Digital Photography

This photo caught my eye for many reasons. For one, it has many different things to look at; everything from what appears to be a headless woman in the bottom left corner of the picture, to the front porch of a house in the top right corner of the picture.

This is the kind of photo I would blow up, frame and put on a wall somewhere in my house. And it would be the kind of photo that people would just stare at and everytime they walked by they would find yet one more thing they didn't see before. They might also wonder "...what the heck?...what is this picture all about?...what does it mean?..." and to that...unfortunately I would have no answer.

Two, the brick wall tricks the eye a little, making you question what you're really seeing.....this makes the picture very creepy and ghostly...me like it alot because of this. (okay, I'll stop with the ewok speaking....must be the aching in me to see the new Star Wars...)

Three, I'm guessing that this picture utilized a reflection of some sort? I have absolutely no idea how the woman got into the picture at all, not to mention how she got into the photo looking like a ghost or how she got headless....hmmm. And if you look closely, it doesn't even look like she has a body...... The only thing I do know is that it's not photoshopped in; this is an actual photo taken with a film camera. I'm making that judgement because the photo was taken in 1941.....

I've also posted on one other photo by this Photographer (hysteria). Laughlin tends to shoot unusual, creepy, and reflective pictures. Reflective in the sense that he utilized reflections probably from his car window, mirrors, etc. Creepy in the sense that he seems to try and capture "ghosts" and I've noticed that he also likes to find these "ghosts" in old abandoned, and/or run-down buildings that are overgrown with weeds and ivy.

Check out more of Laughlin's photos at the Masters of Photography website here.

Why this picture? I think it's creepy and very cool. I absolutely love it. Again, it's a picture that I'd like to put up on my wall because there is so much to look at. I could stare at this picture for hours just trying to figure out how he captured it. Did he have two models? Must have because there is a girl in the back left side of the picture and then a hand coming out of nowhere on the right side of the picture. I wonder if Laughlin had this picture all planned out in his mind and if it came out just the way he pictured it when he thought it up...

What's going on in this picture? Well, he framed the shot very well. I think he framed it this way on purpose to sort of point the eye in a specific direction.....like the repeating doorways....if you look closely at the center of the picture through the open doorways, you see a real house, one that is not burned down...this makes the shot even more creepy. It's almost like the living being in the burnt house is the ghost of it....maybe a girl that lived there before it burned down....maybe she was burned in the house and has since refused to leave it as a ghost....or better yet, maybe she's forced to wander the house because of an unsolved mystery regarding the house fire and her death and maybe the death of her family too....maybe they all wander the house and it's haunted....ok, I'm daydreaming now but really, I think there's a good creepy movie that could come from this picture. :)

Really, the more and more I look at this shot the more and more I want to stare and the more and more I love it....

Okay, onto the technical side of things. How was the photograph made? Well, it looks like he set up a tripod and told the girl in the pic to pose, move, or whatever it is she's doing while he set up the camera and then stuck out his arm so that the picure included his hand reaching out when the picture took.....oh, but did they have timed cameras back then?? (1941??) I'm an idiot when it comes to that kind of thing.... anyway, even if he didn't have it timed, he could have used two models. The girl, and another person for the hand on the right. It looks like a man's hand.... There is a very deep depth of field on this picture....I'm almost sure that he did this on purpose so that the eye would be drawn to the back of the picture where the unburned house is peaking through. The little girl model looks like she was in motion when the shot was taken so I'm assuming that he used a fast film speed in order to capture the motion without blurriness. However, the girls' arm that is directly up in the air, her fingers on that hand look just a little blurry.

So, just this second I noticed something else....if you look at the girl then look slightly to the left of her, there are three shadows that look like huge fingers that are picking her up by the back of her shirt collar or something.....and she looks like she's being caught by surprise and she's fighting it....hmmm....

Check out more of Laughlin's photos at the Masters of Photography website here, and another post on one of his other photos here.

The reason why I chose to emulate Len Jenshel first and foremost was because I love how he uses light in his pictures. He finds very random, yet colorful scenes to photograph. In addition to lighting effects, I appreciate how he cleverly frames his photos to include things that a person might normally edit out of the final product. For example: his picture above I particularly like where he framed the picture to include his car door and the pavement leading up to the lookout. This was a very clever way to depict what it is like as a tourist viewing the monument.

As I tried to emulate Len, the things that were going thru my mind were many. One: re-think how I frame my shots, making sure I’m not cropping out details that may have led to interesting subject matter, two: look for light sources that cast varying and unusual colors on objects, trying also to find more than one color cast in a particular shot, three: finding funny, humorous, or ironic “moments” that can be highlighted through the photo, which might get passed over by people otherwise. For Example: Len took a photo of a tourist inside a museum looking thru a glass window into a jelly-fish tank; the shape of her head and the color of her hair matched perfectly with the color-cast of the jelly-fish floating inside.

I enjoy Len Jenshel’s photography immensely and will be copying (attempting that is) his style and technique on my future projects in this class and other photography projects of mine in the future outside of class.

I'm really not sure what the photographer's purpose in taking this photo was and I don't particularly like the photo, really. I was simply drawn to this photo because it reminded me of a stipple drawing I had done in one of my art classes in High School. I stippled the kitchen counter with an old glass, milk container sitting on it and other misc. kitchen stuff very similar to this photo.

Technical comments: I can see that the picture was taken with a light source shining on or around it because of the shadows to the left of the bowl and glass milk container. You can also see light reflecting off the rim of the milk container, the inside edge of the bowl and the three eggs sitting on the table.

I think the combination of a bowl of milk and eggs is a little strange....I'm not quite sure why that particular combination....??? Leaves me wondering, "where are the cheerios?" However, as I look at the bowl....I wonder if it is sugar in the bowl....hmmm....can't tell.

I love how the spoon's handle blends in with the background to the right of the photograph; it looks like the spoon is coming right out of the wall sort of.

Overall I think this picture is really boring and I couldn't see myself ever putting this on a wall in my home.