Valerie Sonnenberg
Design Challenge 2
The assignment is to take 3 portraits of myself and 3 of someone else that exemplify who we are and practice photographing with various techniques. Please click on the galleries to view full screen images.
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Brainstorming
Figuring out how to photograph the core of someone, self or other requires some thought. I started by answering and having my other subject answer the set of questions typed out. Once we had answered the questions, I looked for patterns in our answers. I narrowed the core beliefs to around 10. Mine were surfing, anxiety, piano, traveling, darkness, laughter, chasing joy, dreaming God, family, my relationship, and engineering.  Issy's were strength, her relationship, theater, nerves, connection to others, sadness, thoughtfulness, darkness, joy, and a desire to show her stronger side.
Ideation
Figuring out how to photograph these themes consisted of googling for portraits others have done, as examples to base off of. These are some photos near what I had envisioned for each of these emotions or motifs I wanted to capture.
Experimentation with photography
To figure out the best method for these photos, I played with varying photographic methods, such as framing and varying lighting.
Issy photography
After further consideration and feedback from others, I decided to take the two sets in different directions. The more I thought about Issy's answers, the more I realized the best way to document her is to sit her down and talk to her, and take photos of her expressing varying emotions. I sat her down and had her talk to me about experiences that she remembers being sad, angry, nervous, happy, thoughtful, and depressed, snapping pictures the whole time.
Issy editing
I picked the best photo of each and edited it to match the mood better. From top left to bottom right, the emotions are depression, anger, fear, thoughtfulness, sadness, and joy.
My photography
For my own photos, I decided to go with more variation in technique, and to photograph surfing, travel, anxiety, happiness, relationship, darkness, God, engineering, and piano with varying props, framing, and lighting.
My edits
I picked the best photos for each and edited them to increase their effectiveness. From top left to bottom right the photos are surfing, travel, darkness, joy, piano, anxiety, God, engineering, and relationship.
Final photos
The 6 final deliverable photos, the three strongest photos of me and three of Issy.
Conclusion
This project introduced us to photography in general, as well as Adobe Lightroom. Experimenting with varying framing, focal length, and lighting led to drastic differences in planning of the final deliverable. It was a different kind of difficult to take photos of myself, learning how to use the tripod with a timer and ideate how to photograph interests and emotions. With Issy, it was a completely different experience, depending more on time and getting to know the subject, making her feel comfortable and getting simple technical, yet complex conceptual shots. Editing in Lightroom afterwards allowed for learning about photo management as well as how to best make a good photo even better.