PhotoChronologies

For this assignment, I decided to continue on with the effects of the Coronavirus. In my previous assignment, I was able to go out and photograph public restaurants and buildings. However, due to recent limitations, I was not able to. I decided to simply walk around my neighborhood and document the atmosphere. It was a nice day when I took these photos, which resulted in several people outside and about. I also wanted to capture the spring essence, through the warm temperature and blooming flowers.

For my photos I wanted to recreate the theme of photographers purposely making there subjects blurry because I thought it was an interesting approach to photographing. By making odd/different parts of the subject in focus instead of what most people would expect, makes these photos a little unusual. The blurriness of a photo can also up the intensity of a moment more than it actually was. For example, “Shot Down” by Gerhard Richter could just be a man lying down on the ground but the photo makes it seem more intense and have a deeper meaning. The moments can range from subtle unfocused eye to an intense moment of a man lying on the ground looking distressed.

For this assignment, I chose it to be a little bit of a continuation of the theme from the previous assignment. This time, I chose to visit the park in my local neighborhood. I took 5 photos which I digitally altered for this assignment, capturing the lack of people hanging around the park. The playgrounds and basketball court are both closed so I chose to use black and white to reflect on the emptiness of the place. The weather was really nice outside, which led to some really strong natural light. I also think that black and white emphasizes the bleakness of the COVID 19 situation and I combined this with the natural lighting from the heavy sunlight to create this sense of emptiness from the lack of people, cars, etc in the park. For the photo with the sign, I made the entire photo black and white except for the red text on the sign which I increased the saturation of. Red is a very distinct color and signifies the urgency of the issue. For the rest of the photo, I chose to take advantage of the strong sunlight to create a bleak photo. We usually associate the sun with joy, happiness and fullness, however, these things are not present in these images. A park with a lack of people is a boring and dull place and the sunlight emphasizes that heavily.

For this set of images I chose to photograph how COVID-19 was personally affecting my family and I. A big transition we’ve had thus far is at home schooling. In my family, I have a sibling in elementary school, a sibling in middle school, a sibling in high school, and then me, in college. On top of this we have our mom who now also works at home. Because of this things can get overwhelming with schoolwork. Since my youngest sister, in elementary school, has the most hands- on work, managing a schedule for her while balancing all of ours can be difficult. This is why I chose to photograph our basement. Since the quarantine our basement has been turned into a make-shift school area/ office. The first photograph is of my little sister’s work station and the second is where we keep her lessons/ classwork for that day. The 3rd picture is of my mom’s space where she does work throughout the day. I specifically chose to photograph these 3 areas because I feel that they are most representative of our situation at home.

Additional Images:

Xinlan Zhang

The photographer I choose for the assignment is a German photographer Alfred Ehrhardt. I’m interested in imitating his works because of the unique textures and patterns he includes in his photos. His pictures are mostly about nature.

Original

Imitate 1

Original

Imitate 2

original

Imitate 3

All of the pictures I took might follow specific pattern or has unique textures which are similar to the original one. I think it’s interesting how nature has its own rule of organizing creatures. Although each of the creature has its own unmacthed texture but when they are mixed together, there is another possibility. I made all of the photos to black and white since I have done these before, this is my first try of doing it.I took these pictures in the community I live right now. There are not a lot of plants there so I would minimize the scene. For the first photo, I placed it in the vertical form to look closer to a path that people walk. I could not find some real flowers so I decided to use leaves for the second imitation. For the third one, the texture of the rock is quite interesting. It is bumpy and rough which forms the contrast witht he original one.

I chose the domestic turn approach to this assignment, photographing my cousins during the quarantine. This was an average day for all of them since the quarantine began. Everyone was on their computers, they were playing video games, doing online, and learning new skills with all the extra time. Their dog is definitely a source of comfort within the home, along with their electronics. Things do get boring now, and I noticed that a lot of people begin to snack when their home and have nothing to do. It’s good to find comfort with all these things, but it’s also good to go outside for a little while too.

For this assignment I chose to take pictures of how the coronavirus has effected me personally. When I think of the virus I think of craziness and loneliness. At first I was excited that we had an extra 2 weeks of break, but then I quickly came to realize that I did not want to be home any longer, I was going insane from boredom and my parents constantly nagging me. I’m the type of person who needs to be alone from time to time without anyone bothering me. So the fact that I’m stuck in my house with my family for months is driving me insane. I also check the updates about the virus every single day and every few hours. When I see the numbers grow I get upset because there’s nothing I can do besides be home with my family and endure it. So these pictures are supposed to be crazy and scary because those are the emotions every one is feeling, this is just my take on it.

Coronavirus and its affects on me

For my photos responding to the virus, I decided to go to my local grocery store and photograph. I’ve had a lot of problems with my camera during this whole process, including waiting for my packaged up camera to get to me in Oregon, and then realizing that my roommate grabbed the wrong battery charger, and my camera was dead when it got here… SO yeah. Lots of unfortunate things on top of another considering I’ve been itching to leave my house and photograph. I wanted to get this project done because I’m already behind on the due date, so I had to take the photos with my phone, which was alright. I told my mom that having to photograph on a phone is like giving a painter a set of Crayola water colors, but it’ll have to do for now. I hid my phone in the sleeve of my sweatshirt and used the side buttons to take the photos, which was kind of fun. I edited them to purposely be more underexposed than usual to give that eerie effect that everyone had been talking about for this series. Going into the shoot I thought a lot about what I could do to make these photos relate to everything that is going on now. Because, yes, I could take a picture of a street that’s usually busy, but anyone could look at that in 10 years and not correlate it to the Coronavirus. Once I find somewhere that is selling extra camera batteries, I have another shoot planned that I’m really excited for. I’ll probably post them on here once it happens, just because I’ve been so frustrated with just wanting to shoot photos on my camera SO BAD, and damn it I WILL!!

For this project, I made a combination of images that I took with related text, to express or lead the feeling that each photo gives off. I also created two meme-based designs from recent media and politics, as that’s a very important issue within todays world, related to covid-19.

I was inspired by wildlife photographer Andrew Sproule. I love nature and being able to sit in it and capture wildlife interactions as they happen. His work is very soft yet while being clear and vibrant. I recently visited my favorite place since we are stuck in our hometowns and took some decent shots despite less than favorable light.