Khalid El-Amin

The central idea of my concentration was meant to be a documentary of the increase of poverty with the expansion of industrial companies. The photographs that I shot were all in the south Chicago area or Indiana. With the downfall of the economy, a lot of the small companies and homes became abandoned. The overwhelming abandonment makes the area seem “derelict”.

Marlene Arteaga

Having an attraction for bright and bold colors I was easily attracted to the sensation of the changing of colors from winter to spring. The feeling of plants going from dull, dead colors to vivid eye catching colors. Being able to capture and portray this feeling within my images and my concentration was my main goal intrigues me.

Bethany Berlanga

The central idea of my concentration is abstraction of the human form. Put in simple terms, showing the beauty of the human body beyond the confines of its intended uses.

Deja Richardson

The central idea of my concentration was to capture statues and monuments using light and shadows illustrating contrast. Living in a big beautiful city like Chicago, I am surrounded by amazing statues and monuments. The challenge was making art out of art. Every photographer's eye is different. So every interpretation of these artistic elements are just as different.

Sannya Munir

I isolated the subject in their environment by putting a frame around it so that other people are removed from the picture but not necessary absent from the location. For example in Image 11, the bride's new husband and the wedding photographers were a few feet away from her. I moved my camera a bit to the left I isolated the bride in the picture. My goal is to emphasize the solitude of the subject in urban landscapes and thus play with the viewer expectation of the public locations.







The first few shots I took were cliché, and as I reviewed them I realized I did not want to use the textbook definition of solitude. Someone huddling in a dark corner was not really what I thought of when I heard solitude, and I wanted to show that in my photographs. I photographed in color in daylight using one and two point perspectives. As humans, we see in color and are usually more active during the day. The most common vantage points we see are one and two perspectives – except in the construction and architecture fields where one might encounter three point perspectives more often. I incorporated concepts such as irony and surrealism to kept my pictures interesting. In Image 06 the irony is expressed by the contrasting tone of the young man is sitting alone while the two characters from the picture on the wall are kissing. Image 12 is surreal to me because on our commute to/from work/school among countless individuals, if we take the subway, we are alone; we have not connection to them except that we took the same train to work. The color, texture, and lighting help create a environment in which the surreal is possible. The fact that the Red Line train station is underground adds to this effect.

Marcello Penaherrera

The city is my playground; it is the place where I invest my time and energy towards creating interesting pictures. I pay attention to all the different shapes and colors that downtown Chicago has to offer. In my photographs, I look to incorporate colors that ‘pop’ and capture peoples’ attention. I try to give my photographs interesting compositions so that my audience never loses interest.

Cooper

My concentration involves the textures of Colorado: the petite creeks, the miniature waterfalls, the landscape, the rocks, the growths, the wrinkles, the shadows. Every stone tells a story. I noticed the liveliness of the Colorado landscape as I hiked along its grooves. I tried to show both the natural and the man-made phenomena. From a highway that reaches under a mountain to a hint of red among green foliage, I try and capture any unspoken beauty I can.