Project Title: Landscape Photography

 

Essential Question:

 What technical elements of photography can help enhance the messages behind a photo?

 

Statement of Purpose: 

For my senior project my plan is to take beautiful landscapes of the nature around us as well as contrasting images of urbanization. While improving my photography skills and becoming more capable of portraying a message through photos, I hope to be able to shed light on climate change issues.

 

Overview: 

For my whole life I have been surrounded by photography and photographers. My mom has worked in photo and is currently the photo director at New York magazine. She has always preached the power of photos and how they can inspire change. 

Photography has been a hobby of mine for a couple of years as I took multiple courses at LREI with Susan Now and attended a photography program one summer in Oxford, England. Though I feel experienced in photography, I have much to learn with editing and taking the actual photos themselves. I am eager to further learn this new medium of photography. Photography is a skill that requires patience, skill, and most importantly an eye. I believe taking advantage of the time given to us to explore this interest will be useful to grow as a photographer.

Since the beginning of high school I have been intrigued by the issues of climate change. As a freshman in the environmental club Red Is Green, we watched a video on the early stages of coral bleaching. This video shed light to the consequences of our actions as a society on our earth. The power of photography can portray the same powerful messages as film and further learning how to properly operate a camera and edit photos will give me the resources to portray my own messages. This project will challenge me to grow as a photographer to do more than just take a photo, but to be able to achieve what many people say about photos, that “a good photo is worth a thousand words”.

 

How will you measure your success?

I will measure my success through the amount of photos I am able to draw from each shoot. I will always have photos I don’t like or don’t intend to use in the final book, but I hope as the project progresses that I become better at taking photos so I have more to choose from as candidates for the book I will present at the end of the project. 

 

Resource List:

• Nigel Danson (Landscape Photography Masterclass, Landscape Photographer)
• Ansel Adams (Landscape Photographer)
• Nadav Kander (Photographer)

 

Daily Plan & Schedule:

Throughout each week I will be attending Nigel Dansons Landscape Photography Masterclass. There are 50 lessons and each of them are an hour long. The masterclass will give me useful lessons to apply to actually taking the photos. I will be going around NYC, other cities and towns capturing images of urbanization. I will also be driving out to scenic locations and hiking spots to capture landscapes. Once I have my photos I will edit them using the computer program Lightroom with the skills I learned in the masterclass. This cycle will go on and on until I am ready to start assembling the book. 

 

Documentation Plan:

Aside from the Senior Project Blog, I am planning to document some of the photos I take on a new instagram account dedicated to this project. At the end of the project I will have a book with a selection of my best photos. I hope this book will have a message that can be portrayed through the photos. By the end of the project, the instagram and the book will show the final products of all the work I have done throughout the project. 

 

Material Needs:

I have already received some books and camera equipment from Susan Now, the photography teacher. 

 

Backup Plan:

If my Project does not seem to answer my essential question I will adjust so it does. My project is fully in my control so I am able to alter the approach easily to answer my essential question.