Final Artist Statement

As you take a look at my very interesting and creative portfolio, you will notice all of the different types of artwork that I have done throughout this second semester. Beginning with the Quilt squares, the first project of this semester, and ending with the Panning and Blowout photos, which were the last projects posted this semester.
As I begin to describe the pieces of artwork, I could honestly say I was the most successful with my design of the CCHS Student Handbook for the upcoming year. It took a lot of work trying to find the perfect pictures for this design. I had to take pictures of people without IPods, cell phones, food, or anything else that is considered to against school rules. On a campus full of teenage students, that is practically impossible. I was able to get it done and my design ended up being the one chosen to be printed out for the 2010-2011 school year. On the other hand, I can easily say I struggled with my surrealism project. I had all the ideas in my head but it was just too hard for me to put them all together. So it didn’t come out exactly how I had hoped for. I know one thing that I could improve on is my blending and levels of my artwork. Sometimes it seems like my work is all over the place and it’s hard to figure out where it begins and ends.
My favorite tool this year was the Gaussian Blur. I love that it gives the subject a glow. This makes it seem like I’m the best at what I do. I most certainly will use this tool in the future. I plan on being a sports photographer so when I catch snapshots of athletes in action, the glow will add the extravagance to the photo. The subject would seem isolated and I think this would make the perfect action snapshot.
I can easily say that the quilt squares project connected to my life the most. It was based on my life. There was a quilt for my past, my future, inside me (how I see myself and nobody else but me knows), and outside me (how other people see me on the outside. Things like my personality, ect.) I can say my life affects my view on the world greatly. I see the world as cruel and unjust so that’s what my artwork portrays. I don’t trust anyone but myself and I plan on keeping it that way. You can see that in my work.
I can honestly say I relate the most is Leibovitz because I tend to bring out the definition of the pictures that I am taking. I can give a good description of the subject just by taking the picture allowing you to get to know the subject better. I have seen improvement in my Photoshop use. I came into this class as a rookie never even heard of Photoshop. Eventually, I got to the point to where multiple people have seen my work and asked me to make things for them. I even was asked to make the artwork that is going to be on our track team’s t-shirts and sweatshirts. I came a long way in Photoshop. The most meaningful project has to be the quilt squares. This is simply because it is an in-depth view of my life. It’s how I see my past, my future, how I see myself, and how other people see me. It’s pretty much a good view of my life.

BLOWOUT & PANNING

For the blowout picture, i used the iso and aperture features. I think this is the best way because the iso is the amount of light the camera lets in. In blowout, you can see that there is a tremendous amount of light in the picture. Another way to create blowout is by changing the shutter speed. The longer the shutter stays open, the more light is let in. Therefore you get a really bright picture. Panning is basically when you turn the shutter speed up higher, and you follow the subject's movement with your camera. This allows the subject stay in focus while the rest of the picture is blurred out. I feel that I did a decent job on it. The background is blurred out but I think I could have had better focus on the subject. I had to change the shutter speed and drop the iso so the picture does not come out too bright. What made panning difficult is learning how to move the camera in quick joltz to catch the subject perfectly.

Aperture

Aperture is the speed of the pupil in the camera. The bigger the pupil/hole, the more light is let in. The smaller number of aperture, the bigger the pupil/hole.
The ladybug picture has a higher aperture because it does not go into the picture. Its blurred away because the pupil didnt let that much light in. The second picture has a smaller aperture number because there is alot more light let into the pupil so you can see farther into the picture.

ISO

FLASH

50

400

5000

ISO stands for international organization for standardization. It refers to film speed and how sensitive the film/pixels are to light. Also how fast the light comes in.

With Flash it eliminates the light contents of the picture. With iso, it bring out the light that is in the picture without taking away from them.

With the lowest iso, it still looks dark because the low iso does not let as much light in. But as the size of iso gets bigger, the more light is let in and it focuses more as you can see the pictures are getting more and more bright.

I would choose to use iso because it doesnt disturb the subject like flash does.. also because it brings out the light instead of taking away from it like the flash does.

You have to be careful about having too high of an iso because then the picture would be too bright.. also careful of the picture being blurry.

FLASH

The pros of using flash are; it adds light to dim situations, it takes away shadow, it freezes time and it eliminates blurs. The cons are; it could disturb your subject, it creates ugly lighting situations, leaves really shiny bright spots called hot spots, it leaves the background very dark, and it leaves red eye. Flash would be a good idea when you want a snapshot or when its really dark. Its usually not a good idea when your in good sunlight, or when you want to take a picture of lights or scenery at night. This picture is better without flash because the flash is a much brighter light and if you used the flash, then it would eliminate all of the colors and uniqueness in the christmas lights.

Metering

The light meter is a function that measures the amound of light in a picture. It finds the middle gray so that the object that you metered on could pop out using the light around it. In the first picture, i used the light on the screen and on the second picture i used the girl. The first one is brighter because the meter caught the screen light first as opposed to the second one. This feature can be useful when taking pictures in the dark without using the flash feature.

SURREALISM: "TRAPPED"

Well, for starters, the wirlpool is a symbol of my life. If you are trapped in a wirlpool, there is no way out. If you try to fight it, things will just get worse. Your best bet would be to just let it take you under and pray that you can hold your breath long enough until it takes you all the way to the bottom and then pushes you out. That is kind of what i go through everyday. I end up in a wirlpool and i just go with the flow of things until its over.

Surreal Practice Tutorials

In the desert image, we did a couple of cool tricks to make it look realistic. One thing we did was blended multiple layers of the dirt together and distorted it to make it look like the ground is fading to the back of the picture. Then we made a blue sky and added a gradient to make it look more real, soon after we added clouds to the sky. The last thing we did was added a shadow of the pole as in real life.

Both of these artwork pieces will help me in creating surreal work because its not possible in real life, but it these photoshop tricks makes it look like really happens in everyday life. That is the goal of surreal, to make fictional objects look real, and these tricks makes that possible.

ART SHOW "The Album Cover"

The Album Cover

The title of my artwork is Bam Beezy Album cover. The piece was a gift to my brother, an entrepreneur that is working on his dream of being a rapper. His underground mix-tape was almost done when he realized he needed an album cover. So he asked me if I can make it for him. I got started on the piece without wasting any time. We immediately went out to my backyard so I can take the pictures. The very next day I got started on the artwork. I really enjoy creating things such as this so it was no trouble at all. If you look closely enough you would notice the Microphones faded into the picture in representation of his dream. The point of this layout was to demonstrate the creativity of his lyrics in the album cover so I created an abstract look and it came out better than I expected. Everything in this picture was created by me from scratch. I am proud of my work on this piece. Its one of my better ones…so I have been told. I am willing to make more for people just as long as I can put my trademark logo somewhere on the picture.

Kimontae D. Thomas
12
Digital Photo

GRADUATION PROGRAM

The strength of my design was the open diploma. I feel that the open diploma stood out because of the pegasus printed on as a background and because of the tiny letters symbolizing the class of 2010 cesar chavez seniors. I think what i could have done better is a background. Although the gradiant is well made and positioned, I now feel that an actual background of the school would make the cover look alot better. The gradian was easier to make than I thought because I didnt think the colors would fit. Placing the quote was actually harder than i thought. I was planning on making it noticeable but not an imphasis and it messed up the whole picture plenty of times until I got the layout presented. The most important graphic design is the Title, Graduation, and date. That is the most important information and its what the booklet is going to be about.

STUDENT HANDBOOK

I think the strength of my design was the pegasus and the students. I popped the students out just enought to see that this handbook is for students and not a college professor. I made it so the student body knows its for the student body. I think I should have added a little more artwork on the front cover. It seems like the back cover is more fun to look at thant he front. I struggled the most with the font. It was kind of hard to find a font that stood out and that fit the artwork perfectly. Made my job just a little bit harder. I think i did the back cover better because it has less but more going on. The front cover has a lot of students but thats it. The back cover has students smiling, it has stars and it grabs the attention of the viewer because they can see our beautiful campus.

PERSONAL QUILT

MY QUILTOUTSIDE FUTURE
PASTINSIDE

The ideas of my quilts came from the basic activities of my everyday life. What started off as regular pictures taken and found, changed into masterpieces of work that fits me and what I’m all about. There were a few times where I felt frustrated, but overall I fell great about my work and I feel that I expressed myself in every way attempted.
In my past quilt, you can see the small intimate side of me. How I was a little mischievous trouble maker. On the other hand, my future shows how I am well put together and I know when it is time to play and time to be serious. But, in both you can see the similar smile and high energy of my personality.
In my inside quilt, it will show my passion of lions and of sports and of how they tie together. My outside quilt shows my personality. These traits, in a way, are all of the traits of a Capricorn.
The strongest symbol for me was the lion. There were full grown lions and baby cubs. But all in all, I think it symbolizes exactly what I wanted it to symbolize. This symbol symbolizes my territorial boundaries. I am very open and outgoing, symbolized by the roar of a lion. On the other hand, I am concealed as only one person that knows the things that really matter, symbolized by their territorial aggressiveness.
Visually, I really like all of my quilts. On my future, I feel that I could have added a lot more to it, but it was very hard being that I don’t know how my future is going to turn out so I just mad a couple simple guesses.
My overall experience was okay. I would have said great in the beginning because I really enjoyed working on them. But, as time went on, towards the end of the project, I didn’t want to work on them anymore. So therefore, it all balances out to an okay experience. I had fun expressing myself in the ways that I did.

Artist Statement

As you scroll down through my subjects of art you will find many interesting works that I have done throughout the year. From the simple things like leading lines and fill in flash, to the much more complicated and artistic projects in creating vampires and defining a social issue that I feel is important. You will find that Photoshop is a program that gives you the unlimited ability to do as you please to any picture you can find.

I feel that my portfolio has a very strong vibe. I feel that if you were to look through it, you would notice that even though there is a lot of artwork with a girl as the point of emphasis, the portfolio still has the masculine vibe and you could still tell that a guy is the artist of the work you see before you.

I learned so many tricks over the course of this semester. Compositional tricks such as, leading lines, fill in flash, macro, rule of thirds, extreme angles and simplicity. I’ve learned that it’s not always necessary to use Photoshop to try to beef up every single picture. Sometimes its better to just use the compositional tricks and the picture would come out better than you imagined. In opposition, I have learned a lot of Photoshop tricks as well. Tricks like cropping, dodge and burn, layers blending, layer masks, magnetic lasso and regular lasso, the magic wand, downloading brushes, and the list goes on and on. With practice and time, I could become a master in the use of Photoshop.

I feel that I was most successful with the drawing with light composition. I feel that it is my best work all year. The reason why I feel this way is because drawing with light is generally used to tell a story and this picture does that perfectly. If you look at the facial expression she has, and the background, and how the light reflects on her face, you could see the anger and pain that she is feeling. You get the feeling of being locked down and all you can do is look out of a window as the sun begins to set. That was the exact goal of this picture and I feel that was accomplished that very well.

I had the most trouble with the rule of thirds project. I just couldn’t seem to find a picture creative enough to show what I wanted to show, or to tell the story that I wanted to tell. This leads to my next point. I feel that I need to improve my creativity. A lack of creativity could be very stressful and it could limit the definition of your pictures. It also limits the quality and quantity of each picture that you take. This has happened in a few of my pictures.

I have seen improvement in my use of Photoshop. I began not knowing a single thing about Photoshop. But I developed a firm knowledge of lots of tricks that can be done in Photoshop.

I feel that all of my artwork took a true effort. Although some photos came out better than others, each photo had 100 percent of my commitment that was needed. I used to take snapshots whenever I took a picture….now I’m taking actual photos like an actual photographer.

PERSONAL WORDS

The lyrics I have chose for this project are Football Anthem by Ludacris.

"You might as well quit, cuz you just can't last, im comin through tryna put your face in the grass."

"And your spine in the DIRT, so put on a SKIRT! If you step on the field and don't wanna get HURT!"

"Just bruised and beaten, all black and blue. And it's been like that since 1992!"

"! BEAST MODE BABY!"

"IT’S IN THE GAME!"

I chose these lyrics because, for starters, this is the theme song to one of the best video games known to man which is Madden. I have a passion for football, and this is a football song. Many football players would agree that this song is good enough to be A Football Player's National Anthem. I personally chose these lyrics because before every football game I played in high school, I would listen to this song. It never disappoints me, after I'm done listening to it, i get in the zone and nobody is going to take me out of it. It's Time For Football. This is why I chose theses lyrics.

Social Issue "BLEEDING INTERNALY AND OUT"

In my picture, there are two innocent young high school teenagers that were supposed to be best friends. As you can see in the photo, one of the girls is carrying a bloody knife as she walks away looking back in envy and despite of the other girl, showing that she has just betrayed her best friend that really trusted her. The other girl has a knife jammed into her back symbolizing being betrayed by who was supposed to be her best friend. If you look into her face, you can see the pain and agony that she is suffering physically and emotionally as she tries to look back but is unable to.

The fact of the matter is that many people have best friends, but are they really your best friend is the question… Can you trust them to watch your back or never trade on you? Many people would say yes to that question but the truth is “we live in a world where even best friends can’t be trusted. It’s ok to have a best friend but you should always stand guard and watch your back because the person who you say is your friend could very well be the person that would stab you in the back to get what they want. I know this because I have experienced this once. I had a best friend before I moved to Arizona. Right before I moved, he “my best friend” tried to mess around with my girlfriend. Eventually, she told me, but that one little thing caused me not to trust any one person as much as I did ever before.

SCARY EFFECTS

MY FAVORITE SCARY EFFECT WAS THE VAMPIRE. I LIKE HOW IT SEEMS LIKE THE VAMPIRE IS MORE OF A JERK THAN A MONSTER BECAUSE OF THE SMURK THAT’S ON MY FACE. ONE THING WE LEARNED HOW TO DO IS USE ALTERNATE BRUSHES, WHICH ARE BRUSHES THAT TAKE THE SHAPE OF ANY OBJECT SUCK AS THE BROKEN WINDOW OR THE BLOOD SPLATTERS ON THE WINDOW. ANOTHER WAS THE DODGE AND BURN TOOL, WHICH IS USED TO EITHER HIGHLIGHT OR DARKEN THE IMAGES TO MAKE THEM SEEM MORE REAL. ONE DIFFICULTY THAT I RAN INTO WAS THE ALIAN/OCTOPUS LEGS. I JUST COULDN'T SEEM TO GET THE HIGHLIGHTS ON THE TENTICLE LEGS TO LOOK HOW I WANTED THEM TO. I THINK I DID WELL ON THE VAMPIRE TEETH. IT SEEMS LIKE THEY ARE MY REGULAR TEETH AND NOT PHOTOSHOPPED. ONE JOB CAN BE WORKING FOR A BILLBOARD COMPANY OR EVEN FOR A MAGAZINE. ALOT OF THINGS ARE PHOTOSHOPPED IN MAGAZINES TO MAKE THE PICTURES LOOK ALOT BETTER THAN THE ORIGINAL COPIES.

FORMAL CRITIQUE

As he is surrounded by the fiery flames, a middle aged man walks towards the flames that take me right to him. He embodies a suit with tear drops of water wanting to terminate the line of flames that strikes through him. The light of the grayish-white smoke in the skies creates the loneliness feeling that the man endures as he approaches his challenges of putting out this vast fire with the tiny tear drop-like baggies that he has wrapped around his long black tuxedo suit. I like how the artist uses the light grays in the sky and the very dark grays towards the bottom of the photo. It starts light at the top and gets darker as it gets to the bottom. This is why I think this is a really good photo.

PHOTOGRAPHIC EFFECTS

MY favorite trick I learned was the Gaussian Blur trick, used to make the pictures glow more. I think it brings out people's smiles better.

I would like to work with the cross process feature more because I see that it can make the pictures that much better but I'm still a little lost on a few things that needs to be done for it to work correctly.
My favorite thing I did on my own was when I used mask on the picture with the batman shirt. I feel that made it seem like I was wearing a superhero suit which is ironic because I’m wearing a batman shirt.

PORTRAITS

I think the most successful portrait was the artistic portrait. My goal was to use one compositional trick that I learned so far this year, and I managed to fit in 4 compositional tricks, Framing, Leading Lines, Light, and Rule of Thirds.

In my artistic portrait, I used the feeling of being trapped in a box. My subject/partner is locked behind bars in a solitaire setting which makes her seem locked down, forcing her to view the world from behind bars.

The prop and costume that I used was a car racer suit and helmet. My partner loves to drive race cars so I believe that these props fit her perfectly. It tells you everything you need to know about the subject. I think the picture came out good, besides the bottom left where couldn't crop out that extra part without cutting out part of the picture.

My surprise picture is different because its original and it has meaning. It’s not a snapshot. It has 3 compositional tricks that we have learned so far. It has leading lines and the shapes that the light and the shadows make, makes the picture even cooler.

I liked the surprise photo that I took because the light creates cool shadows and shapes. It brings out the picture more and the shadows/shapes creates framing in the picture which makes it even more unique. I think the surprise picture is my favorite one.

CONTACT SHEET

Out of the 8 compositional tricks that we have learned, the one I liked the most was the light trick. I really like how the light brings out the feeling in the photo. She looks upset as if she is trapped in a room with one window to look out of and see the world that she cannot join. I think the trick that I will start using is the rule of thirds because I am in the stages of face shots and senior pictures. Shockingly, the most difficult trick was the rule of thirds. I couldn't think of a shot that was creative enough as I wanted it to be. M y favorite trick that I used was simplicity. I liked the angle of the picture, it kind of looks like a lights picture which adds more feeling to it.

Compositional Trick #8 Fill in FLash

As you can see, in my photos, the fill in flash trick allowed the pictures to come out more. You can’t really see the face of the two subjects because the camera is facing the sun while the subjects are facing away which causes a shadow to form. With the fill in flash, you are now able to see both subjects in the two pictures much more clearly. Fill in Flash is an obvious compositional trick when you are taking photos. The fill in flash allows you to get rid of the dark shadow on the emphasis of your photo. For example, if you take a photo and you are facing the sun and you subject has a hat on, and then you can hardly see the subjects face because of the visor on the hat. But if you use the fill in flash feature, then the subjects face is then revealed and you are able to see it much more clearly.

Compositional Trick #7 Drawing With Light

Working with light puts a lot more feeling into the picture that you are taking. It makes you want to think about what the picture is trying to say to you instead of just looking at it and moving on to the next picture. When looking at the picture I took, you get the feeling of solitaire and anger with just that one little window to keep you sane. You see this picture and it gives you the feeling of being locked away and it’s angering you until you get to the point that you want to go crazy.

Compositional Trick #6 Framing

Framing is a good way to help focus on the emphasis in your photo. The toughest thing to do when it comes to framing is to make sure your emphasis doesn’t seem like its part of the frame. You want your viewer to look through the frame to the emphasis instead of sharing the focus of the frame and the emphasis. My pictures are two good examples of good and not so good framing photos. Notice in the first photo how you have to look through the tree branches to get to the emphasis and in the second one the emphasis (the boy) is a part of the frame. I could have been at a better angle to make it seem as though you are looking through the weight bench bars and not at them to see the emphasis.

Compositional Trick #5 Extreme Angles

Extreme Angles is a good compositional trick to know because people can get bored of the same type of picture. This trick is meant to give you a view of the emphasis from an angle that you don't normally see it. My photos are good examples of extreme angles because they were taken at different angles that a human person doesn’t normally view the world at. The first picture is taken from an ant or cricket's point of view and the second picture is taken from a bird's point of view which makes the different from a normal photo. So far, this is my favorite compositional trick that I learned.

Compositional Trick #4 Simplicity

Most people may think that simplicity is the easiest compositional trick, but what they fail to realize is that it’s not called simplicity because it supposed to be easy but because what it does to the picture, simplify it. For example, in the black and white picture above, the first angle had the windows in the background with people looking out and trees in the corner. You were not able to tell what the emphasis of the photo was. But, at this angle it is much clearer to what I want you to focus on when you look at the picture. There are no other distractions taking you away from the point of emphasis. Simplicity does not mean boring, it just means to simplify the picture from everything around you, to just your one point of emphasis. This is why I like this compositional trick. It makes it easier to figure out what the photographer