My plan: For this shoot I want to take pictures of some dying roses and make the photos black and white to create a mood.
My Photo Shoot:
So, while contemplating on what I wanted to do for the next seven weeks I decided on the idea of decay. There was no better topic for my first project then the dying flowers on my grandma’s kitchen table. I like to take photos of things close up and in focus and I focused mostly on the texture of the roses. I tried to make the point of interest in each photo the rose and not so much the smaller flowers around it but I think they created more of a natural look and added a better background in each photo.
My Edits:
I have three edited photos which are all in black and white. I chose to put all my edits for these projects in black and white because it is my style and I think it compliments my idea of decay. I adjusted the levels in each photo to make the rose alone brighter and stand out. Also, I like when photos have a lot of exposure and this sort of film over them so I adjusted that as well which really brought out the texture of the crumpling petals.
My Printed/Matted Piece:
This is my final product. It is a digital photograph of a dying rose, in a vase, on my grandma’s kitchen table. The rose is in the middle of the photo and surrounding it in the top left is the stem of another rose and in other areas there as leaves as well. When editing it was hard to adjust the contrast correctly in order to achieve the look I wanted with the rose being brighter but also having some value and texture. The reason I like a lot of exposure and the film that seems to be over the photo is because it makes the photo look more vintage and I plan to do this with all my photos these next seven weeks and eventually they will all come together and the connection will be justified. Being the photographer and editor of this photo I know that I wanted to create this mood of decay and death , nothing too dark , but specifically for this shoot it was the idea that even beautiful things die and I think that really sends a message. I believe that any other viewer, if they didn’t have context of my idea/connection, would think the mood is sadness or sorrow. They may think I also just focused on texture or just flowers in general. I think that could be a good inference but my idea goes deeper and being the artist I feel like I’ve portrayed my idea. In my opinion, I feel I did good on this shoot and my editing was unique and I am proud about how my final piece came out. One improvement I still think could be made is more brightness just on the rose but not too much that it changes the mood and my idea of decay. Overall, I think I’ve had a good start with my projects and I wish to improve my photo taking skills and editing skills with each project to come.