Tammy Judd Jenny
Digital Photography Class – Project 3
In Search of My Voice
For Project 3 our assignment was to submit four pictures that express our individual voice as a photographer. That was a tough one for me because I wasn’t exactly sure if I had a voice as a photographer yet. I usually just take pictures of whatever catches my eye and attention. I decided to explore finding my “voice” by zeroing in on architecture. I love seeing all the different angles and textures found in buildings, so that is what I chose to do for this project. Some of the pictures I took for this project were close up views of some part of a building and others included more of the building but from an angle or view that I found intriguing. Have I found my “voice”? If you’d like, share your thoughts in the comments below.
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| Warehouse Doors |
Warehouse Doors
The day I went out shooting for this photo it was overcast so lighting was dim. That worked fine for this picture of an old warehouse. I set my camera on automatic and manual focus. I zoomed in on the side of the warehouse where there were two doorways, one on top of the other. A ladder laid askew in front of the lower entrance. The top door looked like it probably went into a loft. Perhaps the ladder is used to access the top doors?
My camera focal length was 45 mm, my aperture 5.6, shutter 1/50 and the ISO was 800. In Photoshop I decided to brighten this image a little bit and adjusted the contrast but not much, I liked the feel of the weathered gray wood in low light. What drew me to take this picture was the texture of the old wood, the angle that the ladder added and how the threshold of the top door vaguely repeats the ladder pattern. I framed this to include some bushes in the foreground to give depth and soften the bottom edge.
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| 12 Sing Lee Alley |
12 Sing Lee Alley
There was a break from the drizzle when I decided to go for a walk with camera in hand. The light, again, was dim from the low overcast sky. This building appears to be abandoned but may be used as storage now. It sits along one of the early Petersburg streets, and it may be one of the town’s older buildings.
I think it’s kind of sad that it is falling into disrepair. I find the architectural details, even in their poorly maintained state, to be kind of beautiful. I mean, look at that lamp, the crinkled glass, the colors, and the various textures this building sports!
For this picture I leaned into the building to find an angle that I found interesting yet still captured a great deal of the front of the building. I set my camera in landscape mode in an attempt to increase depth of field. My hope was to keep the whole area focused. A little of the foreground softened a bit but I still liked the way the image came out. My shutter speed was 1/125, aperture f/5.6 and ISO was 250. I used manual focus and no flash.
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| Warehouse on Slough |
Warehouse on Slough
I liked the angle and textures I saw in the siding of this warehouse by the Slough. The day was high overcast but still relatively bright outside. I used my camera’s landscape setting, again to try and keep the whole building in focus. According to my camera data, my focal length was 18 mm, shutter was 1/30 and aperture was f/3.5. I used manual focus and framed the photo to show a little of the slough and the buildings across the slough. In reviewing the photo later, I played around with cropping those out but in the end I decided I liked how that little gray warehouse across almost mirrored my subject while it was being mirrored in the water. I also framed this with some bushes along the bottom of the frame helping to lead the eye up into the picture and warehouse. To me the windows of the warehouse lead my eyes to the small warehouse across the water, then I see its reflection and the branches kind of pull my eye back around and up to the warehouse again. Although some of that was an unconscious decision, I quite like how it worked out.
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| Big House on the Narrows |
Big House on the Narrows
It was a sunny afternoon when my husband suggested we walk the bike path along the Narrows. Earlier that day he’d spotted an iceberg that had been stuck on the beach at low tide. He thought I’d like to take a picture of it (which I did). This big house was in the vicinity, so I decided to photograph its textures and angles. I’d taken several pictures from low, down on the beach, but after we climbed back up to the bike path, I spotted this shimmering water being reflected in the plexiglass sides of the deck, I decided to try and capture that along with some of the building’s various textures and angles.
I had my camera in manual focus. Trying to show a lot of different textures, I set the camera to landscape mode so I could focus in on the shimmer while keeping the rest in focus too. My focal length was zoomed to 60mm, f/8.0 and shutter was 1/250. ISO was 100. I filled the frame with just part of the building but I included some of the water in the frame to hint to the fact that this house stands in water when the tide is in. I included a little of the pilings as well as the angled overhang roof, wood siding and windows with white frames.