Social Event I

i.  Leah Moak: 12/04/2010

    Camera: Nikon D70

    Shutter Speed: 1/320 sec

    Exposure Program: Aperture priority

    F-Stop: f/5.3

    ISO: 200

    Focal Length: 180.0 mm

    Lens: 75.0-240.0 mm f/4.5-5.6

    Tripod: No

ii.  Leah Moak: 12/04/2010

    Camera: Nikon D70

    Shutter Speed: 1/500 sec

    Exposure Program: Aperture priority

    F-Stop: f/5.3

    ISO: 200

    Focal Length: 180.0 mm

    Lens: 75.0-240.0 mm f/4.5-5.6

    Tripod: No

iii.  Leah Moak: 12/04/2010

     Camera: Nikon D70

     Shutter Speed: 1/400 sec
     Exposure Program: Aperture Priority

     F-Stop: f/5.3

     ISO: 200

     Focal Length: 180.0 mm

     Lens: 75.0-240.0 mm f/4.5-5.6

     Tripod: No

 

Social Event II

i.  Leah Moak: 12/04/2010

    Camera: Nikon D70

    Shutter Speed: 1/3200 sec

    Exposure Program: Shutter priority

    F-Stop: f/5.0

    ISO: 200

    Focal Length: 80.0 mm

    Lens: 75.0-240.0 mm f/4.5-5.6

    Tripod: No

ii.   Leah Moak: 12/04/2010

     Camera: Nikon D70

     Shutter Speed: 1/500 sec

     Exposure Program: Shutter priority

     F-Stop: f/4.8

     ISO: 200

     Focal Length: 105.0 mm

     Lens: 75.0-240.0 mm f/4.5-5.6

     Tripod: No

Social Event III

  Leah Moak: 12/04/2010

  Camera: Nikon D70

  Shutter Speed: 1/500 sec

  Exposure Program: Aperture priority

  F-Stop: f/5.6

  ISO: 200

  Focal Length: 92.0 mm

  Lens: 75.0-240.0m f/4.5-5.6

  Tripod: No

  Tripod: No

Hannah

    This is a portrait of Hannah, my friend, colleague and the head organizer at Montana Conservation Voters.  MCV endorses local political candidates who make conservation focus of their platforms and campaigns heavily for endorsed candidates.  This is a photograph of Hannah in her MCV office at around 2 p.m. on election day, well before any election results were posted.  "Pam Ellis", the name directly to the right of her head, was a candidate running for election to the House of Representatives and the primary focus of Hannah's job.  She organized extensive neighborhood canvasses for Pam and interpreted the results of those canvasses into phone lists of voters likely to vote for Pam or those likely to vote for her opponent.  Pam lost soundly that night, as did the majority of MCV endorsed candidates; Hannah was devastated.  This images captures Hannah's hopes, fears, and her great anticipation of the results of the election.  She is sitting at the desk where she spent months planning; the photograph captures a bit of the messiness and chaos that came with her job.  I chose to convert the image into black and white in order to instill a sense of timelessness (the same reason I strove for some graininess in the image) and to enhance the editorial nature of the portrait.

Hannah

Leah Moak: 11/02/2010
Camera: Nikon D70

Shutter Speed: 1/10 sec

Exposure Program: Shutter priority

F-Stop: f/13

ISO: 200

Focal Length: 75.0 mm

Lens: 28.0-80.0 mm f/4.5-5.6

Tripod: Yes

Social Comment

     The cat dissection portion of my Vertebrate Anatomy class left me feeling disconcerted; the animals came from animal shelters around Billings and were put down after failing to be adopted.  After each laboratory session spent dissecting, I went home and played with my own cat, Annie (herself a rescued stray from an animal shelter); throughout my interactions with her I felt guilty and dishonest, and I asked myself: how is it that people welcome certain animals into their homes to be treated as members of their family, and simultaneously treat other animals as subjects of experimentation, food sources, or simply as pests to be exterminated?  This image is meant to force the observer to reconcile two portrayals of human interaction with animals.  The first photograph depicts my sister Ellen with our cat Annie; I wanted them to interact lovingly, but I also wanted the image hint at something sinister.  Ellen's eye contact with the observer suggests knowledge, information that we share about a different facet of human-animal interactions.  The second photograph portrays the dissected cat; the head of the animal is in focus, while the open thoracic and abdominal cavities are blurred as a result of the shallow depth of field.  I didn't want the gruesomeness of the dissection to overwhelm the photograph; I wanted the viewer to have to search the image in order to discover its true subject.  In order to emphasize the parallels between the dissected cat and Annie, I placed their eyes in roughly the same plane and used minimal color to focus the viewer's attention on the animals.

Social Comment

i.  Leah Moak: 11/17/2010

    Camera: Nikon D70

    Shutter Speed: 1/6 sec

    Exposure Program: Shutter priority

    F-Stop: f/3.5

    ISO: 200

    Focal Length: 28.0 mm

    Lens: 28.0-80.0 mm f/3.5-5.6

    Tripod: Yes

ii.  Leah Moak: 11/23/2010

    Camera: Nikon D70

    Shutter Speed: 1/3o sec

    Exposure Program: Shutter priority

    F-Stop: f/3.8

    ISO: 200

    Focal Length: 31.0 mm

    Lens: 28.0-80.0 mm f/4.5-5.6

    Tripod: Yes

Night I

     This is a triptych of images of the featured attraction at the Roman Theater in Red Lodge.  I was most struck by the red of the doors of the theater and by the vintage feeling evoked by the sign.  The triptych format emphasizes the repetition of the doors and each photograph reveals a slightly different image and a slightly different feeling is evoked in each frame (the first frame and the last frame are actually the same photograph; the shadows of the legs in front of the movie poster in the third frame are pasted in from yet another photograph).  Additionally, I wanted the strong horizontal composition in each individual frame to be balanced out by the overall strong vertical composition of the image as a whole.  The shadow legs in the third frame and the double image effect in the second frame adds a surreal quality to the theater and helps to develop a sense of mystery and intrigue.  

Night I

i.  Leah Moak: 12/04/2010

    Camera: Nikon D70

    Shutter Speed: 0.8 sec

    Exposure Program: Shutter priority

    F-Stop: f/5.6

    ISO: 200

    Focal Length: 80.0 mm

    Lens: 75.0-240.0 mm f/4.5-5.6

    Tripod:  Yes

ii.  Leah Moak: 12/04/2010

     Camera: Nikon D70

     Shutter Speed: 30.0 sec

     Exposure Program: Shutter priority

     F-Stop: f/32

     ISO: 200

     Focal Length: 80.0 mm

     Lens: 75.0-240.0 mm f/4.5-5.6

     Tripod: Yes

iii.  (see "i")

Night II

     This is an image of Broadway Avenue in Red Lodge during the Christmas Stroll. The street was closed to traffic as people walked the main drag through town, stopping to browse shops and to warm themselves at the various fire pits assembled for the occasion.  I wanted to capture the beauty of the town and people flitting through the scene so I set up my tripod in the middle of Broadway and began shooting.  My long shutter speed (6.0 seconds) meant that several individuals crossed in front of the camera and were captured as wispy transparent figures and shadows darting across and down the street.  I wanted this image to be seen from the perspective of someone walking down the street, being guided by the lights and signs of the town.  I also chose a strong horizontal composition in order to capture the entirety of the lights and shops along the street as well as to emphasize the vanishing point at the end of the street; I want the observer to follow the road through the image.

Night II

  Leah Moak: 12/04/2010

  Camera: Nikon D70

  Shutter Speed: 6.0 sec

  Exposure Program: Shutter priority

  F-Stop: f/25

  ISO: 200

  Focal Length: 80.0 mm

  Lens: 75.0-240.0 mm f/4.5-5.6

  Tripod: Yes

Mysterical

     This piece was an endeavor in Photoshop to merge a drawing and a photograph into one cohesive image.  Firstly, I photographed a drawing of mine (rendered for my Anatomy and Physiology professor) and secondly, I revisited the photograph "Heart I" from our still-life assignment.  In Photoshop, I made the drawing my background layer and then layered "Heart I" on top and reduced the opacity.  Next I cut and pasted many parts of both images onto my original layers in an attempt to blend the drawing with the photograph (there are a total of 15 layers in this piece).  Working with blending tools, the magnetic lasso, and adjusting the opacity of layers were central operations throughout my work on this image.  My overall objective of this piece is to blur the lines between drawing and photograph and by doing so, force the observer to closely examine the piece, and to discover the subtle changes in light and line and texture of the image as a whole.

Mysterical