My Unsubmitted AP Art Portfolio

I took AP Art again this year, even though I scored  a 4 last year, so I didn't end up taking the exam. This set would have been for my concentration section of the portfolio. The central idea was photography of symmetry, lines, and shapes found in man-made structures. 

GaGa Disconnect

So these were actually taken way back in October, and this is of course, the lovely Irene Geller in her fabulous Halloween costume. (I'm very sorry about the delay.) Anyway, the concept behind this shoot was "disconnect."

So did we relay our message across? Thoughts and concrit are always welcome (and much wanted!). I see you guys ticking off the reaction boxes at the bottom of each post, I'd love to see some comments too. It'd make me feel a lot more connected to all of you! ;)

Fireworks!

I haven't posted anything in a while (damn you college apps!) So here's a little teaser of what I've been working on. These are from the fourth of July, and I'm JUST getting around to tinkering with them. Enjoy!

Low Key Experimentation

Again, some old(ish) pictures, about a month overdue for posting. These are some of my first flirtations with low key photography. I don't have a lot of equipment; in fact, I don't have any true lighting equipment for photography at all. I used a small reading light for all my photos here. I started off easy with toy as my subjects. They're always patient, and they never raise a complaint, which is just perfect for a newbie like me. (Well, Bastardino's got a sour face on, but he's always like that...)

Infinite keys. Infinite possibilities.

And finally, yours truly. 

Behind the Scenes: Irene Geller's Pigeon Coop

This set was actually taken all the way back at the end of August. I've been an indolent blogger. I have so many pictures on my laptop waiting to be uploaded. I've got a lot of catching up to do. Hehe..

Anyway, my good friend and conveniently next door neighbor, Irene (http://irenegeller.wordpress.com/) has a pigeon coop located in the far corner of her backyard. She decided to paint a mural on the back of it, and she called me over to take photos of her working on it. It's of a Victorian Crown Pigeon, a gorgeous, but sadly, endangered breed of pigeon. The mural style is inspired by Russian Palekh paintings, which are very old and fairytale-like. To me, her pigeon resembles a blue phoenix in the sky, and her mural certainly gives off a very mythical vibe.

While Irene was working diligently throughout, the same could not be said for me.A pigeon coop obviously houses pigeons and, soon I got very distracted from my camera duties and started feeding the pigeons. This is Bingley, who was nameless prior to me meeting him. He's my favourite, and he was rather fond of me too. (Though I suspect, it would have been a very different story if I hadn't offered him seeds and such.) I tried feeding the other pigeons but he kept jumping onto my hand and shooing the others away. He was a possessive little bugger.

Anyway, back to the main topic of this post, here's more of Irene and the mural.

And finally, here is the completed mural! Lovely, isn't it?

The View Outside My Window

OOC except for changing the picture style to 'Landscape'

Moon flare (who's ever heard of that?) and Jupiter and a pretty night sky, oh my!

The night sky is just gorgeous tonight. Jupiter is visible, it's the bright dot to the left of the moon. (Thanks to Kae for the heads up!)

I'm totally amused by the slight rainbow gradient thing happening in this photo. We've got an indigo sky, green  from the street lights reflecting off the side of my window, and then my orange bedroom walls in the upper right hand corner.

Our lovely moon is nearly full tonight.

Jupiter and the Moon again. Shame I can't properly expose the moon without losing Jupiter.

The Bronx Zoo

I went to the Bronx Zoo on Wednesday and took more pictures than a tourist. Usually when I go to the zoo, the animals are always hidden away sleeping in their caves and behind bushes. This time though, they were all active and playing around, which probably explains why I was able to fill all three of my memory cards, which adds up to 8 gigs. These are my favourites from the 400 pics I took. I think combing through and picking the best of the batch was actually the hardest part of my whole editing process.

The polar bear was among the first animals we saw. It was napping in the morning, but when we doubled back in the afternoon, it was awake and pacing around its enclosure. 

If I had to pick any animal from the zoo to bring home as a pet, it would be the red panda. It's my absolute favorite. Unfortunately, this was the one animal I wasn't able to catch awake. We went back in the afternoon but it had moved off, and it was nowhere to be seen.

I'm pretty sure I shot about a hundred pictures of the bears. It was so hard to choose a favorite, but the cub's goofy expression made the photo. Initially when I got to their exhibit, they were just standing around, but after a bit, they jumped into their pool and started splashing around and mock fighting each other. I turned to leave when they calmed down, and by then I already had about fifty shots, but then they jumped into another pool and started all over again. That caused me to stay for another good while. I'm going to have to do another post dedicated to the bears.

Oh my goodness, the lions were amazing. I think there were a total of three cubs, and they were so energetic. They were climbing on their mom and jumping on each other. I have so many outtakes of them; I'll upload those later too. Again, it was the expression that led me to choose this photo for this post. It's like the embodiment of youth in the way his face is filled with curiosity. 

I never thought my favorite shot of the day would feature the ostrich. Back-lit photos are the best.

Two serene swans...

...And two tanning turtles.

Sea Creatures Are Taking Over My Bathroom!

My bathroom has turned into an aquarium. 

Written in Light

Mister, I'm miserable when I miss you.

How's that for some broken up alliteration?

 I'm going to be honest here, I didn't do this one all in one take. This is comprised of five different pictures put together. It was broken down like this: "I'm mise" "r" "able" "when I miss you" and then the storm cloud. The word "miserable" refused to cooperate with me (go figure). I'm pretty proud that I wrote "when I miss you" in just one frame though. My handwriting with light has improved a lot since my first attempt.

"I can spell Konfusion with a K"

I think I'm going to do another session/shoot with this word dealing with a piano... I posted this here anyway because I liked how neat it turned out.

Just some fun doodles. I like rabbits. I don't really like snails, but I like drawing them. Ha.