Blog

Family Portrait

• 

• 

Reflection Statement

The original pictures are from a photo album that my parents have stored in their room. The two original pictures stood out to me the most because I can still remember when and what happened just by looking at it. Since I had old pictures of when I was a kid, I wanted to recreate these photos now that I’m all grown up. My approach to this project brought a lot of good memories to a point where I wanted to cry. The only family that I really have right now are my parents because I never got close with any other person from either side of the family. The one person that I was actually close to was my uncle, but he passed away a few years ago. Looking back at these pictures really show’s how time flies. Just by looking at how much we’ve changed from our appearance through out the years makes me smile. We’ve been through a lot, but we are still together. I’m glad I got to work on this project because it gave me some time to look back at the good times that I spent with my family. Recreating these pictures was a bit of a challenge because I was limited on time and places to go. I wanted to recreate the picture with my mom inside a public bus unfortunately due to covid-19 I had to recreate the image inside my car. With my dad’s picture, it was difficult to find the props that were in the old picture. Luckily I was able to at least get the same color of shirts. For the first image, my sister took the picture and the second picture my mom did. Since I was limited on time due to work I kindly asked my parents and sister to help me with this project after I came home from work. The first image was taken at around 5:45 p.m. and the lighting was not that great. It was also cloudy outside making the exposure more dim. The second picture was taken in the kitchen and I really hate the yellow light that we have on the chandelier. It makes the pictures look warm and and it was a challenge because I did not have better lighting. Lastly, for the images to appear the way it is, I used Lightroom Classic and then selected the “printer” tab in order for the images look like corner to corner and top to bottom.

Sketch 8

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

For this sketch I had to focus on Photographing the Body with texture and/or the nude with texture. I was very unsure whether I felt comfortable taking pictures of my body. I had second thoughts doing this because I have several scars on the back of my body that would’ve fulfilled this assignment. I didn’t end up doing it because it’s something personal to me very hard for me to show it to the public. Instead, I took some images that are part of my body. I focused on my hands, arms, and legs. I took these images on my bed because the window next to it had very good lighting. I also used the window blinds from my to create patterns and shadows. For the background I put black paper to make my body parts stand out. For the pictures of the hands I used another color to get a different perspective of it. The texture that you’ll often see are the hairs on my leg and the rough beat up hands that I have.

Robert Mapplethorpe

After watching the film “Mapplethorpe: Look at the Pictures”, I was captivated of the work that he displayed on his work. His black and white images stood out to me because the images have a well developed approached to it. Meaning that Mapplethorpe was very good in manipulating people like it said on the movie. In the beginning of the the film it talked about the decision he was making about becoming an artist. Mapplethorpe had a strong passion for photography just like his dad. Until he then started to take images of naked men and women. He heavily focused on men because he loved the body structure that they have. Especially on black people. I thought this was interesting because he clearly saw the difference between the male white body versus the black male body. He began to like the black’s body structure and as well as the color of their skin. Even though he took “inappropriate” images of himself, he never cared about the bad things people would say about his work. Mapplethorpe was very open as an artist. He took images that he likes and not ask for anyone’s approval. He stated that he wanted to become famous for the work that he created, but I think he ended up becoming famous from people that saw it as pornography. Overall I like the work the Mapplethorpe did because he used his own ideas and captured unique images.

 LA Originals Documentary 

After watching the documentary about Cartoon and Estevan, I’m considering to go to L.A. and get tatted by Cartoon himself. I really like his style of work, as well as the photographs that were shown in the documentary. One of my favorite parts in the film were the photographs that Estevan took and the discussion about the culture that was growing in L.A. The photographs were very strong and had so much history looking at those images. For example, the picture that Estevan took with the women doing the L.A. sign created this norm for the gangsters. Once people saw this image, everyone else began to do it. That’s one thing that I like about photography. So many things can be captured and become one of the most iconic images that represent where they are from. I know for a fact that majority of people would not know where this famous picture/ sign came from and it sucks because people are not aware of who and where this came from. Of course, only the people in L.A. know but not many around the world. Cartoon and Estevan are very talented people and inspired so many other artist that up till this day people know who they are. I think that’s a big achievement and they use their talents to their full potential. It’s not common to see the images that Estevan captured and made a lot of good points about photography. I’m truly inspired from their work and was blown away of the art work that cartoon does. I was also very intrigue from the fact that Cartoon said he taught himself how to use Photoshop. I can relate because I taught myself how to use Lightroom (Not Classic) to edit my pictures. I need to learn how to use Lightroom Classic more because apparently it’s better. Hopefully by then I can be at a higher level as a photographer.