Color
I took this picture on my back porch using my daughter's crayons. I wanted something simple and direct. I think the bright colors show us a basic but quite literal representation of what we imagine when we think of the word "color".
Line
This picture was taken looking out of my front window through the blinds. It shows strong horizontal lines of various thicknesses. I changed the photo to black and white so that the color would not distract from the bold lines.
Texture
Texture is the main focus here in this monochrome picture. This is a close-up shot of some shingles on the barn behind my house. You can almost feel the roughness of the asphalt shingles in the picture.
Value
This is an outdoor shot of my Siamese cat, Zsa Zsa, looking out into the bright sunlight from underneath my truck. It was a hot summer day, and the relative coolness under the vehicle is a common place for her to rest. By making this picture black and white, you can better see the shades of gray in the photoraph. The black silhouette of the cat's head and ears give way to the lighter shadow underneath the truck. As the depth of field approaches the bright sunlight, the shadow lightens further, until it erupts into the stark light of the grassy yard beyond.
Focal Point
The focal point of this photo is the white blossom in the left hand side of the frame. I took this picture right outside my bedroom window, but I'm not sure what kind of tree it is. Using the rule of thirds, I positioned the flower on the left line and put it in the foreground. The white blossom also pops out against the rich green background. The other blossom in the background serves as an arrow that points to the other flower, drawing the eye to the focal point.
Contrast
Strong contrast is seen at the image at left, as the bright sunlight filters through a mulberry tree in my backyard. The green leaves and grey branches look much darker than in reality next to the almost direct sunlight coming into the camera. The sky was actually very blue on this day, but because I took the picture almost directly towards the sun, it looks white in this photo.
Movement
This is Bob. Bob is a feist who gets really happy and excited about everything, except other dogs. His little nub of a tale is always wagging, so I found this picture to be an excellent example of movement in an image.
Unity
I really liked this picture of the old piano at my house. I'm always tuning it so I've stopped putting the wooden cover back on it. I like it better this away anyway; it looks cool and it's louder. My wife does not like it like this. Anyway, I think this picture represents unity. The entirity of the picture is pleasing to the eye: the lines and patterns of the keys, hammers, tuning pegs, and strings, the movement of the diagonal lines juxtaposed with the straight lines on the left, the different brown and amber hues blending together and contrasting with the white and black keys, and overall complexity seen in the inner workings of the instrument make the photograph interesting and unite it as an effective and powerful image.
Line and Movement
I took this picture in my backyard of a sprinker shooting water into the air. The lines of the water blasting into the sky against the green backdrop of the trees show lively movement. Towards the top of the photo, the water begins to break up as the jet of water widens. You can also see drops of water falling back to the ground.
Pattern, Color, and Texture
This is close-up image of my bedroom curtains. It shows the bright colors of the fabric as well as it's texture. The pattern is seen not in the colors (though it is of course a pattern) but in the stiching of the fabric itself. The checked weave of the cloth casts a grid on the whole photograph, and shows the tactile nature of the fabric. The light field of the curtains also allows the colors to pop.
Line, Texture, and Balance
The strong lines that intersect this image divide the photo to create a pleasing balance. This is a picture taken in my garden. The rough looking twine, which gives the picture texture, is for my green bean vines to grow up. The angles that the lines make also give visual interest to the picture. The straight, man made lines of the twine contrast with the wild growth of nature in the background.
Shape and Pattern
A stained glass window above my front door was the subject of this picture. The strong shapes and pattern of the design are apparent. Less easily seen is the beaded board ceiling of the front porch through the clear glass. The straight lines of the board are rippled through the distortion caused by the old glass, but still create a horizontal counter to the verticle lines of the window.
Proximity
My daughter's abacus shows the principle of proximity. Even though the beads are colored, the eye still sees this as two groups of beads--the left group and the right group, instead of five different groups based on their color, or ten different groups based on the number of lines of beads.
Similarity
Legos show how we see group images that look similar. The green Legos seem to cut a path through the red Legos. They're all the same basically; I believe they all came from the same set. But our minds immediately group them by color when we see them laid out like this.
Continuity
I took this picture of a pillow that was on my sofa at a very close range to show the principle of continuity. The pattern on the pillow is implied by the photograh bet we never see it completely repeated in the picture. Our minds complete the pattern for us despite not having all the information there in the image.
Closure
I drained the color out of this picture of a globe at my house to better show how our minds fill in the gaps to complete a percieved shape. We don't see the full sphere of the Earth in this image, but we instantly know that it is round from this fragment of the globe. In the same way, our minds complete the horizontal axis that goes around the globe. In our head, we know just from seeing a little part fo the curve of the metal that it completely encircles the entire globe.
Reflection
I really enjoyed this assignment. It helped me start to analyze images in the "art school" terms I had read about in the text. I find this sort of thing facinating, but I admit I was wholly ignorant of all of the terminology and methods used to correctly frame, analyze, and discuss images before I did this assignment.
I had a lot of fun walking around the house looking for examples of the visual principles I had read about. Sometimes, I would see an imagethat I knew had to be "something" but I wasn't sure what requirement it met. I would take the picture anyway, then look at it later to see where it fit in to the assignment. Overall, the assignment was challenging, but not in the same way that most school-related assignments are. Taking pictures is quick and easy, but finding the right pictures to take was a fun assignment.
I could see myself using an assignment like this in a goverment class, where we many times work with concepts instead of facts. Asking students to come to class with an image of "democracy" would be an interesting experiment. This assignment has revealed a new way to look at images and opened many doors for use in the classroom.
I had a lot of fun walking around the house looking for examples of the visual principles I had read about. Sometimes, I would see an imagethat I knew had to be "something" but I wasn't sure what requirement it met. I would take the picture anyway, then look at it later to see where it fit in to the assignment. Overall, the assignment was challenging, but not in the same way that most school-related assignments are. Taking pictures is quick and easy, but finding the right pictures to take was a fun assignment.
I could see myself using an assignment like this in a goverment class, where we many times work with concepts instead of facts. Asking students to come to class with an image of "democracy" would be an interesting experiment. This assignment has revealed a new way to look at images and opened many doors for use in the classroom.