Author Archives: Collin Tardio

Final Project – Collin

For my final project, I decided to create a first person view short film. Cinematography and filmmaking have been something I have wanted to dive in to for a while and throughout my quarantine I have been doing a lot of research and learning how to do so. Although I love photography, I have always had an interest and fascination in cinematography because of the similarities it has with composition and lighting like in photography, but the differences it has in camera movement, editing and sound. My inspiration for the video came from the research I have been doing over the past month or so, watching other artist’s own first person films as well as other shorter clips and montages. Additionally, my family recently purchased a drone that I have been spending a lot of time flying and taking videos, so I wanted to almost center my short film around it.

Throughout my process of making the film, I realized how difficult it is to create a well-organized film and how much planning is required. There were several instances while I was editing when I didn’t have the right clip and had to go back outside and film more. For cinematography and filmmaking, one has to be conscious of what shots they are taking and the sequence that they will go when editing before recording them. Also, because of background noise I had to record all the audio separately and overlap the new audio with the recordings which was time consuming but I like how it turned out. The bottom line is that I have learned a lot about how difficult it is to plan a video, execute recording it and then seamlessly editing the videos to make a movie. Filmmaking is definitely not something I have mastered, but I really enjoy making videos and would love to continue to make more in the future!

Slow Seeing Revisited – Collin

The thought of “Slow Seeing” is a very interesting concept that Rebecca Solnit brings up. When I first read the article I had the questions, “Is that seeing something slowly? Or just taking your time to see what exactly you are looking at?” I have the understanding now that “Slow Seeing” is soaking up one’s surroundings, noticing all the details one might miss at a glimpse, and letting the images you see sink in. This way of looking at images is completely different than what the average person does, which is spend little time looking at an image (more time if they think it is beautiful) and then carry on with their day.

I chose to set up my camera looking out of the window in my room. I am very fortunate to be able to wake up to this view of the marsh every morning and I wanted to capture this vista at different times of the day, starting at sunrise and ending at midnight. Through this project “Slow Seeing,” I did realize how the sun moves around the porch and the house, meaning that at certain times of the day there will be sunlight coming through on the porch and as it gets later the sunlight is blocked by the roof.

Research/Inspiration

Individual Photographs

Lee Friedlander, New York City, 1963

Lee Friedlanders photographs of New York and his self-portrait series are incredible. These three are my favorite photographs from his work and these were some of the first film photographs I remember.

Vivian Maier, Self-Portrait, 1954

A fascinating fact about Vivian Maier is that she was unheard of until her photographs were found after her death in 2009 because she kept her artistic life a secret and had no family. More than 100,000 negatives were found in her storage locker at an auction and are no some of the most famous film photographs.

Ansel Adams, The Tetons and the Snake River, 1942

I love Ansel Adams’ landscape photographs, especially this one of the Tetons and the Snake River. I visited this spot and took a similar photo (although not as good). Ansel Adams is also a founder of the f/64 Group.

Photo Books

“Light Science & Magic: An Introduction to Photographic Lighting” (2015)

My photography teacher in high school bought me this book and it has taught me a lot about lighting my photographs both with artificial light and natural light.

Websites and Articles

https://www.roberttardio.com (A majority of personal inspiration comes from my uncle who is a professional photographer in NYC).

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/contributors/n/photographer-paul-nicklen/

https://www.widewalls.ch/self-portrait-photography-photographers/

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7O8KgJdsE_e9op3vG-p2dg

https://www.denissmith.com.au

Ballet Skis – Collin’s Dad

I had no idea how to start this project. My parents just moved to South Carolina and we barely have anything personal in the house. I can picture all the photo albums we have, sitting in cardboard boxes in a basement, 877 miles away in Millbrook, New York. Since going through physical photos wasn’t an option, I turned to technology.

I began with the Photos album on my laptop. Conveniently for this project, Apple’s Photos assembles albums based on each person using facial recognition. It was great to look through all my old photos of my family members, but I was still stumped. So, I texted my sister asking what she was doing. Luckily, she agreed to help. She pulled up our mom’s Facebook page. You have to understand about our mom – everything goes on Facebook and she is quite fond of flashbacks. “TBT” While we found some great pictures of our grandparent’s in 80s clothing, I still didn’t find the one. Then I realized I had already seen it. It, was my sister’s contact photo of our dad. Another great retro 80s look, but much cooler.

I can only imagine my dad out skiing with his friends and they are just waiting for a chairlift or another friend and my dad pops up on his skis for a second. His friends see this cool stunt and say to my dad, “Doug, you gotta do that again so I can take a photo.” This is one of my favorite photos of my dad because it is both such a cool photo and represents his character.

Collin’s Mom

I took photographs of my Mom over the past few days, and these 8 were my favorite. From making dinner, to walking our dog, to relaxing on the rooftop, I think these photographs do a good job, but not a perfect job, at conveying who my mom is. Although, there are so many things and characteristics that you cannot capture in a photograph. I included one self-timer photo that we took at Easter brunch and one photo of my mom and my sister because I think that our family is a big part of who my mom is.

For my last two images, I wanted to take photographs of my oldest dog, Siena, who adopted our baby dog, Lucca a few years ago. Lucca, being a rescue, was in desperate need of a home and family and both Siena and my mom gave that to her. Siena and Lucca’s bond has been close since the start. They’re always lying in the same bed together, snuggling.

Collin Tardio – Making It Real

For my Making It Real project I decided to experiment with a few things. My first five images were inspired by Clarence John Laughlin who created creepy images, some of which were double exposures. I wanted to try to create double exposures myself and instead of having the task of both taking new photographs and ones that would work well together, I decided to use my past photographs to create these three double exposures. For the two pictures of the graveyard, I made them black and white in attempt to make them creepier and unsettling.

For the remaining 5 photographs, I took inspiration from Edward Weston who is famous for his abstract pepper photo. So, I wanted to take photographs of objects around my house that seemed abstract and unusual. I made these images black and white to emphasize the contrast in them and make them more abstract.

Collin Tardio – The Paths of Palmetto Bluff

While my life has changed dramatically due to the presence of COVID-19, my surroundings have changed little, because the stay home order was only issued today for South Carolina. It will be interesting to see how this impacts my surroundings more in the next few days and weeks. The only noticeable difference has been restaurants converting to take-out and very little interaction with people other than my family.

This makes it somewhat interesting when approaching the change with photography. For my project, I wanted to capture my surroundings and what I’ve been doing to get outside and remain active. I still have the privilege of being able to go for walks and bike rides and I wanted to take photographs of most of the trails I have been going on. The trails are always quiet and I rarely see people which makes them a great way to get out of the house and stay socially distant.