Your final project will be a series of images that are connected by a well thought out conceptual idea and a visual and aesthetic style that complements your concept.
A typical photographic project should be 15 images, but you should take your project to state of completion, which could be more or less images, depending on the nature of your project.
Your final project might continue or rework an idea from the first half assignments, or it might be an entirely new idea.

Sarah Borup

What are we consuming?

Are we conscious and aware of what society is implying by constructing us as a materialistic culture?

What do we wish to achieve by purchasing and consuming?

Are we conscious of what the objects we possess symbolize and signify?

Josh Cerf

It’s not a setback. It’s a test.

We have all heard the old cliché “when life gives you lemons, make lemonade.” Well the lemonade has expired with the expression and they have both been replaced by the inspirational tagline, “it’s not a setback. It’s a test.” We are all faced with challenges on a day-to-day basis. It is a fact of life. However it is not the challenges we are faced with that are important though; it is how we deal with them. This series explores how many of us are tested physically, mentally, and socially everyday.

Charlie Hale

Gazing deep into a candle creates a bond between humans and light. It is common among Zen Buddhists to participate in this form of meditation, known as tratak or ‘fixed gazing.’ By fixing the gaze on the candle one can immobilize the mental because the eyes remain motionless. This form of meditation increases the power of memory and brings the mind in a state of awareness, attention and focus.

The way to perform tratak is to start by placing a candle a few feet in front of you at about eye level. Concentrate on the candle and attach your eyes to the bud of light. Imagine the flame is entering your body through your eyes and illuminating your inner being. Once you feel the image of the flame is instilled in your vision, it is acceptable to close your eyes and feel the power of the light creep throughout your body. This form of meditation increases concentration, memory, and mental power, while centering yourself in this world.

This series of images recreates tratak mediation in the same way it is traditionally performed. The candle melts away along with every stress and problem within your body. The light resonates throughout your being, soaking up all that is distracting, and filling you with pure nothingness. Live in the moment; that is the Buddha nature.

Courtney Jones

The way in which our society views beauty has been—and arguably always will be—a topic of great and lengthy discussion; in this class alone, a number of students have used their artistic perception to explore the controversial ideas behind conventionalized beauty. I too, with this final project, strove to both comment and critique the idea of what most would consider “beautiful.” Specifically, this project’s purpose is to juxtapose the ideas commonly associated with aesthetic beauty, with those often associated with the banal or grotesque.

I intended for my photographs to initially attract viewers with their vibrant coloring and formal balance, although I wished for the subject of the photos to illustrate the banality and refuge of human life—really quite literally. While these photographs contain images of garbage, compost, the remains of a once blazing fire, and more, they are still meant to strike the viewer as something of artistic worth. It is this bizarre combination of the aesthetically beautiful and the banal that makes one consider the ironic, yet incredible possibilities of the art world.

Xiao Lin

When I first started out with this series I knew I wanted to portray in abstraction the expressions that our body is capable of. I wanted to emphasize the kind of languages that our body expresses without using everyday facial expressions or gestures. While I had intended to include certain themes in the images, they turned out to express more than I intended. The result proves the human body is in fact quite expressive. Whether these images convey sexuality, intimacy, innocence, maturity or merely the organic relationship between the lines and forms of our body and the clothing etc., it is up to the viewer. This outcome of this experiment seems to suggest that we are able to interpret the kind of body language that is portrayed in these images is perhaps due to ingrained ways of reading the signs that our bodies give off.

Benjamin Michalak and Simone VerEecke

We are all familiar with the portrait. Be it the offhanded snapshot or the professional labor, the final result is the same: we are left, alone, with a face, or series of faces, looking into a moment meant to define the person in question, to give us, as alien observers, something to latch onto, to connect with.

But what do we really take away from looking at a portrait? At the most basic, it is a visual document; the droop of an eye, the color of the skin, the face as a cartographic object. But what makes an iconic portrait so enduring? Think of the Dorothea Lange's photo of a Depression-era woman, her weathered face framed by two mysterious children and the threadbare wall of a tent. Or think of Miles Davis, sitting pensively on a studio stool, trumpet clutched to him like a ward against encroaching equipment. It quickly becomes evident that the portrait can, and should, more than a face. It is these other things, these evidences of the subject's life, that are truly the most revealing.

The authors herein have tried to do the same: to capture subjects and objects, to reveal something more in portrait than just a face. By displaying both a person and their surroundings, the hope is that something else comes through - a sense of mood, of place, a glimpse into attitudes, penchants, possessions and passions.

Duy Nguyen

For my final project, I created a series of images that puts a face to the places and environments in which I can find an inner sense of peace. I tried to capture the essence of the particular moments when a person is experiencing nature, alone, at ease, thoughtful and reflective. I have always found these qualities in certain elements of nature, and I wanted to visualize the scenarios in which I have taken refuge for the past several years. Wide open fields in the summer, quiet, cloudy afternoons, and still mornings are some of most blissful atmospheres I have experienced, and they share a common thread—a still, quiet, and thoughtful mood. To reflect that atmosphere within a person was my intent for this project.

Emma Schwartz

Six million is arguably the most accurate number of lives lost during the Holocaust, but there are few estimates available as to the number of lives affected. There are some estimates circulating around as to how many people “survived” the Holocaust, but it is difficult to see which ones are accurate. The use of the word "survived" is a delicate issue as well, and the usual meaning of the expression "holocaust survivor" is someone who was sent to a death camp, concentration camp (or equivalent), but was still alive at the end of WWII in Europe or when the camp was liberated. The truth is, the “liberation” of prisoners form these concentration camps did not mark the end of the suffering. In fact, in many cases, it was only the beginning.
The black and white pictures within this series are to appear as snapshots from the timeless picture of an individual’s day-to-day life. All is as it should be, except the stark oddity of what appear to be deep red serial numbers, reminiscent of the tattoos branded onto prisoners at Auschwitz. This person’s day-to-day life is unremarkable, and the only splash of color in their existence appears as these numbers, reminding them every day of what they had, and what they lost.

Jennie Seidewand

We are infinitely in motion.

Physically, we spend every living minute moving in some small way; from walking to cooking to breathing, movements and motions are the staple of life. Metaphorically, people are also in motion. We accomplish goals, we enter different states of mind, and we reach new, personal heights—we grow through our personal movements.

Often, however, we appreciate the end product, not the motion. We wait for results, for definite answers, for complete, focused pictures.
We assume movements take us to an end point.

But we are infinitely in motion.

Instead of waiting for a product, we need to begin to look at the movement itself. The way motion in its awkward shifts and fluid twists takes us forward, beautifully and abstractly, into a state of constant growth, change, and fluidity.

Diana Siegel

Diana Siegel

This project is designed to make you think; to call attention to everyday items and structures that surround us but go overlooked. These pieces of our lives are ignored and forgotten but when removed from their context they gain a sense of importance. By using a surrealist manner of presenting each photograph (in the form of a painterly, clouded blue sky) the focus is placed on the object, not on its surroundings. This calls attention to the objects and truly allows a viewer to examine and think about each one.

My intention is to make you think, and to make you see. By using a similar backdrop for each photograph, the form and color of the object depicted suddenly becomes the most important thing while you leaf through these pages. The lines of each item, their curves and angles and the negative spaces they create, become your focus for a few minutes. And after a few minutes you will begin to see these objects and no longer overlook them.

Jenny Zhao

What is our relationship to our natural ecosystem like? We are a small part of this interconnecting system yet we have the greatest ability to make changes. Through these photos I wanted to display different influences which humans have played upon our home. What would have been here had we not interfered? Perhaps there would be rich soil, a lush forest or even a river.

Yeasmine Khalique

Bollywood is the name of the Indian film industry. Although it does not have a very creative name, it is one of the biggest film industries in the world. As the name suggests its main goal for years was to match the same level of success as the American Hollywood films. Recently the popularity of Bollywood films has increased dramatically with more recognition and Oscars. These films have changed a great deal in the last few years as India has westernized, but there are still some classic Bollywood elements left such as the random song and dance every so often. The Bollywood I grew up watching was always about a young man name "Raj" and the love of his life "Pooja". The film would follow "Raj and Pooja" through their courtship, as Raj struggled to win the heart of Pooja with song and dance; and when he finally did, there would be more song and dance. Often there was a tragedy which broke the couple apart for some time; this was usually a class or religious difference. Either Pooja's conservative Hindu family did not accept the Muslim Raj or vice versa or there was a caste or class difference. In any case it was the same plotline with minor difference. Regardless of this predictability these films were always exciting for me.