Artist Statement

Shopping Downtown

Let’s see, how should I start out my artist statement. I guess I can begin telling or explaining how I took my photos and why. I’ll admit that this was pretty hard for me because street photographer, to me, is pretty hard to discern. The ideas’ behind it was to take photos out in the public whether it was candid or not. To show ideas expressed by the photos be it irony or something that just caught your eye. To me, I had no clue as to how I was going to take my photos. I just figured that if it was good enough for me then I would edit them. I only have one photo on my blog and that was basically how I did the rest of my photos, added colors to the background or subjects. Some photos were all colored besides the people/subject while some were all colored to make it (to me) stand out. Most were all taken at the store, Target, while some were taken in down town Saint Paul. Why I took them, I had no idea. It just seemed to me that they were interesting and I just took a shot. I don’t know if they expressed any ideas behind them or not but to me I think they do.

Onto the tools of adobe photoshop, I basically just used the three main tools, gradient, paintbucket, and artistic filters. I chose those three because I had, familiarize myself with them and decided that my photos would contain those tools. Most were just color edited by using paintbucket to make the subjects stand out from the background. I painted the background and not the subjects to make them, I think stand out? I don’t know if it’s the other way around but that’s what my ideas were based upon.

My other ideas were to use the gradient tool (mostly the diamond shape and striped gradient) to focus on a subject, in most cases, subjects that are right in your face i.e., the cat(s) and the huge number. I really don’t know why I did that but it seemed like a noobish move in my view because I am still a beginner in photography.

While the last tool, the artistic filters, I had the most fun with because they made the job easier in some ways. I used this the most behind the paintbucket tool. Artistic filters are fun to use but make your photos, in my opinion, not stand out because it was too simple to do. In a professionals’ hand, they know how to use it and make their photos unique. But mines were just plain filters with added depth to make it seem as if they’re special. I tweaked the pencil darkness, contrast, and thickness in only small amounts because it would seem as if I overdid it in some of my photos. The one filter that I really like was the water color filter. This was what made some of my photos look cool but not unique.

I’m kind of ashamed to say this but I really don’t know or researched on any well-known photographer to give thanks to. I guess you can say I slacked off. But the one the class talks about the most was probably Man Ray. His ideas expressed many things and I hope mine does too and I thank him for that. It’s hard trying to take good photographs and I guess it was like that too for him and I hope maybe one day I’ll be as good as him. But the only difference is that I don’t take black and white photography.

My overall idea(s) behind my photos were to just basically make something stand out like the rest of any photographer. I don’t know if I did but in one specific photo I took downtown was of the flags. One was the American flag, the Canadian flag, and the last flag I think was England (?). This was the one I liked the most behind the tower because it showed unity in our state/country. Therefore I named it, United Nations, just like the organization because of the unity we all share and with unity comes power and with power comes peace. The flags represented the unity and power and peace all the nations had, if only I could’ve gotten pictures with the other flags but (off topic) my battery ran out. My other idea(s) was the power of helping i.e., in Target I shot most photos of staff members helping out shoppers. I really like the idea of lending a helping hand when people need it and the ironic thing is, well I’m the one who needs help right now or should I say my family does. I Didn’t need to bring that out but it’s true right now, we need help (I won’t explain more) and all of us are trying really hard to help our family and that relates to my photos. With unity comes peace and power and that’s what my family needs right now, unity and peace.