Artistic Inquiry

I wanted to start brainstorming ideas right away, because I'm viewing this assignment as a test of my ability to stay on task, keep organized, and work independently. I immeadiately started to brainstorm ideas for what I wanted to do.
Right away I narrowed down my search to something that has to do with photography, since it has been a passion of mine for a while and I figured it might be a good idea to throw my hard work into something I enjoy doing. It's also something I want to persue in college, so it can serve as a piece in my portfolio. There are many aspects of photography that I had previously brushed upon over the summer, when I attended USDAN and majored in photography. We worked with light primarily, and then worked with captureing water droplets, using colored water too. It was a really great expierience. They taught us how to use photoshop, CS6 or 5 I believe. Out of everything we did, however, we only scratched the surface of the techniques that professional photographers use. One of the things I really enjoyed during the course was experementing with light. Not only did we use studio lighting to create different emotion in the pictures, we also learned how to paint with light. My first assignment was painting myself to look like an angel. The outcome, as you can see, was pretty successful for a first time. I had two classmates with different light sources paint the wings and halo, and another paint over myself so that I was visible along with the wings and halo. I then took the picture onto the computer, and edited the shadows and highlights to make everything clear. I used the sharpening tool quite a bit, because having the shutter open constantly made the picture blurry(mostly because I kept moving).

Wow, I got a little sidetracked.
However, all this lead to my descision on what I want my artistic inquiry to focus on: I want to do a series of photos while experementing with light. I'd like to include both studio lighting and painting with light. I also want to incorperate the use of photoshop in my inquiry, because I'd like to be able to use the software with ease when I edit pictures.

The only obsticles, as I see it, are the fact that I don't have an editing software on my computer currently, and I'd probably need a tripod for my camera as well as an assistant. But I am confident that someone from STAC would be more than willing to help me.

As well as the painting with light I'd also like to further study and create more pieces like these:

 

 

 

"Light painting is a photographic technique in which exposures are made by moving a hand-held light source or by moving the camera. The term light painting also encompasses images lit from outside the frame with hand-held light sources."

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_painting)

 

"What makes a person a good photographer is how well he composes the scene, not necessarily his/her equipment. Even if you have thousands of dollars worth of equipment, if you do not know how to compose a scene properly, you will never come out with anything good. A good photographer with a simple point-and-shoot may take a better picture than a person who owns a $2,500 zoom and a sophisticated camera, and who does not know how to compose a scene well."
(http://library.thinkquest.org/25473/ph_06_03.shtml)