Shakepeare Fest #2

I saw this while walking on the street and I couldn't get close to see where it went or what it was exactly, but I just love the towel hanging there. I'm not sure why somebody would choose to hang a towel there, which is what makes it interesting to me.

Eww?

I saw this on the side of the street and it reminded me of some of the ones that I took for my final project so I took a quick shot, but I wasn't able to get it set up the right way because we were walking somewhere where we had to be on time. But I still like it, although I know I could've liked it more if I had more time to get a better angle.

Shakespeare Fest #1

I love the Shakespeare Festival. It's just so great. And Ceder City is so cute, like one of those places you love to visit with super wide streets and walking everywhere and cute coffee shops and everybody knowing everybody. But not a place I'd actually like to live in forever, I don't think. Anyway, I saw this while walking on the street and really liked it. I just think it's cute. Not sure why I love it so much, but it just seems like the epitome of a small town feeling for some reason.

Ranch

So I spent the 4th of July at my aunt and uncle's ranch that I go to often. And I found this, which I'm pretty sure is new because I've never seen it before. And I just loved it. It just seemed so perfect to go with the ranch.

Cool Bridge

Love this railing.

Cheating?

I think graffiti can look really cool. I think it's a really interesting way of expressing oneself. But, I can't decide how I feel on taking pictures of it. I feel like it's kind of cheating, since it's taking a picture of somebody else's art. Like taking a picture of a painting or something. And yet, for some reason, it's different than just a painting because you can decide to include what you want and show how it interacts with the other graffiti and where it is. And it can look really cool. And I take pictures of graffiti every now and then. But I'd never do a project on it or anything, unless it was focused on what surface it was on. Because otherwise, I think it's too easy. Even if it's hard. That doesn't make sense. Okay, anyway. I think this image is cool, but I don't love it because I feel like I stole somebody else's art.

Copy cat?

This reminds me a lot of the picture Chandler took of the traffic light. And the one somebody took of the shadow of a ladder. It's cool because I would never have taken this picture a year ago; I would've thought it would be too boring. But now that I've seen more images I've started taking pictures that I wouldn't have before. And even though I don't love this one, I think I'm growing.

Ladder

This is similar to the door from yesterday with its single geometric subject and simplicity. But I wish this was straighter.

Door

I feel like this is a picture kind of like what Sierra would take. All the lines are very straight and it's simple. I wish the thing in the top right corner wasn't there. But I think this is a cool door, and I like the thing to the left of it. The pole thing just sitting there.

Step Up

I really like this bridge. It's old and it's not perfectly flat when you walk on it, but it's just great. I have no idea who put this water there and how long it's been there, but it shows that even thought the bridge is old, it's still used. There's a step on this side, but on the other side of the bridge there's just a rail and you have to either climb over or under it to get onto and off the bridge. And that's how I dropped my cell phone. It was not a great moment.

Close

I really like the composition of this. I didn't take a long time setting this up or deciding about the composition, so it's interesting that I like it so much. I like the chain, too.

Faceless Portrait

This is a picture of my feet while I'm standing on a bridge on top of part of a dam. The water is only a few inches deep. But, this is where I dropped my phone. It was a great experience. But my friend Jeannie jumped from the bridge into the dam to pick it up. And it still works! So this is an image full of memories.

Back to Business

The blog is now back up and running in anticipation of all that will come this summer. Unfortunately, I feel a little like this picture right now. Not in a very pretty place, but there is light at the end and I'm pretty close to being done with junior year. I'll repeat that. I'm almost done with junior year. I can't explain how much I looked up to juniors when I was younger, thinking they were the coolest thing, that they knew everything, and all their conversations were about very important things. Turns out I was wrong. Juniors aren't cool, they're stressed. Everyday they just learn many more things that they need to know and don't understand at all. And conversations are places to complain about all the crap going on in their life. Now, don't get me wrong. Junior year has been awesome and I wouldn't do much different if I did it over again. But I'm definitely ready for summer. However, I'm terrified to be a senior. The oldest on campus. The ones that should know what they're going to do and where they'll be going. I haven't the slightest idea what I'd like to do and where I'd like to be in a few years. In exactly one week I'll be 17. There's nothing very exciting about being 17, except being able to get into R-rated movies at theaters. That'll be nice. Anyway, after the next few days, I'll finally be able to relax and enjoy the summer.

Photo Statement

Natalie Gould

Mr. Meyers

AP Photo

November 16, 2010

Artist Statement

What are your strongest interests?

I tend to not be as interested in big, flashy things being photographed. I focus more on everyday things that I find interesting, for whatever reason. I think these interest me more because you have to try a little harder to find the beauty, but to me, once you find it, it’s more special.

What drives you to photograph?

With my photographs, I want to show people things they would never think twice about looking at. I want to photograph things that catch my eye, and then show others why they caught my eye and why they are important to me.

What are your goals in photography?

My goals are just to keep shooting and improving and trying to find a thread that ties all my photographs together and to myself. In a few years, I want to be able to look back on my images from then and now and appreciate both of them and see something in each of them that I recognize as myself.

What photographers have influenced you?

I can’t say I’ve had one photographer I’ve looked to throughout my photographing experiences. I could list many photographers who I’ve researched for class and that I’ve wanted to perhaps incorporate some of their style into my own. But I’ve never really been able to see that happen.

Where do you go from here? After school?

From here, I just keep shooting. Try to keep improving and changing my style but still keeping something throughout all my images that is specific to me. I don’t want to become a photographer for a profession, but I want to keep photography as a personal habit that I do often because I love it instead of doing it because I have to.

Assignment 5 Journal

Sorry this is so late; I'm not really sure what happened.

So this was very over exposed on some images, but not all of them, so I'm really not sure what happened and has continued to happen with my camera, but I don't think I'll use it again until I get it checked out or something. Anyway, I thought this would be really hard, because I don't really focus on contrast when shooting, but once I started it wasn't nearly as bad as I expected. However, several of my favorite images were very overexposed, so I didn't get to print my best ones. I really liked the little plant one though, with the dark shadows. I definitely like way constrasty more than low contrast, so I pretty much don't like any of the low contrast ones very much. But still, it was fun to see how the filter can really change and allow places open up and have detail, or vice versa. I think the one that this shows up best in was the vines on the wall, because it was like no contrast at all, and then I managed to get some pretty good blacks with a high filter. The bowl one wasn't quite as strong, and I had a different one, a rock wall, that was much better, but impossible to print because it was overexposed so I had to deal with the bowl. It was difficult because I couldn't get a high enough filter to get it contrasty enough and keep the quality of the rest of the image good, so although one of them is pretty low contrast, the other didn't get dark and bright enough for me. This assignment wasn't my favorite, but it was pretty interesting and I think I would've been able to see the effects more if I had a few more better images that were very contrasty or not contrasty at all to play with. But, I think it worked out okay anyway.

Assignment 6? Journal

Fish Out of Water.

So I wasn't a big fan of this assignment. I thought it was cool the first time I looked at images similar to this, but then I got tired of them and it became too much of a cliche for me. So before I even started shooting I was bored with it. And because of that, I wasn't very creative. Just sticking stuff with others things that didn't belong with them, or just your basic 'out of place' image. After a few images I thought it would be cool if I didn't set stuff up and just found things naturally that were like this, and that would be a little more interesting to me than coming up with ideas of juxtapositions or stuff like that. I got a few images I liked, but then I hit a wall. There weren't that many images that were interesting and fit this assignment that I could find and liked. So, I went back to setting stuff up. But, not as silly as before. I set up more natural-looking things. Like the National Geographic image that was how I found it, just a little manipulated to make it look more interesting. I really liked that image idea, although the actual image wasn't fantastic. The other image I really liked was the mug in the teacup setup. I'm not sure why I liked this, but I thought it felt and looked really interesting and I was really proud that I came up with that idea. My other images weren't that great, to me. The dinner setup on the toilet was interesting and very different. My mom suggested that one saying "Nobody would eat dinner on the toilet". You would be correct mother. At first I didn't like it, but I didn't have any other ideas so I decided to shoot a few images of that, and ended up taking quite a few because you would be surprised at how difficult it is to shoot a plate on a toilet seat and be able to see that it's a toilet seat and not just some white thing. Anyway, these turned out okay I think, but I didn't love most of my images or shooting this assignment.

Assignment 1 Journal

So this assignment was difficult because all of my better images were ones that I didn't shoot on both rolls. And I am very bad about printing images I don't like. The ones I used weren't in amazing focus so when they were enlarged it just looked horrible. I think I'm trying to focus on things too closely, which is how i like to shoot most of the time, but i need to change that a little to get the best images possible out of my film camera. But I loved loved the small images because it was in great focus and you couldn't see all the little things wrong with it. Printing the 2 images 6 times was very difficult to keep them as similar as possible because I needed to change filters and time a lot and it took a while, but i think they are pretty good and close now. Comparing the two rolls, I didn't see much difference at all, except perhaps a small difference in contrast. I had forgotten how much more time film takes, and how different the images look and how you have to work with them and keep trying until you fight the perfect print. But I'd also forgotten how much i love just being in the darkroom, and forgetting everything else I need to worry about, and just focusing on my images. It's great and I'm excited to be back!

Minor White

Minor lived from July 9, 1908 to June 24, 1976. He was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota and went to the University of Minnesota where he majored in botany and minored in english. It was only after he moved to Portland, Oregon that he began his career as a photographer. He also served in WW11 in military intelligence. He then moved to New York and studied photography at Columbia, finding his own style, with many excellent photographers around him such as Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Weston, and Ansel Adams. He was especially influenced by Stieglitz's idea of "equivalents".

The "equivalents" that White focused on were normally normal, mundane, things that he made more interesting by great light. He also taught at many places such as the California School of Fine Arts in San Fransisco. He taught for most of the rest of his life. In 1970, he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship. White was a closeted bisexual man, and this shows in much of his work. He was tormented by this socially unacceptable feeling towards men. His post-war work shows much more maturity and a spiritual search for peace and simplicity. His images of male nudes were not acceptable at this time, but they are often considered his best, and masterpieces of that genre. The ones that I picked weren't the nude ones, but some of them were the more mundane subjects with great light and some were very interesting subjects that didn't need that great light.


I like the contrast on this one from the black fence to the white snow. I also like the aspect, that its not straight-on for any of the objects here, but its showing them all in an interesting way.

I love the clouds in this one. And I love how the little house/cottage is really small, but your eyes are immediately drawn to it. I like its darkness against the white clouds and snow.

I love the clouds in this one too, more than the last one. And I love the shadow of something you don't see, but you can tell what it is. And its sharp. And I know these first three are really similar, but I really liked them all.

This image reminds me of a man who's late to work. Just the running, and I just feel like it could me a man who didn't have enough time to put his jacket on, and thats the thing he's dragging behind him. I like the different color here.

I really like the story this man is telling. With his balding white hair and his wrinkles and the way he sits and holds himself. And the hand stretched out and the mouth and eyes in a way that I'm not quite sure what he's doing, but its very interesting.

Self Evaluation

So I think I learned a lot this year in photo, not just about the technical stuff. I think I started looking at things differently, and looking at everything. I also starting seeing that although the first few ways to shoot something might not work, you can still find a great image there somewhere. I think I learned a few more creative and not obvious ways of looking at things. I also learned that if you start shooting something that you think with fail and not turn into anything, if you keep shooting it and keeping an open mind, a picture will come. The problem is when you just keep shooting the same thing the same way. You won't get anywhere with that. I was willing to shoot ways I didn't think would work, but either they worked or they gave me an idea for something else, no matter what, something good came out if it. Its hard to make yourself take the time though and look at previous shots and see how you could focus differently, or change the light or angle because there are so many factors. But sometimes changing one thing will fix another. I mean some things you just won't get a good picture out of, period. But many others the picture is there, you just have to hunt for it. And I think I started doing that and although I didn't reshoot much, while I was shooting I was looking back and changing things and thinking before I just clicked the button several times. And that really worked for me. I think the next thing for me will me to start shooting more scenes and less close-ups, which I think I will try to work on in film. But I loved digital and this whole term and a half. Thanks Slade!

Final Project

My dad hates his cell phone, because he gets called a lot from work. Anyway I like this one because of the focus. And it really makes sense to me because whenever his phone rings he cringes and I just like that he picked this for his hate.

My dad loves chocolate. I really like the angle on this one because I shot this several times but this is the one that I liked the best.

My mom loves her wedding ring. I didn't really like the choice just because I thought it would be hard to shoot, but it turned out okay and I didn't want to ask her to change what she loved.

I know this one might seem a little too warm, but this is really how I wanted it to feel. This angle is a little more common, more like my first image this whole project was based on, but I kind of like it. This is my mom because she hates nuts.

This is Tracy hating clip on earrings because she says they hurt. I like the light on this and the shadow on her cheek. I actually really like this one.

This one isn't quite as bright and saturated in color as I sometimes like, but I think its funny. Tracy loves rubik's cubes. It just seems like her. I think this one is pretty good.

This is my cousin who hates combs. She will never brush her hair, and I think this really fits her because her hair is so unbrushed that it was hard to get this comb out of her hair after this. I had a hard time getting a good composition and I still don't really like this one.

This is my cousin's stuffed horse. She loves stuffed animals and horses. I really like this one, and it reminds me of the original picture this project was based on because the light is right at the front with dark in the background. This one just makes sense to me because of my cousin.

This is my sister who loves chocolate. This one I think is kinda weird, but I couldn't get one that wasn't creepy but wasn't her just holding a bar of chocolate. I don't know, it was just difficult to get it interesting and make sense. I really like this like though.

My sister HATES nail filers. It was funny when we were shooting this because it really bothers her and she could barely stand just letting it touch her skin. But she has always been this way, and I think this is a good one for her. I don't really like this image though, because its not too interesting, though I do like the focus.

So I am really bad at coming up with final project ideas, but I actually liked this idea, although it didn't turn out as well as I would've hoped. I think it was interesting for me to see what my family chose. Although I think I could've done it for a smaller project, because I didn't need this many shots. But I'm glad I did it, although I don't think I could go any further into it. Anyway, I wish I could've gotten a little more out of this, although I do like my results.