Natural Art

 Below are the photos I am including in my final cohesive portfolio and artist statement for my nature photography class. 

 

  Lines are a basic element in almost all forms of art, including paintings, sculpture, dance, and other visual mediums. Lines also appear all throughout nature, in forms such as tree trunks, blades of grass, ripples in water, spiraling vines, and many others. My goal for this portfolio was to combine the natural beauty and basic principles of art growing around us with photography. In addition to capturing the lines in nature I incorporated lines as a compositional technique in many of the images I took and selected for this project. 

   To add variety to these images I included many different types of lines, some straight, others circular, others curling or waving. But I made sure that in each photo lines are either the subject or a strong element. To keep it visually interesting I also used many different angles, focal lengths, color and light tones, and although they are all pictures of nature I tried to include a variety of objects and subjects. 

   I took most of these photographs at Pennsylvania state parks, including Mount Davis, Ohiopyle, McConnells Mills, Presque Isle, Point State Park, Raccoon Creek, Schenley Park, and Trough Creek. There are also a few I created near my home in West Virginia. I took pictures at the Pittsburgh Zoo and the Abandoned Turnpike for this project, however I chose not to include those in my final selection because they did not fit the theme very well and detracted from the overall unity. When selecting the images to include in my final fifteen I considered not only the lines and variety of subjects, but also the color and general feel of the photos. I printed these photos on watercolor paper, which gives them a slightly painterly appearance, and brings out different color tones and vibrancies. 

   Throughout this portfolio I tried to capture the raw, organic art forming around us in nature. My goal was to communicate the lines of nature in interesting and varied images. Since I had not decided to print on watercolor paper until after I created almost all the images, including the painterly appearance in the images as a sub-theme was a post-production decision.