Final Statement

Michael T. Robinson

4/20/19

Digital Photography

Artist Statement

            The main focus of my work is to show the ways we humans view and treat nature. Historically, I want to look at how we treat nature from both a positive and negative prospective.

We humans either don’t mow our grass or mow it too low to the point it’s just dirt, we leave our trash out anywhere & don’t pick it up, making our backyard or neighborhood look like a garbage dump. We leave old equipment outside to get rusty, leaving it in a junkyard, doing nothing with it. On the other hand, we humans sometimes take care of nature by planting flowers, making our house look presentable. Like, flowers growing near the house sort of like your typical suburbs. If you went in the suburb area you’d see their grass is green as a NFL football field & the flowers are newly grown or put into the grown. The grass almost looks like turf from a football field, nothing out of place & also looking the type of grass from a cartoon of some kind.

            I’ve seen a lot of old broke down places where much of this produced the same people or companies that say we should make our country better & make more food. How can we do that if we don’t show respect to nature? Don’t leave waste out and about for everybody else to see. We were taught at a young age to pick up after ourselves. However, it seems like the only time we do it is when it’s for a certain company that wants to make the earth better but it’s only a claim like, “Let’s take better care of our earth.” Even with all that, there’s only a little of initiation for taking better care of our planet A.K.A. mother earth.

            The way I took the photos was me trying to find a spot where it looked really degrading or nice. I was driving around the city I live in and finding whatever spot that was supporting my theme I was giving off. If I saw a yard or an old rusty car, machine, equipment left outside with grass around it then, I took a picture of it. Same as if there was a nice looking front yard getting mowed or had some nice flowers by it, I would take a picture of it. I would take a picture of that object or view a couple of times so I could see if which angle better captures the image and has strong message to my theme. Sometimes I would take that same picture but the shutter speed was either high or low.

            The way I edited all of my photos is that when a picture was too bright I went to my levels and brought the brightness down to where it was more clear or if the picture was too dark I brought the brightness up. Everything stayed the same except I would bring the color up to a certain object or view so whatever it was wasn’t so dark or pale. The contrast I only used a little bit to bring a bit detail to something that I feel was important. The hue saturation I used to bring out the colors of a certain space that I felt needed more color.

            So, there you have it. That’s my statement in a whole nutshell.