Julie Lee's Artist Statement

This past semester, I have truly learned the meaning of what it takes to master photography, and how important it is. Photography is used all over the word. It captures everything: from sceneries, people, nature, and more. It is used to express people’s thoughts and feelings. It exposes the truth and sometimes the fake of things. It is even used as an advertisement. Photography is a way to show everyone what I see through my own eyes, letting others understand my point of views and feelings. From the previous projects in media arts, and looking through my photos, I’ve discovered that what I really like to do with photography is capture the beauty and elegance of natural things. Also to rearrange objects so they look the way I want them to look, and capturing them in a certain angle to draw more attention for viewers. Three words pop up in my head when I think about what my work is. Elegance, beauty, and lighting.     
     When paying homage to Clarence John Laughlin, it was indeed a hard thing to do. He was a surrealist, capturing the dark and mystery of things. Whereas I captured the beauty of things, which didn’t give much of surrealism feel to it. However, at the ended I ended up with two to three photos that showed mystery and surrealism in then. One including “Prophecy of Sisters” where I used geisha dolls as if they were real. From Clarence, I learned that I could find places that have both shadows and light in it. I learned that beauty could come from anything, giving me a larger view of photography.
    Lighting is the most essential ingredient to photography.  Without it, every photo work is a work of darkness. But with lighting, viewer’s eyes are more drawn into the picture. Take Annie Liebovitz for example. Her work of arts is simply gorgeous, and lighting plays a huge role to why. The way you chose your lighting can affect everything, from the mood of the picture, to the colors of your objects. If I were to compare myself to either Annie or John, I would pick Annie because in my photo’s I deal more with lighting than surrealism.
    With lighting comes editing your photos. This semester, I’ve learned plenty about editing, by using Adobe Photoshop CS3. By de-saturating and blurring images, I can both make a picture look vintage and retro. By using the sponge tool, I can make everything white and black except for the object I choose to stay in color. This creates more attention to the object I want the viewers to see first, making it pop out from the other things. There are other tools in Adobe I used, such as the gradient tool used for typography, and the magic wand tool to cut out an image and place it into another one.
    Although I haven’t yet mastered the art of photography and probably wont anytime soon, I am one step closer than before. From taking Media Arts, I’ve learned the insight of photography, lighting, typography, editing, and more.