Mentor Headlands State Park
Mentor Headlands provided the students of Chagrin Falls with an enormous amount of different subject matters to capture and display in their photographs. Natalie took the class's visit to the park as an opportunity to experiment with numerous tools and techniques. For example, in the picture titled "Human Impact" and the anonymous person picture, she experimented with the depth of field of the image and made the main subjects of both out of focus in order to add to the mood associated with the images. Furthermore, to several of her images, Natalie applied a black and white filter for the purpose of substituting the unbalanced colors of the scenery with interesting contrast. The high contrast of the black and white images also created more of a story to draw the viewer into the photographs. Natalie found that at a place similar to Mentor Headlands, where everything is either very close or very far, her macro and telephoto lenses were extremely helpful. In addition to the unique tools and techniques that she used, Natalie also applied a variety of traditional shooting techniques, such as utilizing perspective, space, organic and geometric lines, and shapes. For instance, she employed the use of lines and space in the image titled "Sailing", and a variety of shapes and perspective in the image "The Claws". All in all, Natalie feels very strongly that each of her images demonstrate balance and each convey a story of the location.