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From the Assignment Bank, I pulled “Mission:  Defamiliarize” from Visual Assignments.  The goal is to make a set of 10 photos using something familiar then defamiliarize it—make it seem foreign by using extreme closeups, changing the lighting and other effects to make the object like something you’ve never seen before, or spooky, luminous or magical.  Unfortunately, all the examples that I tried have escaped so I am left to my creative devices.

In my photography, the first goal is to get as much of the finished product in the original image and I prefer to use all natural lighting, aka “nat light”.  I’m on the ground, in the water, climbing up berms; whatever I have to do to get behind the light and get the shot.  But I do follow the rules.  I don’t go onto private property unless I have permission, and if I’m driving, I only take pictures safely through the window while stopped or if I’m seriously crawling (besides, they won’t be in focus if I drive and shoot at high speed).  Then, the rest of the work is on Microsoft Photo and right now, I forgot everything I was taught in multiple Photoshop classes.  But not to worry—I’m taking Photography this semester.

The photos I picked are from my files over the past few years, and I hope you enjoy them.  This kind of photography is my thing.  I really like taking pictures that make you think about what you’re looking at.  Everyone’s probably already taken a “happy snap” of the same flower or building as I am standing in front of, but what can I do to make me want to print it and put it on my wall, or make a friend actually want to see the photo??  I’m not so much into putting bubbles in front of pictures, or pigs flying around squeaking, but hey that day may come this semester!  Thinking about Bob Ross and the Joy of Painting, I think the world is a fascinating place, and it’s more fascinating up close.  The symmetry and color of a flower is beyond perfection.  So look close at what the world creates for us!  I have found a few photos that represent what I’m talking about but it was difficult to find ten right away.  I do need to move on to the next assignment so I had to compromise with other photos that meet the requirements of the assignment, that were on my hard drive.  I wonder if I should tell you what some of these photos are.  I think not.  I’ll leave the door open for comments on a few. Because I don’t want to give away where these photos were taken, I’m not going to provide links nor any history about the location where these images were shot.  I guess I can do that later when the gig is up?