Ethnic Portrait Assignment

Describe: When I look at this image I see a beautiful, young Japanese lady who is very happy with her cultural background. She looks like she is comfortable with her ethnicity. To further express her ethnic background,  I used a fan for my Japanese portrait, a kimono, and a background with nature.

Analyze: When I look at this piece of art, I see texture, line, color, and shape. My objective was to focus on the model, so some of my portraits have a background that was lighten with the dodge tool or blurred so that the model could be in focus.

Interpret: I was trying to communicate the cultural background that we all have. When I have conversations with my peers, our conversations are mainly about what we did last weekend, what we are going to do this weekend, and other random stuff. Very rarely do my peers and I talk about our cultural background or where our family originated from so I wanted further display that by powerfully expressing their ethnic background.

Judge: Overall, I am happy with my final work. When I presented this image to my Senior Exhibition panel, one of my panelist told me, "It almost looks like a painting." Another told me, "I've been to Japan and that looks like it was taken there." I feel I have grown as a photographer and have learned to work with Photoshop. I lightened her face to make it look like she was wearing powder, I added lipstick, and blush. I also darkened her hair, the kimono, and fan using the burn tool to bring out the beautiful colors in this image.