Event - Graduation!

This week I attended Commencement on Sunday; I took pictures for the theme Event.
Perhaps the most difficult thing for shooting this event was the fact that there was no nice close-up seating for nice close-up shots. I stood along the fence (one of the few places left, I guess graduating is a big deal or something...) and zoomed in to the best of my camera's ability to get more intimate shots. Everybody's seen the expansive, far off pictures of the sea of robes and hats, and I wanted to show some other parts of Commencement that not everyone thinks of right away. That, I thought, would be far more interesting. I think I managed to get some interesting ones, mostly snapping pictures when someone came somewhat close. Some of my favorites include the picture of the little kid looking down into the sea of grads, the old woman carrying flowers down the stairs, the violinist coming in late strolling across the field, Mr. Mason's awesome hat, of course, and of Mr. Lampman and others standing by the fence, Mr. Lampman drinking water. I think that these show some interesting facets to the event that most people wouldn't notice. My favorite overall, though, was of one teacher, dressed in black robes, sitting on the bench by herself beside the "Saline Hornets" sign. I'm not entirely sure why, but I felt like it evoked some unique feeling that other pictures would not. Overall, my pictures turned out a lot better than I originally thought they would...perhaps I've learned something from this class? That's strange.

 

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Visual Puns

Similar to the visual dictionary assignment, this week's challenge was to create three visual puns, using two or more pictures edited together. This essentially taught me, again, effective ways of putting things together...but it also gave me a nice lesson in creativity! This one took even more originality than the visual dictionary did, in my opinion, so it was even more difficult even though fewer were required. Still, I am proud of the way they turned out! I made two (aptly, I believe) punny ones, and one that I have found to be rather impossible to figure out. Props to Andrew for being the only one thus far to get it!

Dumbledore

Fire drill

Facebook fan

Black and White

Going old school with some black and white photography!
This week I shot only in monochrome (with the exception of some color pop), which was quite the departure from what I was used to shooting. This one forced me to look at things differently- paying attention to color, and considering what it would look like in color's absence. What I looked for, most of the time, was a sharp contrast in color. I wanted the viewer's eye to be immediately drawn to the point of focus- in black and white, things should be simplistic, not busy and distracting. I tried to find one thing that was a sharply different hue from the things around it, which were all a more similar hue. This way, in black and white, that thing in focus would stand out. My favorite picture I took this week was one of my dog, which was taken after a storm. I went outside to take pictures of the drenched scenery, and let my dog come out with me. I ended up taking many pictures of her, and I particularly liked this one- it is a profile view, with the light coming from the direction she is facing. This puts parts of her, the parts facing forward, in a very sharp light, leaving the others to fall into shadow. I really liked how the lighting turned out, and it looks particularly striking in black and white. Overall, I learned yet another perspective when it comes to photography. Ahh, so much to think about!

 

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Visual Dictionary

Quite the involved Gimp assignment, the visual dictionary. Nonetheless it was rather enjoyable!
The challenge this week was to create 5 "visual dictionary" pages, defining a word for each in pictures. The only requirement was that the word and definition be legible, and the picture incorporates 2-3 or more components. It was very fun! This was one of the more creative assignments I've had the opportunity to do, so I really liked it. The first couple I had trouble coming up with ideas, but then I got on a roll and they were turning out better. I re-did any ones I didn't like, so now I am fond of all five of them.
Here they are~

Elation:

Idyllic:

Fashionista:

Unique:

Eerie:

Well, did you learn any new vocabulary? :)

Macro

This week (and some time previous) I shot macro. This is perhaps one of my favorite things to shoot- close-ups of nature. I love taking pictures of flowers and plants, especially. It is fairly easy to do, but most of all, I just love the way they look in the end! I thoroughly enjoyed shooting this theme.
A few of the pictures I took a couple of weeks ago and just rediscovered; they feature some interesting post-winter plants that grow around the school. I tried to shoot them in an interesting fashion, perhaps highlighting some things that most people wouldn't notice. I used to walk by them every day, and I never saw them as anything but some boring yellow plants. Later I took a closer look at them and took some pictures, and I thought it brought them into an interesting light. I showed them to some other people, and they gave me exactly the reaction I was looking for- "What? That grows by the front entrance? I never saw that." The others I took a few on Thursday, and a few over the weekend around my house. It is completely surrounded by dense trees, and this is my favorite time of year- when everything becomes green and sunny, with the light filtering softly through the leaves...it looks almost surreal. I went around and took some pictures close-up of the greenery and, thirty pictures and six mosquito bites later, I ended up with some rather interesting ones. My favorite is of one seed-like thing I found on the deck. Its bright color caught my eye, so I set my camera on macro and shot a couple of angles. I adore the image below! Something about the extremely shallow depth of field, with the stem and the deck blurring out, the fact that nothing else is really seen around it, and most especially, the long shadow it cast...I love it so much!

 

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Portrait Photography

This week's assignment was shooting a fine form of photography, portrait style. We made use of two types of lighting setups- one professional, three-point lighting, and the more affordable window-lighting method. It was easy enough, (particularly since we did not have to pay for the lighting setup ourselves!) getting the correct manual settings has become like second nature, and composing is relatively simple, relying almost entirely on the rule of thirds. Perhaps the hardest aspect was simple picking the most flattering angle from which to shoot the photo; however, even this was not overly difficult. The biggest thing I learned from this is how to get (almost) professional-grade lighting using only a window and a piece of paper, which are two things that my freshman budget can allow for!
Lindsay was my model for these shots. They were taken on two different days- I didn't make her change outfits between the shoots!

Food theme

Food, glorious food!
This week I shot food as a theme. Meaning, at every meal, I rearranged what I was eating, cleared off most of the rest of the table, and took pictures of it. My parents thought this was awfully strange, but I assured them to have no fear, it was for a school project, and all in good fun. I wasn't developing symptoms of OCD or anything!
What I found most difficult was actually finding good perspectives to shoot at. Not everything looks great as a background, so this involved a lot of staging. For example, I had an entire elaborate ice cream photo shoot, in which I used scrapbooking paper was a background, set up ice cream in a bowl to look pretty, used a desk lamp as lighting and fired away. The entire thing took about an hour, and whenever I had to readjust some element, I would have to shove the ice cream in the freezer to keep it looking nice! I feel like those turned out pretty well, though. My favorite picture was one of these. Among the others of this set are pictures of my dinner, which consisted of an egg roll and fried rice. I set up my plate to look appetizing (not that my mom's cooking doesn't always look appetizing, of course!) and placed some chopsticks for added effect and theme. That picture was probably my second favorite of these. I also put the chopsticks in the big bowl of rice and took a couple of perspectives. The next morning I also took pictures of my breakfast, which was French toast. The previous day I had just conveniently gotten a food magazine, so I looked through it, searching for inspiration. I noticed that any pictures of waffles or pancakes featured syrup drizzled across them, as well as a giant block of butter. In this spirit, I stuck a huge hunk of butter on my toast, took the picture, and then pushed it off to the side of my plate...because that much butter on anything is really quite gross. But it looks pretty!
All in all, I had fun with this assignment. Here is the aforementioned favorite picture of mine, taken during the ice cream shoot of epic proportions.

 

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