Final Portfolio

Final Portfolio By Anne Aborn

I took this photograph as a fulfillment of one of our first assignments: a focus on feet. I took a number of different photos of my fiancé's feet in different positions, but I thought that this one was the most interesting because of the way his feet fit together. I placed a black towel in the background to block out anything that might take the focus away from the feet. I then changed the photo to black and white in Photoshop because I wanted to see the contrast between the skin and the towel. I would have liked it if this image had come out a bit clearer, but I feel like the composition makes up for the slight blurriness.

Graceful Limbs

Twisted Timber

I initially arrived at this location to take photographs of a beautiful church. As I was taking photos of the front of the church, I saw the tips of the branches peeking out around the building. As I came around the corner, I was immediately intrigued by this tree. It has almost a surreal look against the white of the snow. I find it appealing that the branches seem to be stretching towards the camera. Even though this tree is beautiful, I almost feel as if it is slightly grotesque. I would be interested to see this tree in spring to see if the greenery would soften the grotesque effect.

Nature’s Enormity

With this photo, I was trying to capture nature in relation to mankind. To me, nature is a vast entity which dwarfs all human beings, even though we are a part of it. I thought that the simplest way to express this concept would be to find an extremely tall tree, and take a picture of my fiancé standing at the bottom of it. I took a number of different shots of this nature, but with my fiancé in different poses beside different trees. I think that this pose is the best because as he looks up at the incredible height of the tree, it seems as though he is considering the concept of nature’s vastness.

I was walking through the woods in search of a composition which was stunningly beautiful. I came across this dual line of trees which appear to be on either side of a path (the trees are in almost perfectly straight lines). There is in fact no path, but I thought it extremely interesting that the trees grew in this formation. I found the trees themselves beautiful and strong and thought the snow added to the piece. I took several shots of this composition, but settled on this one because of the angle. The ground line is captured as well as giving the viewer the sense of the incredible height of the trees.

Strength in Numbers

Capturing images in motion proved to be a slightly difficult assignment for me. This photograph was my first successful attempt at using the panning technique. I had my fiancé run up our dirt road in the early evening. The road was bordered by snow banks, which I believe the white portions of the photo to be. I slowed down the shutter speed on my camera and followed my fiancé's progress up the road. The result was this blurriness of the road, snow, and houses in the background. My fiancé appears to running through different layers of the image, which I find appealing.

Smokey Flow

Sometimes it can be difficult to capture compositions about color during the winter in New England. However, one afternoon when I arrived home from work, I was struck by this colorful sky. The previous days had been full of dreary, gray skies accompanied by snow or rain. This particular day surprised me with its tones of soft blue, orange, yellow, and pink. The colors are somewhat subtle in this particular shot but I think that the silhouettes of the trees, branches, and telephone pole only add to the beauty of this shot. I took a number of different shots of this sky, but chose this one because of the absence of housetops that were present in some of the others.

Reaching Silhouettes

Animals in Nature with Love

This image is one of my favorites that I created in Photoshop. I took several elements from other photos, such as the dog, the cat, the leafy ground, sky, and my fingers holding my engagement ring. This photo started out as the rock wall, which I took trying to capture a composition about texture. I ended up scaling and skewing the rock wall to give it some depth so I could place my cat on top of it. I then pieced the photo together after selecting the individual elements using the polygonal lasso tool. After I had placed the elements in the order that I wanted them, I added the diffuse glow filter to the entire image.

During the nature photography week, I tried to think creatively about how to capture a photo about death. I live near some very extensive forests and decided to walk through those to find a shot. Throughout the woods, I found numerous dead trees and I originally had not given this particular one much thought. However, once I reviewed the images on my computer at home, this photo really caught my eye. I managed to capture the small textural details and the angle of the fallen portion of the tree gives the photo a sense of depth. I changed the photo to black and white in Photoshop to experiment with the contrast between the white snow and the darker tones of the decaying bark.

Tree in Death

My Life Revealed

This photo has been heavily altered in Photoshop. For me, this composition is a huge victory. Before this particular assignment, I was incredibly frustrated with the selection and cloning tools. This project forced me to experiment extensively with them and to perfect their use. I created almost the entire background with the cloning tool. To create my still life, I wanted to have a theme that would be noticeable throughout. Each piece represents something in my life. For example, the books represent my love of reading and the mug says Bennington, NH, which is where I live. I also used the burn tool to create the shadows of each element.

Early Morning BeautyThis image was captured in the morning, around 7:00. I wanted to photograph a landscape which had a number of things to offer. I felt like this view, which is actually the lovely view from my deck, had a number of different elements. There is the dam in the background, the tree line, the river, and the tree in the foreground. I tried shooting this same image with the flash on and off. This image is with the flash off, and I found that without the flash, more of the natural details were able to shine through. The colors above the tree line were more pronounced as was the mist coming off of the water.