Final Portfolio

Here is my final portfolio that I spent the semester shooting for my Adv. Digital photography class.  It's a total of 20 images, plus my artist's statement.  Enjoy!

"I've always found that I do all of my best thinking around water; whether it be standing around in the shower and pondering my future, or sitting on a bench by a lake or stream.  The fluidity, varying motions and forms, and reflections on water have always left me entranced and at ease in a way that I have yet to find in anything else.  For this project, I wanted to explore that entrancement and dreamlike state that I enter when I look at the water's surface.  In order to do that, I chose to abstract my images in a way that attempts to leave my audience wondering what exactly their looking at while still being able to easily decipher it.  This approach will then, hopefully, lead the audience to get lost in these images and will perpetuate the same sort of feelings and emotions that are reminiscent of a dreamlike state.

This series was shot with a Canon Rebel XT, fitted with an 28-105mm lens, using only natural light and without any interference or staging on my part.  All post-production editing was done with Adobe Photoshop, and were printed on 11x14 Arista II Luster Inkjet paper using an Epson 2880 Inkjet printer."

© Tyler Jackson Photography 2011

Compositing

For our most recent assignment, my Adv. Digital Photography class was asked to create 3 images using some kind of digital manipulation.  For my images, I composited several images to make one whole image.  The idea behind this series of photographs is the concept of inner dialogue.  In order to portray this, I photographed myself several times; then, when I went to composite the image, I had one "version" of myself be completely opaque so as to represent my physical being.  The other "versions" of myself were made to be more transparent, so as to be a metaphysical representation of my inner thoughts.

So, here are the images that I've composited so far:

© Tyler Jackson Photography 2011

I definitely think that I'd like to continue this series, either for class or in general, so look forward to seeing more in the future.

Reflections

For my portfolio project, I decided to do a series on light reflecting off the surface off water.  Here is my project proposal (which is a work in progress and will be further developed as the project continues to grow):

"For my portfolio project, I would like to do a project that is focused around reflections.  I’ve begun shooting just reflections on the surface of water; and I may or may not decide to continue to shoot just this kind of subject.  For this project I would like to create abstraction using high contrast and the movement of light reflecting off of whatever surface I am shooting.  The purpose of creating abstraction is to give the viewer a malleable subject from which they can derive whatever meanings or conclusions that they find appropriate.  Just as light reflects differently off of each drop of water, so do we as people reflect in our minds in ways that can be vastly different or oddly similar.  It is my goal to project my own meaning from these images when conveying them before my audience, but to also project that meaning in a way that can be held, shaped, molded and changed by whomever is taking them in."


Like I said, this is all just a work in progress, and I'm still developing ideas and ways to keep this cohesive, yet interesting.  There will definitely be more to come; but for now, enjoy!

(All images © Tyler Jackson Photography 2011)