If I am being entirely honest, this project isn’t going as smoothly as I thought it would go. Over the past week, I have been trying to come up with a plan to execute my idea and looking for places I want to photograph. The house I am staying in is in the downtown area, and while it’s not like we don’t have flowers here, the whole point of my project is to capture nature interacting with man. Unfortunately, the landscape around me is too overpowered by civilization, so I wanted to find areas that were the entire opposite.
My plan as of right now is to have 15-20 photographs, at least four of them will be polaroids.
I started to see some problems once I was shooting. I am struggling to find angles that will accentuate the beauty of nature. I mostly photograph portraits, so I am not used to landscapes. It has been hard for me to come up with images that are interesting because unlike people, I cannot pose a lake or a hill. It is my job to find the best angle. You can see all the photographs I have taken so far in the link to the Google Drive folder. I would appreciate it if anyone could give me feedback on what I have so far. Do you think that I have done a good job trying to translate the idea of man being under nature’s spotlight?
The photos that you see above are a few attempts I have made to imitate Sofie’s editing style. I am trying to saturate the colors and keep my photos bright (I have a tendency to darken my photos too much). I am also trying to imitate Sofie’s dreamy aesthetic by lowering the texture and clarity, but I am not sure this is all working. I feel that I am saturating the colors way too much and that softening the image’s sharpness isn’t giving me the same effect as Sofie. I am quite frustrated over this. Does anyone have any suggestions?
From Seth-- Sofie's work has a lot of mystery in the pose and the interaction with nature that makes them interesting. Her strongest work is when she is not engaging the camera but engaging the surroundings.
ReplyDeleteYou need to put more emphasis on something (probably the people and their pose) to get your idea across. Image 489 on google drive is the closest but the framing needs to bring us closer to the subjects.
Don't be afraid to direct and pose your human subjects. Also, you can rearrange nature/setting to emphasize or deemphasize something. In short, you need to make your subjects fit your vision more than you are now.
That said, I have complete faith that you can pull this off. Keep it up.