We also had to do a Food assignment. We were teamed up with the Food and Nutrition department and did a collaboration.

Lamb Liver & Pumpkin

 

For my next Crit on the 5th of May 2011...

I’m going to produce my first 7 Deadly Sins image. This is going to be my main image. I’m going to use a plain grey background. Then I’m going to get my subject to hold her head as if her head is going to explode with all the sins taking over her life. My subject is going to wear black and she is also going to have her make-up done very dark. The first sin I’m going to do is Wrath. I’m going to paint an arm white holding a bloody knife, as if the arm is going to stab my subject. I want my end result to have a dark and grungy feel to it.

CRIT 1 - 8 March 2011

We had our first critique the 8^th of March 2011. I must say I was a little bit nervous because it was the first time we had to produce images of our specialist areas.

Flora Photography

When I proposed Flower Photography the lecturers said I must try to do something different they don’t want to see something they have already seen before. I thought long and hard about it and decided that I want to produce my first image as a triptych. I showed the different stages of a flower blooming.



New Life

Close-Up Photography

I enjoy photographing subject’s close-up (macro) but give it more of an artistic feel. I like it when most of the image is out of focus to make it look like a painting.

Tree Bark

General

Here we had to shoot a moving car, showing the motion. Then we also had to shoot a static background. We then had to cut the car out of the one image and paste it into the other image.

Car in Motion

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

CRIT 1 - 26 February 2010

Child Study:

120mm colour negative

Here I wanted to show depth of field by having the hands out of focus.

Steve de Wet

Sunrise:

120mm colour negative

Here I wanted to have the sunrise in the reflection of the sunglasses.

North Beach

Music:

I wanted to photograph something or someone that represents a type or genre of music. I photographed a ballerina to represent those classical piano music.

Betty Blake Dance Studio