For the Glory of God: Portraits of LGBT Catholics

 

Fainaru no Kontakuto Shiito

 

Proud to Serve

These photos were presented in the above manner.

Asainmento 3 no Konshepputo

For assignment 3, we were instructed to come up with a photo essay. I decided to cover LGBT people in uniforms. I originally wanted to do two photos of each subject, one of them in uniform, one of them indicating that they're LGBT. But, I've decided instead that I would like to do one photograph, just of the them in uniform, and have it with a quote from them about hardships (or lack of hardships) that they've faced.

By uniform, I mean military, police, firefighter, boy scout, athlete, or even priest.

I've already taken two photos for this assignment. These are the unedited copies of them:

Priest of the North American Old Catholic Church

Former Marine in USO-Inspired Drag

Ichiban Suki na Shashin

Now I get to post one of my favorite photographs that I've taken - although not for this class. There are a few but I'm going to stick to two.

This photo was taken of my boyfriend at the time, posed to imitate an earlier photo of him taken by his mother. I edited the photo to make it look vintage.

Taken outside Kyoto in Japan, this is one of my favorite images. I love the composition, the moment, the color, and the lighting.

Nippu to Taakku

Nip and Tuck! Editing is a beautiful thing when it comes to photography.

Before:

After:

Besides the addition of a white border, quite a bit of editing went into this photograph. I burnt (darkened) the sofa, some parts of the wall, and Tatianna's butt, legs, and arm. I also enhanced the colors a bit, and sharpened the image by increasing the darks (I accidentally shot with too high an ISO and tried desperately to salvage this photo).

Yuumei na Shashinka no Onajiisou na Shashin

For this post, I had to look through my photographs and find one that's similar to another photographer's work.

The photo I chose, one for my third assignment, reminded me of Cindy Sherman's work. Cindy does a lot of queer photography, and great queer portraits. While she usually does portraits like this with a backdrop, it reminded me most of her.

Yuumei na Shashinka

We've talked about several famous photographers in class. This post is an analysis of the work by a handful of the photographers we covered.

Let's start with one of my favorites: Ryan McGinley. He first got famous for his scenes of nude models in nature. His mastery of lighting and color fill me with envy, and his portraits are just perfect. Take a look:

 This one is easily my favorite of his. Just sheer perfection. Interesting subject, great composition, unbelievably real lighting, and so many colors. Love love love.

So weird and so good. Again, great composition, color, and light.

 Like the one above, just so strange.

The lighting in this could not be more beautiful.

I love how weird this is.

Great portrait, the lighting is phenomenal.

Great composition.

 

L.I.G.H.T.I.N.G. And the fact that the subject looks so soft and effeminate, but is covered in tattoos and appears to have a broken wrist.

Next we'll look at Gregory Crewdson, who does photography with a very eerie, cinematic feel. I normally don't like to set up a photo, I like to capture reality, but his work in creating a scene is simply poetic.

Odd colors, odd situation, really interesting.

Great use of different lighting sources.

Utterly bizarre scene. Can't help but stare at this.

Shows the tremendous effort he goes to in order to set up a scene. This was probably using a rain machine.

Next up, a master of Photoshop. Anthony Goicolea (don't ask me how to pronounce his name) got famous by photoshopping himself into really weird situations, making himself look younger, and playing all the parts of the photos.

Very obviously photoshopped, but so wild and fully of life.

 Less obviously photoshopped, but equally wild.

Bizarre and colorful. I can't help but wonder how he so perfectly photoshopped himself hoisting himself.

Looks like a great vintage boarding school photo but it's all him.

Asainmento 2

Assignment two was focused on light. We were to choose a location and photograph it with different light sources. I originally chose Logan Circle, but I got sick so I went with my bedroom.

 Light coming in from the window is shown both on the desk and in the phone. Taken during a sunny day.

 Cityscape through the window. Taken during sunset.

Reflection of candles on the window with bokeh from street lamps. Taken just after sunset.

 Light source as a subject - focusing on candles. Taken just after sunset.

Light coming from the window, captured in a murky vase. Taken on a cloudy day.

It is clear through these photographs how much of an impact light has on a photograph, especially on the color of the image.