final: ice & snow

cause: graffiti

typology

I did my typology on fire hydrants - specifically, yellow fire hydrants! Before starting this assignment, I had never noticed yellow ones existed. I'd always thought they only came in red. (Refer back to class when Slade told us to notice the little things - I used to be a fire-hydrant-unnoticer, but now I have a keen eye, kind of like a hydrantologist). Driving around, I found not only yellow but orange, green, purple, red, white, and black, and mixtures of two or three of those colors! Some fire hydrant painter people don't mess around with matching colors. They throw whatever colors they want up on a fire hydrant and declare it a public fixture eyesore. 

But anyway. 

I found a couple of them that were painted to look like dalmatians with fire hats on to honor firefighters, and even though they were oh so adorable, I couldn't seem to find more than two. So if you see some puppy-painted fire hydrants, let a girl know. Since the random colors weren't specific enough and I couldn't find any kind of order in the chaos, I decided to focus on the yellow ones because one, it's probably my favorite color, and two, I found a lot of them. So there you have it, yellow fire hydrants. The most interesting man photographic project in the world.

magnum

Micha Bar Am was my inspiration for this shoot. He’s an awesome Israeli photographer who makes good use of repetition, contrast and a mix of similar and dissimilar elements to make mostly black and white photographs. Considering he worked with the New York Times for a while, has published several photography books and made the Magnum list, I think he's a decent person to look up to. 

I went to Lagoon over the weekend with my husband and family. Since I didn't have a lot of time, I figured I’d kill two birds with one stone - finish an assignment and make it through a day at the world’s worst amusement park. (I have a bad attitude, I know).

Now.

“He says that he has adopted Robert Capa's saying, "If your photographs aren't good enough, you weren't close enough," but has added a caveat: "If you're too close you lose perspective. It is not easy to be fair with the facts and keep your own convictions out of the picture. It is almost impossible to be both a participant in the events and their observer, witness, interpreter. The effort brings great frustration, and equally great reward."” (Wikipedia)

In all of these photos I tried to be close enough to isolate the scene, but not too close so that I was recording only a very specific object that I picked out. I tried to emulate Micha Bar Am's sense of light and dark, and looked for repetitions that I could photograph. Even though Bar Am is a documentary photographer specializing in historical and war photography, of which I don't have a particular interest, I like his style. He knows how to combine the human tendency towards order and repetition with impulse and emotion. I hope I can convey that in my own work!

how to make a paper airplane