My Work

I have recently finished my mixed media project, and in it I cut up two pictures that I took of my cousin running and jumping. Then I used them as stencils to draw harder cut-ups of the shape. After that I placed them on a large sheet of paper and have the shape going from a jet black in the center, out to a lighter gray, then to the picture. After this to fill up the empty space, I painted it with water colors.
For my concentration, I am using a holga to capture movement in a series but on the same image. I plan on using the holga to capture dance and the different steps between it. It should come out nice and should look interesting. I also plan on shooting sports and other human actions, but I want to challenge myself to try and capture movement between different objects. Maybe looking into a ball bouncing, or a water balloon popping. Something interesting like those ideas, because you can only do so much with people.

my photos

Paul Outerbridge

In an article I read on Paul Outerbridge, it says that he was taught to experiment with different aspects of photography such as: lighting, vantage points, and framing. These different photo qualities interest me because it helps influence the viewers perception of a photograph. By using different vantage points, one can emphasize a specific point or object in a photography which is something I plan on doing in my concentration. Lighting is also important because it also helps influence the viewer. Shadows are important in photographs because they give the picture depth and it can also add a sense of mystery to it.
In his color photographs, he used colors that are often seen near each other on a color wheel which I thought was interesting. In a photograph he has of a woman in a shower behind a blurry shower curtain, it is comprised of mainly cool colors like blue green and a hint of yellow on some parts. In another he has of a woman smoking a cigarette, it is mainly warm colors, including the woman's outfit. Colors like: red, yellow, and green to help the other colors stand out.

Concentration

Movement Photography

My concentration for my portfolio is on movement. I find a deep interest in this because I find the movements that people make mid-motion are interesting. People do not often capture or realize certain poses that we make when we are in movement, so I feel it is my job to bring it to the common folk. In this concentration, I am looking to capture may different motions. I am considering using a Holga camera to show the change in movement. I want to capture movement in sports, moving objects, and recreational activities.

Dr. Harold Eugene Edgerton is one of my influences for my photography. I admire how he used a high-speed camera along with a strobe light in order to capture different images like a bullet moving through an apple, or a ball bouncing many and the camera capturing the different stages of the ball’s movement. His images capture exactly what I am trying to achieve with my photos of exhibiting what the naked eye does not always see when things happen within a hundredth of a second.

Eadweard Muybridge captures another aspect of my concentration which is on the movement of people. Muybridge was known for capturing images of people doing simple actions like walking or running. In my photos, I focus more on complicated movements like those one would make when interacting with others like in a sport. Muybridge captured all the movements and arranged them in a series to show the sequence of events. I am capturing these movements but I select one that best exhibits what I am trying to show.

Summer Photos

Over the summer, I shot photos in Chicago and there have been some very interesting pictures that I will be posting here soon. My favorite picture that I shot from over the summer is a picture of Anish Kapoor's "Cloud Gate" or "The Bean". I took a picture of it at night from an angle where on the left of the bean, you can see part of the Chicago Skyline, and on the other side you see lights and other things from another part of Millennium Park. I have looked up some of Anish Kapoor's images and he does a lot with mirror images. Here is his website: http://www.anishkapoor.com/index.htm

Concentration

I have a write-up of my concentration and it will be posted this week

William Eggleston

William Eggleston is an interesting artist. My first impression of him was that he was a weird, dramatic, hermit type of artist. In the article I read in the magazine Aperture, he was introduced at his house by a writer and he welcomed the writer with an eerie, "I've been waiting for you." This gave me the chills but I encouraged myself to continue reading because there may be something more interesting. Eggleston way of interpreting art is very different. He mentions that he prefers to listen to music at half-speed in order to hear everything clearly. Eggleston said that people do not listen to such great musicians as J.S. Bach correctly and suggests that you can clearly listen and enjoy the music at half-speed. I thought this was interesting because for me to enjoy a piece of music, I prefer to listen to it more than once so I can hear it the way it is supposed to be played. After reading the article, I feel that to enjoy music, listening to the song slower would not only allow you to have some connection with the artist as the music was being written, but you could also enjoy each sound and instrument more.

I also thought it was interesting how after he prints he looks at his images upside-down because he says, "I always notice something I wouldn't otherwise see." After reading this, it made me think to myself that I should try it because I would see things in the image that I would not notice. It is almost as if I would be looking at a completely different image, so I would see something different.

Eggleston also said that he does not always have an "up" direction in his drawings. He says that he draws at different angles and does not always have a specific way of drawing every time. I liked this because it keeps all the drawings abstract and lets the mind interpret it in anyway that it wants. He also does not respond to people when they ask him what a drawing or a picture is supposed to be of because he wants everybody to have their own experience when looking at an image. I like this because if you name a picture, you do not allow the person to see it in any other light subconsciously. If a person looks at an image with a title, the person will be looking for a theme with the title in it so that he or she can understand the image. Eggleston believes that whatever way that a person interprets art is the best way to understand the image, and I agree with it.

Long time no-see?

Hello out there, I know it has been a while and I am here to let you know that I am still alive, and still trying to capture the world one photo at a time. Recently, I have taken action photos, some close photos of different objects, and others. I will detail these a little later.

Belgium

I may or may not have told you about the recent discovery of some distant cousins of mine which I met through Facebook.com earlier this year. I met them and one of them happens to also be a photographer. I will put up a few of my favorites to show you his work. I also took some pictures with his camera using a fish-eye lense. The first one is of me and my brother at Boston Bowl. The second one, my cousin Sam, from Belgium, took during his stay when he first arrived in the states with his sister. It was taken while my aunt was driving. The third one I do not know much about, I saw it and thought it was very nice how the colors came together at one point, and also the effect it gives when looking at it. It seems as if im being pulled into the image as i look at it. The fourth is the famous Chicago Skyline. I have seen this exact image on the internet before and when i saw his version of it, it made me love the city even more. He took this photo by the lake. The fifth and sixth photos, i took while he was at my house. I was experimenting with the fisheye lense, so i took some pictures. The woman at the computer is my other Belgique cousin, Lise, across from her is my momma, my father is sitting on the couch, and Sam is sitting on the far right. In the other picture, Sam is on the left, my brother is by the fence, and my younger cousin is on the right. Last and certainly not least, is my favorite picture that he took. The night before they left for Chicago, we went for a drive to Micky Ds and it happened to be raining and he took this picture. I think the picture is amazing because of the colors that are in it, the focus that is in the car, the eerie feeling that i get when i look at it, and also because of the effect the fisheye gives. I look to practice shooting at night so that i can get images this clear and detailed.

Chicago

Im in Chicago right now, the city of dreams, and there is a lot here waiting to be captured on film and im going to find it within in the next day or so. The one place I have been meaning to go to all my life, here in Chicago, is Millenium Park. Its a huge park with fountains, a lot of recreation space and good people. Other than that, I plan on walking downtown and seeing what I can capture. So wish me luck and I will talk to you later

Shepard Fairey

Last week, my mother, brother, and two cousins went to the ICA to visit the Shepard Fairey exhibit. My mother enjoyed the show a lot and so did I. My favorite pieces were the ones of the different musical artists, like Tupac, Biggie, Chuck D, Bob Marley, and also the one of Malcolm X. I liked the Malcolm X piece because it portrayed him as I think of him in a way. I feel that Malcolm X was either admired or disliked during the time of the Black Panthers and the picture showed him in the light, as a good person, and in the dark, as a person who people disliked. I also enjoyed the piece that was based on a dollar bill. I thought it was interesting how he twisted some words to fit his own interpretation of the dollar. An example of this is the saying "E pluribus unum", he changed to "E pluribus venom. I thought it was interesting how he changed the American symbol of a eagle to a vulture. Ill speak on this more a little later.

Marcus' Track Meet

Yesterday, I attended my cousins track meet in Needham. During the tournament, I took many b&w and digital photos of the kids racing. I got many low-shots of the kids feet while running, the emotions in their faces as they ran, and the last-second push to be first. I took shots from the side as they were directly in front of me and I also took some diagonally in front of the starting line. I attempted to catch the first move as the shot goes off and I hope I was successful with my b&w pictures. I will try to upload some of the digital ones online so that you can see them.

New York

Last week I went to New York for a weekend to visit family. While there, I decided to take some action photos with my cousin at a nearby basketball court. I took a lot of low shots looking up at him while he was shooting. I also took some shots of him doing lay-ups from the front, side, and back. I tried shooting myself with a tripod but it did not work so I ended up using him to take a couple of myself going up for a dunk.

AIB

I went to a conference in May for at the Art Institute of Boston. At the conference, I attended a class about photography. During the first part of the day, we learned about the legal part of being a photographer, which didn't interest me as much, but I took notes. We also saw Zach Vitale's binary eggs which he took pictures of eggs that were cracked and some that were whole and put them together and together they created an interesting image. During the second part of the day, we were introduced to all different kinds of cameras like wide-format, and square format, along with others.

Up coming events

I plan on going to the Franklin Park Zoo to see the Gorillas soon, I will be going to New York for 3 or 4 days, and I will be going to Chicago in August. I have a movement project I will be shooting, and I plan on attending one of my cousin's track meets to shoot him there. So be on the look out for updates on how the end up.

Photographic Resource Center

In May, I went with my photo class to the PRC for a look at the museum. We saw work from many different artists who did different kinds of art which varied from digital photography, black and white photography, and digital art. There was this one piece of work which I liked the most because of its abstract touch. It looked like a lot of different lines which were 3-D and made many different shadows and turns. The end product was very interesting and I enjoyed looking at it. There was another series of pictures where the artist searched one word on Google images and selected a certain number of them over a period of time and resized them, then layered them on top of each other. The end product was blurry at first sight, but if I tried to focus on one picture and I managed to make out some of the pictures.

Photographic Resource Center

A long time ago in April, I went with a group of students and my teacher to visit the Institute of Contemporary Arts. At the time, there was a show going on presenting Shepard Fairey's work. He is most famously known for his Obama drawing/picture. I really enjoyed all of his work because of the contrasts that he would have. I thought it was interesting how he would draw a soldier and instead of bringing all the focus to the soldier's emotions or their strength, instead Fairey would put the attention on a rose in the barrel of the gun. I thought things like this were different from what is usually drawn with a gun. Fairey sees things in a different light and I enjoyed seeing a part of the world through his eyes.
I also liked the logo that he put in almost all his drawings, Obey. It was interesting to see on so many images because it made me think there was a subliminal message that I should have been understanding. So I tried to view the images in different lights as an attempt to understand what he was trying to portray. I admire Fairey's use of mixed media because all of the different medium related to the overall meaning. I looked at the image of Barack Obama and I saw many articles relating to Barack's successes.
Fairey's many images of Andre the Giant made me laugh a little bit because I used to watch the WWF, which is now called the WWE. He was a very large and dominant wrestler and seeing him broght back memories.

Im back

Helloooo all of my internet bloggers out there, and I want to give a special greeting to my favorite blogger Samantha Johnston, and an honorable mention to Aids. Its been a month of vacation and in case you did not know, July is national, "Patrick Get Your Stuff Together" month. So in order to celebrate, I will be getting it together. You will be hearing from me a lot more often because I have a lot going on in the next two months. Yes I will be going to New York to take photos, and yes I will be going to Chicago(my favorite city) to take even more photos. But most importantly I am taking photos here in MA where I currently live. So I would like to apologize for leaving you all in the dark for so long and not knowing where I have been and what I have been doing and I will not do it again. Get ready for me because Im coming with the heat.

Artist from PRC

I visited the PRC at Boston University and I saw this artist Eadweard Muybridge in a book. He takes pictures that have different series of motion which which will be my main focus in my senior year. This picture is a series of pictures taken of this bison galloping.

The Beginning

This is my beginning of the photospot. Please enjoy the rest of my work as i will update regularly