Ikea Baking Book - Carl Kleiner

Someone I follow on twitter shared this link.

Carl Kleiner is a photographer from Stockholm. He recently did the photography for a baking cookbook for Ikea. If you've ever bought furniture from Ikea that you had to assemble yourself, you'll see the look of these photos is similar to the instruction manuals. 

http://www.todayandtomorrow.net/2010/09/24/homemade-is-best/ 

I thought it was very interesting photography, and you who are interested in both Graphic Design as well as product photography would find his work on the Ikea baking book to be interesting.

I've never seen his work before, but I'm really liking it. 

Enjoy!

Assignment 2 - Part 2 : Understanding Aperture

I had originally shot something else for the aperture portion of this assignment, but I really didn't like the way they came out. So I did a quick improv photoshoot, with some collectibles and other random things from around my house.

I figured out how to set my camera to shoot raw and jpeg at the same time, so these are the unedited jpegs. I used a tripod for these, since some of the exposures are very long because it is dark in my kitchen at 10pm.

You can really see the depth of field change if you look at the lightswitch on the wall, which you can barely even distinguish in the first few.

f4, 1/30 sec

f5.6, 1/15 sec

f8, 1/8 sec

f11, 1/4 sec

f16, 1/2 sec

f22, 1 sec

I color corrected this one because I felt that the white balance was a bit off. I have a mixture of lighting types in my kitchen so the above shots all looked yellow to me.

f5.6, 1/15sec

Assignment 2 - Part 1 : Understanding Shutter Speeds

I tossed around a few ideas for this shoot before settling on this.

Back in my high school photo class, I had shot some pictures of the playground in the park in town, and I liked the way they came out so I decided to revisit the swings to get some great motion shots. I was expecting the same ol' rusty chained swings from my youth, but the town must have gotten a bunch of money at some point to replace the worn out children's playthings with bright new plastic-y unphotogenic playground stuffs.

I would have sought out a different playground if I had the extra time, but I was working with what I had. It was also late afternoon and the sun was on it's way down, so I shot at a higher ISO. Please forgive any graininess that shows up.

1/250, f4.5

1/125, f6.3

Not much difference between the top two, unless you look more closely at the swing chain, as well as the chain coming off the back of the seat.

The progression of the next ones are much more obvious. 

1/60, f9.1

1/30, f12.9

1/15, f16

1/8, f22.6

It is harder than I realized at first to photograph motion on a swing, because for that very short split second between going forwards and then fall backwards, you actually hang in the air still. Because of this, even some of the slower shutter speeds were able to get relatively unblurry shots. I used a mono-pod when shooting to help reduce camera shake. The parents of all the little kids running around must have thought my fiancé and I were awfully weird. Kids kept running up to us to watch what we were doing. Some of the little ones probably think cameras are only a function of a cell phone and I'd bet they had never seen an SLR before.

I hate how over-saturated the photos look, but the plastic was really that vibrant. So I played around in photoshop, and:

Assignment 1 - Part 1

I think one of the biggest problems I have as an artist and photographer is that I am entirely too insular. I don't really know many photographers by name. I don't really go to gallery shows or too many museums. I partially blame that on having lived in Upstate NY for 5 years in my early twenties, you know, my formative years, where there is nothing to go to pretty much at all ever. Now that I am living in North Jersey again and there is certainly a lot more around, I'm not really sure where to start. Feast or famine, I guess. Either way, I'm at a loss.

Please, don't take that to mean that I don't look at photographs or I don't love photographs or that I am oblivious to the world around me. I'm always looking, and I'm loving a lot of what I see - I just don't pursue it further, or remember to bookmark whatever website it happened to be on.

So, for this assignment I turned to guaranteed good source for awesome photography: National Geographic. (Note: Click the links after the photos to see them on larger on NatGeo's site.)

Olympic National Park, Washington

Photograph by Michael Hanson

I love how ethereal this is. The height, the atmosphere, and the texture of the tree bark. I can almost feel that damp forest air.

Hippopotamus

Photograph by Anna Ponomareva

I love how you can see the texture of the hippo's slimy, bristly face. Oh, and, he's SMILING!! How can you not love it? (Did you know that hippos actually kill more people in Africa each year than crocodiles? The more you know...)

Birds Sitting in the Fog

Photograph by Roger Becker

I love the lighting, the ripples on the water, and the subtle details in the shadows of this photo. At first glance you think it is a painting - I love that. The overall feel is beautiful. Added bonus - this was shot in New Jersey! Yay for our state not just being a big garbage heap, yay!

Sunflower

Photograph by Rick Barich

I <3 macro photography. It makes you look at things we consider ordinary in an extraordinary way. I think it maybe makes people appreciate things more. The colors in this photo are gorgeous, and I love sunflowers.

Grazing Horses, Mongolia

Photograph by Eric Kruszewski

I collected horse figures when I was a girl. I'm positive that "a horse" was on my birthday wish list for way longer than most other girls. They are so graceful and so beautiful and I think this photograph captures this well. I love the very low perspective, as if we are hiding in the grass where this photog must have been to get this shot. The atmosphere and the colors are really pleasing to me as well.

I picked all nature/wildlife photos because that is where most of my interest lies right now with photography. I used to dream about some day working for National Geographic and getting to travel the world and photograph all sorts of awesome stuff. Then I started thinking that it wasn't really the photographers so much as the subject that made these photos. My interests shifted around a bit, especially when I was still working with B&W film, but now that I've come full circle and am back into this kind of work I'm realizing there is so much more to it than having something "pretty" to shoot - especially in this area when almost every natural setting has some trash, some litter, and other debris all over the place - it is so hard to be in some of these moments in the first place: somewhere that looks untouched.

Assignment 1 - Part 2 : Recent Personal Work

Here are some of my recent photographs from my personal work. Just the other day I was able to exhibit these photographs, and more, at a small art show in my hometown, at the library I work at. (I actually work at *two* libraries. Yes, point your fingers and scream "NERD!" in my general direction.) It was my first time ever having any of my work involved any art show, and while I didn't sell anything, it was a good experience and I got to talk with other local artists. Good times.

Some of these were shot on my Nikon S7c. Yes, it is a point and shoot, but it has a high quality Nikkor lens, sweet macro mode, and I think I can shoot manual and save as Raw, but honestly I've never done that with it. Plus it's cute and tiny and I carry it with me a lot more than I do a DSLR. Some were also shot on the camera I will be using for class, a Canon Rebel XSi. I might talk myself into getting a Nikon DSLR. (drooooool) We shall see about that one, though.

"Ripples", Catskills State Park, NY - (c)2010 (Shot w Nikon S7c)

"Lady in Wading", Catskills State Park, NY - (c)2010 (Shot w Nikon S7c)

Alright, perhaps I was a *bit* in love with this ducky lady, but she proved to be quite the little model. I've worked with a few models in the past before, and it was nice to work with one who didn't open her mouth beak every other shot. The rest of her flock wasn't too keen on me, but she was brave enough to swim close to the shore and spend a bit of time with me. I took a ton of shots of her, but mostly I just sat and watched her preen and eat weeds and other ducky stuff. I have a bit of a thing for birds, in general.

"Catskills Solitude", Catskills State Park, NY - (c)2010 (Shot w Canon XSi)

I don't often shoot people, but sometimes it happens. Luckily, it is with my camera when I do.

"Tree Lichen", McFaul Wildlife Center, Bergen County, NJ - (c)2010 (Shot w Canon XSi)

I really like "texture-y" photos. I think that texture is an often overlooked element in photography, so I am in a constant quest to capture texture "on film" (although, it isn't really film anymore). I don't think this is my best example of texture, but I like the overall color and composition.

"Little Calf", West Halifax, VT (c)2010 (Shot w Nikon S7c)

I get a lot of questions about if this is a baby deer, so I named it "Little Calf" thinking that would help. For the record, a calf is a baby cow, and a fawn is a baby deer. So, it is a cow. Although, how awesome would it have been if I got this close to a baby deer. Maybe someday I will. :)

These are only minimally edited, and slightly cropped to an 8x10 ratio, since that is what size I had just had them printed at.

If you are interested in seeing my older photoblog-portfolio-thing-a-ma-jig, you can view it here.

Welcome!

Welcome to my photoblog!

I am no stranger to blogging, but this is my first endeavor into tying it in with a course at school; this blog is about my Digital Imaging class at William Paterson University. I am a returning student there, this being my first semester back in six years. I am studying towards my Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, and plan on having my concentration in Photography, although my interests lie in much more than just photography.


I draw a lot of my inspiration from the natural world around me, however might it be diminished in Northern Jersey. I also love, love, macro photography. Lately most of my work has been nature and wildlife, but I try to incorporate other elements into my work as well. I started learning darkroom photography back in High School (which is much longer ago than I'd like to admit), but my love for cameras and photography much proceeded that. I've worked in a variety of photographic mediums over the years: film, polaroids, large format film, and now digital. I love it all.


I am currently living in Hawthorne, NJ with my fiancé (a Willy P BFA alum!) and our kitty cat, Noah. I drive a beat up station wagon and I love it. I work in a library, and most of the time I love it. I'm a vegetarian and eco-friendly and I was a girl scout and I don't care what anyone has to say about that. I desperately want a Pembroke Welsh Corgi puppy because they are ridiculously disproportionate and that makes them infinitely cuter. I'm a self proclaimed geek. I love video games and technology and gadgets and twitter. I love gardening and baking and knitting (well, learning to) but I sure don't think of my self as domestic at all. I'm a hell of a lot more than just that, but it's 2 am and I should be doing English homework that I loathe and I'm procrastinating, but the point is, these are parts of me and all of this influences my work.


I figured you should all get to know me somewhat, so you can see where I'm coming from, seeing as we are going to be looking at each others' work over the semester.


So, hi! I'm looking forward to this class a lot and seeing everyone's work!


:)