Well, its been a wild semester. Photography has been my favorite class through out the first half of the school year and I’m so happy I got in. (Even though I didn’t even sign up for it, hehe.) Before I took photography, I knew it would be difficult to take certain photos. My perspective has not changed on that, but I’ve grown to understand just how truly difficult it is to get the right angle, lighting, etc. Because of photography, I have changed the way I take my photos. I actually use the grid now on my phone and experiment with multiple angles. Although photography was very fun, I can’t see myself doing this for the rest of my life. Photography is a very tedious project, and though I’m good at tedious things I’d just prefer to do something else. My favorite project this year was actually this one. I like how we were given objects to photograph and had to use our imagination and creativity to take an exceptional photo. Below is my favorite photo I took during this project, it’s of my friend/ classmate, Ainsley. Click here to see the rest of my photos.
Up Close
For this project, we had to take 10 photos as close as possible to 5 living things, and 5 non-living things. This resulted in some really cool photos, 2 of which are below. If you want to see the other 8, click here. For this project, I found that using the IPhone camera worked amazing as the quality of the camera is able to capture very small details. The IPhone camera would be very nice if you had portrait mode, but unfortunately I did not. One thing I found very difficult was finding interesting non-living objects to photograph in school as most things were bland in color in the photos I took. Another difficult thing from time to time was getting the camera to focus. If I had much more equipment and time, I would totally try to photograph high quality pictures of eyes, specifically hazel eyes. I love photographs of peoples eyes up close as they are ABSOLUTELY beautiful!
Set in the Street
This photography project is inspired by photographers Justin Bettman and Carrie Mae Weems. We used Bettman’s idea of “Set in the Street” to create a photography set in a public area that has nothing to do with the photo. We combined this idea with Carrie Mae Weems Kitchen Table Project, where she took multiple scenes at a kitchen table, all of which expressing a different emotion. For this project, we created a kitchen table set in the middle of our schools lobby. We took multiple photos with different emotions, each emotion having one photo zoomed in and one far out. For this project, I used photoshop to edit my photos. I first converted them from color to black and white. After, I zoomed out very far to 5% and used the marquee tool to create a large circle just under the light. Then, I turned feather to 200 and inversed it. Finally, I added a curved layer and edited it to make the area darker. This gave the illusion of darkness above the light. We do this because realistically if it were dark one light would not make the whole room bright, just the area under. If I were to tell my families story, I would not use the kitchen table. I would probably use the couch in front of our TV or fireplace because that’s where we all eat dinner together and spend time together. Below are 2 photos I took for this project. You can see the rest of my photos here.
Catch the Action
For this project, we had to take 8-10 photos of people or things in motion. One thing that really helped me take these photos is using the “burst” on my phone so I could get multiple photos of the action. This allowed me to have multiple options. I recommend to anyone that wants to attempt this project to use the burst as it is very helpful. I also think a great idea would be to use the live photo option on the IPhone. You can edit it and choose a part of the live photo to make the main photo, if that makes sense. One sport I really want to photograph is football as there are so many things going on at once. The ball is in action, the players, and even the crowd. Below are 2 photos I took in action. You can see the rest of my photos here.
7 Days of Black and White
Over the course of Thanksgiving break I took many of photos of things that meant a lot to me. I took 7 photos total.
The first photo I took was of our Thanksgiving and Christmas training pool. This is not our usual pool we train at, but it means a lot to me because my team and I come here every year to push the limits around holidays. Especially Christmas time, 3 hours every day for a week and 2 doubles. This year for our Thanksgiving practice we competed for the “platinum” turkey legs and for Christmas we usually compete for fuzzy socks using IMX scoring. The Thanksgiving and Christmas practices always start with a turkey call from one of my teammates, but this year it sounded like a dying turkey. Although the practices are actual death sometimes, I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
Following the Thanksgiving practice, I got home and helped my family prepare some food. One thing that may seem weird to value to many people is bread, but it’s something my family and I are grateful for. Every year for as long as I can remember my family and I have ALWAYS made 3 leaf clover dinner rolls, and they really are mouth watering. I usually have at least 4 on Thanksgiving. I will admit we do value the acutal bread because it is delicious, but obviously we value the meaning behind the bread more more. I wouldn’t trade this somewhat strange family tradition for any other.
After the bread was finished I went upstairs to my room to light a candle, which always attracts my cat. I tend to light a candle every single holiday that my family and I celebrate and every single Sunday. I also light them when I’m very stressed or during swim meets. Candles help me to relax, and of course they smell good. I’ve been lighting candles for years and I can’t even count how many I’ve gone through. I never even realized how thankful I was for candles and how much of an affect a simple thing can have on my life.
About my cat earlier, he also loves candles. Every single time I light one he comes to my room and sleeps. His name is Tigger and he is 6 years old. I got Tigger for Christmas in first grade, and my family and I have loved him ever since. He is very lazy, but is very lovable. He always greets me at the door and cuddles with me. He doesn’t really like my brother though. He is kinda fat, but that just makes him cuter to me. He’s an American Short Hair with green eyes and cute little white paws. Tigger is very crazy when he wants to play, he plays with my dogs, and by that I mean fight. He will usually fight the smaller dog, and will stop when the larger one comes to protect her.
After a few hours, dinner was ready! I went downstairs to grab food. My family and I use to eat at the dinner table on Thanksgiving, but we now all eat in front of the TV with our dogs, our cat, and our huge saltwater fish tank. Kinda weird, but it’s what we do. We have 2 dogs, Tundra and Winter. They’re brother and sister, but are SO different. At first, they both had blue eyes and were the same size. However, as time went on Winter stopped growing and one of her eyes turned brown, while Tundras eyes turned amber and he kept growing like normal. We thought they were pure bred huskies when we first got them, but they obviously aren’t. Winter is probably mixed with a corgi while Tundra is probably mixed with a lab. Tundra also has a red coat while Winter has a dark brown one. I’m beyond thankful for them as they are always there to cuddle with me and lick my face. Along with that, everyday when I come back from school they run downstairs with their tails wagging in circles and they try to paw me. The photo below is only of Winter as Tundra was outside.
By our TV is a HUGE salt water fish tank. The fish tank actually used to be 2 times that size, but we replaced it as we thought it was too large. I do not work on the fish tank or help clean it, it’s only my brother and my Dad. But from time to time I help with the water change. My brother was the one that got my Dad into fish and we’ve had this fish tank for probably 4 years or more now. Whenever we order new fish or coral it always comes with a cute little Swedish Fish! The tank is really beautiful, but sadly you can’t see the colors in this photo. My Mom is sometimes annoyed by the fish tank as it costs quite a bit, but her and I know it’s something my Dad and my brother both really enjoy and we like to see them happy.
2 days after Thanksgiving, I had a Friendsgiving with my swim team! There was SO much food, but there was more dessert than actual food… As a result, my whole team and I probably ate a bit too much sugar. The night was super fun and we played ping pong downstairs after dinner. We also played some games like Never have I Ever and What are the Odds. There were probably 20 people there but there are way more people on the team. I am beyond grateful for my amazing team that have been with me for the past 7 years. I have met so many people from swimming, some I’m sure will be life long friends. Even though I hate the practices sometimes and want to quit, I know I will NEVER trade swimming for anything in the world.
Then I Asked Them to Smile
For this project I had to find 15 people to photograph for a total of 30 photos. One of the two photos taken of each person would be of them smiling, and the other would be of them with a straight face. One thing I found really difficult was that most people could not keep a straight face when I was taking their photo. Another thing I noticed was that most people did not want to be photographed. It was very easy to get a smiling photo however, as when most people see a camera they instantly smile. Some changes I noticed looking back at the photos was how much more friendly and welcoming they looked when they were smiling compared to when they had a straight face. They also looked more awake smiling. Bias could affect my job as photographer easily. One way bias could affect me is making assumptions of people before I take their photo. When hired, one question I would ask my clients to give me the best chance of taking “fair” photos is “Can you think of a really funny story and tell it to me?” I would ask them this because its very likely they will genuinely smile and laugh, which would give me a great opportunity to get an amazing photo. To see my photos, click here.
Light Graffiti
For taking these light graffiti photos we had to follow a set of tedious steps. First, we had to turn off ALL the lights in the gym. Following that, we would adjust the settings on the camera such as shutter speed and ISO. After that we would “draw” with out flashlights. After we “drew” the camera would process all the lights and give us our final photo. I found that the longer the shutter speed, the better. Even though we had to wait longer for the photos to process, it allowed us to have enough time to draw. One thing that didn’t work was over complicated pictures. My group tried to draw a beach scene with a boat, clouds, birds, the sun, and of course water. This proved too difficult and after spending a whole class period trying we gave up. One frustration we had was other groups shining their lights toward us. This would mess up our whole photo and force us to start over. Below are 2 photos our group took, click here to see the rest of our photos.
Rule of Thirds
This project was a lot more difficult then I thought it would be. At the beginning I thought all we had to do was take random pictures, but that was not the case. Some things that worked was having the people stay completely still. That was very easy, especially if it wasn’t a person but an object. However, one thing that proved difficult was trying to get the right angle, the thing/ people in the right position, and on top of all of that get them on the line or on a cross. One thing that I found didn’t work was getting the object/ people on the very bottom line. It is possible, but it was very difficult and I couldn’t really do it. The lines, also known as the grid, is used to help position an object or person in a photo so your eyes are drawn to it. You do this by getting the object or person on a line or cross. Below are 2 of my favorite photos. One is of my friend Valerie and I, and the other is some cones outside. To see the rest of my photos click here.
Portraits With an Infinite Background
For this project, we had to adjust the lighting and person multiple times during the shoot. We also had to adjust the settings on the camera as well so the photo would turn out correct. For the white background, we found that the light had to be shining on the background while for the black background the light must be shining on the person. Also, for the black background the person had to stand farther in front of the backdrop while in the white background you had to stand closer. After adjusting the settings on the camera, like shutter speed, we took the photo. After the photo was uploaded, we took it over to photoshop to adjust the lighting of the person and background. One thing that we found worked was shining the light at an upward angle for both projects. However, one thing that didn’t work was shining the light too close to the person with the black background because that would cause the light to be shown in the photo. Below is one photo of me and one photo I took. Click here to see the rest of my groups photos.
5 Angles
For the 5 angles project, I had to take 5 photos of 3 things in all different angles. One of those things had to be a person. Taking five photos in all different angles was more difficult than you would think. Something challenging about taking all 5 photos was the fact that you could not be on the same plane on a different side, it had to be a full new angle. This proved challenging if the object was laying on something as you would lose a lot of potential angles. I feel like the hardest object to photograph was the Jolyn stickers on my binder. It was the hardest to photograph because it was a flat object laying against a flat surface. This project helped me learn a lot of new angles and different ways to take photos that I didn’t think of before. My favorite photo is probably an above angle of my friend Valerie (below). To see the rest of pictures from this project, click here.
