Proposal

I will be emulating Catherine Opie and her series, "Surfer".  I am particularly drawn to this series because of the directness of the photos.  All of the portraits are of different surfers, one per photo, and are taken in front of the ocean, presumably where they surf.  Also the blue/gray tone of the photos sets the mood; early morning, and you can almost feel the water from the ocean, and the breeze on the beach.  The subject of the photo is always the surfer with a somewhat neutral background of the ocean.  The surfer is lit well, probably with the three point lighting method.  The surfers look right into the camera, and you feel an energy from the photo as if they just want to jump back in the ocean.  Catherine Opie also has a "sister" series of a group of surfers out on the water, just black dots against the powerful blue ocean, and light blue sky.  This series is an amazing contrast to the "Up Close and Personal" feel from the "Surfer" series.  In my photos I hope to have a mix of "Up Close and Personal" photos, and photos of the subjects far away, just collections of people.  I also hope to set a mood with the colors, either warm with reds, yellows, and oranges, or cool with blues, and greens.  As Catherine Opie used surfers I plan to use musicians, seeing as Doane Stuart has a large supply of them.  I plan to photograph seperate musicians and as a final photograph, photograph them all together in their "zone".  In the portraits I hope to photograph them somewhere that has meaning to them, and their music.  I will try and capture the photos as they are making music.