“Sometimes we make love with our eyes. Sometimes we
make love with our hands. Sometimes we make love with our bodies. Always we make
love with our hearts.”

For my concentration I decided to do it on portraits through hands. I got the idea when I was talking to a close friend who was thinking what to do for their own concentration, and I mentioned to her unusual ways for portraits and I thought about how "normal" portraits are, with a person's full body and decided to narrow it down to their hands.

I wanted to do portraits of my family and my friends, for instance my brother plays trumpet, my mother is a nanny and my father is a pressman, and I wanted to capture them doing what I've known them for. I want it to be personal and its very important to me to stand up and prove myself worthy not only to my peers and classmates but to myself.

I had an assignment, I forgot, and I chose to tell my life through Alice in Wonderland, my favorite story that I read in high school.

I was at Greynolds Park, when I found one of my friends wandering around and I recruited him to be my white rabbit. I played with elements in this piece; focus and symmetry. I wanted this to be the scene where Alice gets a glimpse of the white rabbit and according to my verison, falls in love with him.

In this picture, its Alice chasing after her white rabbit, and I tried to play with symmetry again.

This was one of my last pictures, it has Alice in the middle ground and The White Rabbit in the foreground, with the White Queen in the back and Alice choosing whether to stay to go back to reality.

For my second roll, I changed it up again, I put my subject more in her element, with a long sleeved shirt and changed up the necklace. I tried to make it softer let reflect more upon herself. In the first image, she is looking off and thinking with her hand gently touching her face; my subject is a very big thinker she thinks about everything and anything. In the second image, her hand is reaching out, this is exactly how my subject is, she is in a darker setting from all the other pictures and she is reaching out almost asking for the photographer's hand, I played with focus and lightning and I'm pretty proud of how they look. My last picture is exactly how my subject is, she's a delicate and precious person to me yet she'd grab a branch with thorns and examine it because even when your fragile you still are curious and you can still find the beauty in anything.

If you know Valentina Sayig, my subject, you'll know that she is the most interesting person in the world who has so many layers, she's sweet and caring and yet she can tear your head off. I decided to play with who she is, she is known for dressing masculine and covering up herself in layers. So I decided to make her bare, we found a vest and a pair of stockings and I brought over my skirt and tank top and let her borrow my mothers pearls. I did her make up and the whole time we both had fun, it was like playing dress up. But in the end I showed her and everyone else that you can be beautiful being yourself and being someone your not.

I was at a park, over the summer with my mother, when I saw this tree reaching over the fence, the branches hung suspended over the ground and the sunlight would come through the leaves making shadows on the ground, and I took this photograph thinking that if I could see so much in one tree, maybe people could see so much in me.

This pretty lady here, that I chose to be my subject, is a beautiful poet, who lives in a beautiful gated community with a gazebo on a little lake (man made of course), and we went out there and I listened to her playing the guitar, she was was extremely nervous because she said she didn't play good, but I told her they wouldn't hear you people would only see you. She began strumming away playing the theme to Titanic, and as I circled her taking photographs for my friend documentary, the picture I chose was one of the first I actually took. I chose it because she's so concentrated on playing her guitar, her eyes are closed and for one perfect moment in time, nothing else mattered.

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The lady below, is a person that I love to shoot, I have played with identity in many of my pictures with her; in this one that I decided to share, she is totally in her element in a suit, staring at the camera, holding her tie, its harsh lighting but I love it because even in this photograph I know that my subject is still herself even if she is dressed like a boy.

“Sometimes you put walls up not to keep people out,

but to see who cares enough to break them down.”

These are my self portraits, now, I chose these two portraits because they are so similar yet different. The first one on the top is of myself, staring at the windows and in the background you see Miami's buildings. I chose this one because to me I feel that sometimes your so far away from something so close. Miami is known for being the party city and the city where fun happens yet I feel like I'm in the dark and just staring outside to watch others have their fun.

The picture below is of me again, on a balcony, I'm staring down at the street, it was a busy day buses were coming through and cars were leaving and coming, but on that street corner was a park, and I longed to be there. But instead I was trapped, in a prison of sorts, these bars from the balcony held me back and all I could do was long to be there.

To me both these photographs showed who I really am, a person that even in the light or the dark is still so far away from the rest of the world and just wants to be apart of it.

If I was to look through the eyes of the beholder, I would only see myself, looking back at me

Not all your subjects will be people, they can be animals and plants and even buildings.
I chose two of the many pictures I have of my dog named Coco, on the left, and my bird Paulie, on the right. Both animals are extremely different, for instance Coco is a mammal and Paulie is whatever birds are; but when it comes to shooting them I chose two different places for my two very different subjects. Coco is a very hyper dog who is friendly and loves to play, so I chose outside; even if her personality doesn't show my dog is still a very good model, whenever I take my camera out she poses and looks at it and smiles. On the other hand my bird, was one of the hardest subjects I ever tried to take photographs of. I put my bird on the chandelier in my dining room and my bird almost flew away, but instead for one moment in time it turned its head and looked directly at the camera giving me this great shot! With both my subjects I played with something in particular; for my dog I played with lighting, I made sure it was bright and that she would totally be in her element meanwhile for my bird I took him out of his element and played with focus since my bird is so small and I wanted to make sure my subject could be seen and would be the only thing someone would see when they look at my photograph.

Don't let your fear of change
restrain you from trying new things

~Paulette LaValley~

I was assigned to keep a blog for my AP Studio Art Class, photography, and I decided what the heck might as well. I didn't know exactly what I could put here, but than I thought about it there is so much you can put on this free forum.

• I can post my inspiration.
• I can post my thoughts.
• I can post my pictures.
• I can post my feelings
• I can post me.