Playing With Photography

In this issue of Sound Off we visit art teacher Carolyn Brown's photography class at Camden Hills Regional High School. The students are playing with different elements of photography from traditional composition and dark room to using a scanner, layers and Photoshop. 

"Everyone had to shoot a formal composition shot with a traditional camera in black and white and develop the film in the dark room. Then we had them take one digital photo were they had to scan some kind of texture, for example some Japanese paper, and then layer it up with their photos with Photoshop." 
-Carolyn Brown

The fun part is seeing what was behind their individual choices below:

Sarah Haselton
"Over the sidewalk I scanned in an Indian print on paper and over the rocks I faded in another kind of paper and edited out the background."

Sarah Haselton
"This street was by my house and I thought it was cool because the sign says 'Dead End' but then the road continues, contradicting what the sign says."

Helen Carter
"I scanned Japanese paper onto the computer and through Photoshop, erased the edges of the leaf so it looked as though the paper was the color of the leaf. I also scanned another paper and cut around so it looks like the rocks  had that natural pattern." 

Helen Carter
"This is my sister. Most everyone in my family has a pair of L.L. Bean boots. It's such a traditional Maine boot, so I thought it would be very interesting to shoot that."

Peter Vannorsdall
"I just took a picture of my friend and I Photoshopped a picture of a seagull into her face because I always call her 'gull' instead of 'girl.' I wouldn't say she was really pleased with this."

Peter Vannorsdall
"This is a progression piece that starts far away from the ocean and gets closer. The one on the bottom is a glimpse of Rockport Harbor. The one in the middle gives you a greater idea of it. Then the one at the top is right at the shore."
 

Jack Henry
"I found a picture of these sunglasses sitting on a log and then I found a picture of a mountain range. So then I cropped it and erased some of it to make it look like the mountains were reflected in the sunglasses. So it's almost like something beyond the photo you're seeing."

Jack Henry
"This is on my front porch. It's a kayak and I was looking at it from a window inside when I noticed how the lines of the kayak and the lines of the porch railing and the deck of the porch and the lines of the wall all merged nicely. They're either perpendicular or parallel and I liked how it looked." 

Sean Manning
"That's my cat, Raffi. I took Japanese paper and I selected the background of the photo. Then I copied and pasted the paper layer onto the background and I made it translucent so it wouldn't drown out the cat."

Sean Manning
"This is the original photo that I scanned in to make the digital photo."

Jarod Vanleer
"I was going hiking with my dad one day. Basically I went into Photoshop and turned down the contrast and made the background almost military colors. I decided to Photoshop some words into it describing how I was feeling that day."