For my second alternative process, I chose the fancy looking cyanotype. This photo was taken in Greenwich Village where I've always been in love with the architecture and feel of this little part of the city. Picking the photo was easy, and then I had to pick my process, so naturally I wanted to use my favorite picture for one of my favorite processes. The final result takes away the natural look of a new york city building and leaves you with a colder toned, wonkier photo. When you look at buildings in New York City, you look at certain characteristics that aren't very common anywhere else. The way the arches of the windows are white, and the fire escapes much the same, highlights the infamous structure and content that makes this city's buildings so unique. 

If you obey all the rules, you'll miss out on some fun

This photo project was to go against the basis of all other projects, and break the rules of composition. 

For the first photo, the entire subject is not in the frame, creating a merger. Another merger happening in this, is the cloud behind the torch that Lady Liberty is holding, creates the illusion of smoke rising out of it. 

In the second photo, the center of focus becomes the railing in the middle, although it's Jen that is really our subject. Another distracting factor are the two doors that fit perfectly in-between the railing. I like the distorted feel of this picture, courtesy of a fisheye lens and positioning myself accordingly. The fact that my subject (Jen) isn't drawing any attention to herself, by putting her head down and hiding her face, tearing the focus away. Yet another composition rule broken. 

In the third picture, well, where is the focus?! Your eyes are drawn to Jen, and back to the glistening light coming from the door and back to Jen. I've also distorted the perception of how far away the door is. Looks far away to me, but is it? I didn't break the rule of thirds, but it's as if I've taken it into account twice. The door, and my subject are both within the rule of third boundaries, but that just splits your focus in two. Snap.

As for the fourth picture, well, rule of thirds went out the door. 

And surely enough, for my last picture. The door is blocking jen, so she's become a merger. She's also centered. Adios to rule of thirds. My hand is another thing that draws your eyes away from Jen, giving you a feel that this just isn't balanced. And the direction of the door and the baseboards, and even the tiles on the floor, and the light, are all drawing your eyes to the doors behind Jen. Au revoir to the composition rule with lines. And in all the chaos of the photo, you still get this decisive moment where we're all left to wonder why all of this is happening, and to question it. And I think that the photos we take should do that. 

Hugh Johnson thinks no two gardens are the same, perhaps that goes for photomontages too.

The first in my series of alternative processes is my photomontage. I'm not much of a gardener so in the spirit of good weather, I made my own garden, darkroom style. I wanted to follow on the quote by Hugh Johnson, that no two gardens are the same. Using a rake (adjusting my enlarger), and some gardening gloves (adjusting the timer accordingly through experimentation) I discovered that all this junk I had gathered for my photo could be shuffled together to look like a fancy area for vegetation. On the right of both pictures, using a photo reel and clothes pins I made a windmill that is in motion and blowing the flowers petals out of one flower. With just my luck, it appears as if the direction of the wind doesn't really match with the direction that the flowers are blowing BUT this actually gives off the idea that the windmill is further behind from the flowers therefore blowing them in the proper direction. To make more sense of what I just said, basically it makes the windmill look like it's behind the flowers instead of beside. On the right there's like motion blur under the photo reel convincing you that it really is windy. Then we've got my snake ring and that little guy is really just playing himself in this. What's even better is that one of the flower petals looks like a bird on the montage to the left. He's waldo. Where is he?!?