Final Documentary Project

Spot News: Occupy Pittsburgh

On Feb. 6, 2012, protestors for Occupy Pittsburgh were served with a notice to evict the premises of the Mellon green area.  Protestors originally claimed the area on Oct. 15, 2011, and renamed the space "The People's Park" on Dec. 10, 2011.

According to their website, by claiming the Mellon green, Occupy Pittsburgh has established itself as "the only Occupation to claim land from a bank."  They have continued nonviolently defending this area since Oct. 15.

The Occupy Movement employs a strategy called Tatical Nonviolence.  Through this strategy, they hope to open a dialogue about the issues at hand rather than allow them to be overlooked due to violence.

Occupy Pittsburgh has claimed The People's Park in order to use it as a place to hold public dialogue and practice direct democracy.  By doing this, they strive to create and employ resolutions that will be obtainable for everyone.

The Occupy Movement seeks to unite America's 99%.  By creating an environment that is safe and welcoming to all people, they hope to bring together all minorities in order to fight the oppression that is being brought against them.

In order to promote solidarity, the Occupy Movement has set out to work towards eliminating various systems of oppression within the United States.  To do this, they welcome all people to voice their thoughts and opinions, so as to create an inclusive atmosphere for ideas.

Deadline Assignment

When it comes to an assignment like this, I always find it hard for me to approach people on the fly and ask to photograph them (probably because I wouldn't be very obliging myself).  But with this assignment, I utilized my resources and used networking to gain access to a subject that I felt comfortable with and that was eager to work with me.

Sarah George, of Pittsburgh, PA, is the Director of Commuter Affairs at Point Park University.  As such, her job is to plan and promote campus events and programs for commuter students.

Sarah George works diligently as she coordinates schedules for a meeting of the 2012 Point Park University Pioneer Experience staff.  The Pioneer Experience is a summer orientation program for new students.

Sarah George signs documents pertaining to expenses for the Pioneer Experience.  Each year, this summer orientation program is given a budget to plan events for new students during the program.

© Tyler Jackson Photography 2012

Experimental Black and White Photography Project

For this project, I decided to focus on alternative ways to process that would manipulate my film in a unique way.  I shot several rolls of Kodak 125PX film and tried three processing techniques.  For the first roll, I developed with a 1:1 of D76 and orange juice, and washed the film with mango juice.  The result of this was virtually perfectly developed film, which was great, but not what I was looking for.  The second roll was developed with a 1:1 of D76 and salted milk, and washed with salted milk.  The result, again, was well developed film.  My last roll of film was developed in a mix of D76, rubbing alcohol, and Clorox bleach.  The resulting chemical reaction created a noticeable amount of heat, so I reduced my developing time because I was worried that I would risk over-developing it if I went longer.  When I poured out this developing solution, I noticed a fair amount of brown runoff and thought that I had eradicated the emulsion from my film.  Proceeded to rinse, fix, and wash the film as usual; and when I finally got a look at it, I saw that the film was thick and opaque.  It was then that I decided to try dunking the film in the Clorox to see how that would affect the film.  I left the film in the bleach for a few seconds, until I noticed the bleach was starting to change colors.  I took the film out and saw that the emulsion had begun to bleed and separate from the film, and would rub off if I touched the film.  I rinsed it off and got a look at what the film looked like and decided that I liked the fogging effect that had been caused by the bleeding and my smudging of the emulsion (this is best shown by the larger abstract image, which is two frames side by side). This effect reminded me of a daguerreotype, so I proceeded with an idea of trying to replicate the aesthetic of looking at an old photograph with my film.  I kept the film in a container full of gravel for a week, so as to further age and appropriately damage the film (which resulted in the blemishes and scratches you’re seeing). 

I’m surprisingly pleased with the overall aesthetic of my images and am eager to continue producing new images of different subjects while using this method of processing.

© Tyler Jackson Photography 2012

Taylor Knight

I've recently started getting back into doing head shots for people.  These images are of my good friend, Taylor Knight, who is a senior Dance Major at Point Park University.   Taylor was an excellent client and enjoyable to work with, and I hope to continue working with him again in the future.  Aside from being a gifted dancer, Taylor has begun branching out into music and video.  You can see samples of his work on his YouTube channel and keep updated on his upcoming projects and performances via Twitter.

© Tyler Jackson Photography 2012

Old work, new post.

Hey, it's been a while.  This past semester has been crazy busy, but now that things have calmed down a bit, I'm going to try to get back into posting more.  Anyway, here are some composites I made for one of my classes last semester.  I attempted to use a sort of surrealistic approach to examine the idea of portals in every day objects and repurposed my abstract water images to act as the "mysterious beyond" in each portal.

© Tyler Jackson Photography 2012

Senior Thesis

So, for those of you that don't know, I am a senior in college this year; which means that I have to do a senior thesis project for this year as part of my required courses.  Today, I did a test shoot for my thesis (below), and tomorrow begins the full blown experience.  Here's the basic idea of what my thesis entails:

"For my thesis project I wanted to do sort of social commentary series on how a person's environment (social, religious, political, cultural, etc.) affects their body image. It would be a series of diptychs (two images paired together) where each model would be photographed two different ways. The first would be the model in their everyday clothing, just like whatever they would wear on a normal day. And then the partner piece to that would be the model wearing an amount of clothing representative of how comfortable they are with their body. It would be kind of like an "on a scale of 1 to 10" thing; where 1 would be completely uncomfortable with their body and wearing as much clothing as possible, and 10 would be completely comfortable with their body and wearing as little as possible to nothing at all (if the model feels comfortable doing that). 


I also want to interview my models and just ask them a series of questions about what elements of their environment have shaped their body image and in what ways and degrees. The interviews would then be used for exhibition to couple with the images."

I have a lot of work ahead of me, but I'm excited to see how everything turns out.  Feel free to comment and give me some feedback!

© Tyler Jackson Photography 2011

Ryann and Baby Jax

As promised, here are some more photos from my shoot with Jax.  These shots are of Jax and his mother (my cousin), Ryann.

© Tyler Jackson Photography 2011

Baby Jackson and Charles

Hello all!  Sorry I haven't posted in a few months.  I'll admit, I've been slacking like crazy, but that doesn't mean that I haven't been busy.  I plan on (hopefully) utilizing this blog more and posting a lot more and as often as possible with whatever projects, big or small, that I'm working on.  My most recent project is a shoot I did for my cousin Ryan and her husband, Charles's, baby, Jackson (or Jax, for short).  I did several different sets consisting of different family members with the baby, as well as baby Jackson by himself.  Here are some of the first photos that I've edited from that shoot; they are of Charles and baby Jackson, and are some of the favorites from that set.  I'll be posting more sets this week as I continue editing.

© Tyler Jackson Photography 2011

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