mhatts.

1. What motivates you to make photographs? When the motivation is internal, how do you benefit from your photography? If the motivation is external, what results do you hope for?

After 4 years of darkroom photography, I realized that photography was a way for me to understand everything around me. ( I also found it was a way for me to manipulate things I don't like)... in the darkroom sense, of course.

I am a hopeless wanderer, I travel a lot. I was always taught  to appreciate various cultures.........I guess thats why I want to volunteer or sell my soul to the IRC one day. My photography is mostly for documenting my travels, and capturing key moments. I do have a lot of the typical touristy photos, but I also have the ones of things people overlook all the time. *I'm really into graffiti. Also, I like having photos of the experiences I have. I went scuba diving back in middle school- so I used a disposable camera with waterproof housing and I took photos from under water. I've always traveled with a camera of some sort, dangerous or not. I even dropped my SLR on a railroad platform and had a fun, yet dangerous adventure of retrieving the lens from the tracks...
I guess in short, I benefit from my photography because It helps me to remember all the amazing things that I have done in my life.


2. What interests and inspires you as an artist in your broader life? For you, what connections are there between what inspires you and your photography?

I'm inspired by people... >I am so sorry I am such a creep<

I guess the connection is that I feel that everything in this whole universe is alive. I really admire and hate the way that people interact with the environment, natural or not. Like I said in my huge clump of words above, I'm a traveler and I volunteer quite a bit. Most of the photos that I take are people being their natural selves. I feel like I'm being so vague, but It is so confusing for me to describe.

Let me try to summarize, I'm really inspired by people and their personalities, I like to see them interact with the environment and capture their natural selves.

The color contrast with the black background really catches my eyes. The water bubble also shows movement and makes the photo interesting. I feel like the graceful movement of the subject is my favorite thing about this photograph. I also really like the symmetry and the framing of the subject. This photo also catches a critical moment. If the picture had been taken a second later, It would be completely different. 

Evaluate the photo for all 12 criteria from our list. In what areas is this photo strong? What is weak? What would you do to improve the photo if you could?
1. I feel that this photo catches interest through the contrast in colors.
2. I feel like there is an interesting point of view by shooting up towards the subject and not placing it in the center of the frame.
3. I feel like the image makes the viewer think of why the bunny is under the covers, and what is going on on the wall.
4. I don't really feel like this photo has a message or pushes barriers....
5. I feel like the subject matter is interesting, but I feel like if it wasn't taken from that point of view, it would be less interesting.
6. The story is probably of a sleepy bunny?
7. -not really.
8. the focus is pretty clear on the subject matter and blurry in the foreground and background. there is even a natural vignette to the bottom of the photo
9. Having a tall frame really helps this photo. If the blanket was cut off on the top, it wouldn't be as strong.
10. strong lighting behind the blanket.
11. I feel like it is pretty well exposed...
12. digital.

strong- i feel the point of view, and the subject.
weak- maybe the critical moment?

If I could improve the photograph, I would probably mess around with lighting.

So, didn't see the flooding post until after I had already gone out, but here are some pictures from my iphone

1. It was uncomfortable at the beginning, but lessened by the end. The mood shifted when we started joking around more. Also when we started exploring the basement of the theatre and playing with the lights. It was fun walking around the fine arts building and made me more comfortable because we weren't being completely serious about what we needed to do. Actually, we didn't really look at the list of photos we needed until the end. We just took random photos and from that, we kind of went with the flow...

2. I feel that being relaxed and happy helps the other person be more comfortable. also, throwing around some laughs could be helpful. Also, conversing in between photos would probably also help the person become more comfortable. Just talking about weather or classes or even hobbies will help. By talking about things they are familiar with can put them at ease.