CPS All-City Visual Arts Exhibitions

Teacher Name: Elizabeth Osborne
Grade: 12

Materials: One flower
Dimensions: 13 x 19 inches

Artist Statement: Nature is a part of our every day, and yet we never take the time to look at what’s around us unless we are traveling, but we don’t need to spend money on vacation to see a beauty– we just have to walk outside our homes and really take a look and appreciate what we see. Everyday doing simple things, I look around to see this beautiful scenery around me and I wish I could freeze time to look at it forever. A simple tilt of my head, zooming in/out, and the amount of color can change what you connect with and every time you look again you can notice something new.

As I’m taking pictures, I imagine how I will edit it, and if my idea can’t be done with that picture, I capture it again. I don’t believe in deleting any pictures because every picture has a story to tell you just have to look hard enough. Leaving my camera in manual mode leaves me to control everything about my pictures I take because I intend to edit all of them. I ask myself ‘how does this show a transformation of nature through photography that sparks an emotional connection?’ Most of my pictures focus on one subject while others show how multiple objects can form to make one subject.

As I go to edit them I enhance colors already there or remove select colors to help change the perspective we have of nature in itself: emphasizing the emotional effect of the world around us. So first, I focus on lighting: going back and forth between brightness/contrast and levels determine focus, then once satisfied I move to hue/saturation: focusing on different exposures to certain colors and removing certain colors, then finally, brightness/contrast and levels again to clean it up. I try out different blending modes or filters just to add something more. I want people to see nature through my eyes: nature surrounds us every day and never take the time to appreciate the beauty in going outside that makes simple things that much more exciting.