Final Project Ideas

Over the break I'm going to California!! yayyyy. I'm planning on bringing my camera with me everywhere I go, and finding a theme out of my favorites when I get home with thousands of pictures. Whether it's cliche sunsets, palm trees, my cousins, the beach or California as a whole, we'll have to see.

Another option, something I'd like to do eventually, is for a family in my neighborhood. They have six kids under the age of 12, and the dad was recently called to serve in Iraq. I wanted to make a memorable portrait of each of the children, and give them to the mom so she can send the pictures to her husband. This would be very heartwarming for me, and hopefully for the family.

I might just try both options, but we'll just have to see!

Panoramas

I liked this assignment. I learned quite a bit. I might reshoot quite a few of these to get them spot on, but I'm still pretty pleased with the outcome. I'd like to continue to experiment with panoramas the rest of my photographer life!

This is probably my favorite. I like how it's basically symmetrical, I even like the interrupting "car open" sign that's on. I might try to reshoot it and frame it with the steering wheel with the original shot, but for now I think it's pretty good.

I like this one too. It kind of portrays Waterford:) I like the background of my skirt. I only wish it was all in focus, but otherwise I think it's kinda funny.

Pottery Barn! :) I need to reshoot this and make it perfect. I need to not cut off my scarves and it obviously needs to be straight. But otherwise I love the light, and the objects and the idea. I'm going to try again soon.

This isn't the greatest as a panorama, but I like it cause I like this wall. I made it this summer and it's going to change as I grow up and I wanted to document it as it was. Now I won't ever forget what it looked like. I like how long and narrow it is:) it'd be fun to blow up big.

Mini-Final

i.love.this. The light is beautiful and natural. This gorgeous little girl has a priceless expression; asking "What in the world do you think you're doing? Go away." She's angry, and I love it. The crop is perfect because it gives you all the information you need to understand the story, and none that you don't. I love the contrast. This is a favorite. Very strong shot.


This is also great. With Slade's help, I cut out useless information, intensifying the story. This little boy, with dirty fingernails and determined eye contact, is serious about the adventure he's about to go on. I love this story. His brow lets me know that this is a big deal. The light isn't too great. Hmm.


I know I've used this over and over, but I just love it. It puts the feeling of anticipation and adrenaline before you slide down into your mind. It brings back childhood memories. These are acutally my feet, in my old scruffy play shoes, in the slide in my backyard that I've been playing on for years. I was sitting up on the playground doing homework, and I decided this was a cool shot. It's pretty original I think; I've never seen it before. It tells a story. I love the focus. The color alteration is a little harsh, but it kinda adds to the whole memory lane/childhood aspect I think. Through feet, this shows innocence and immaturity (in a positive way) and brings back floods of memories.

This is interesting. I was shooting the number zero, and so first I thought of synonyms of the word. What first came to mind was empty. Also, I LOVE HANDS. Something about the texture and wrinkles I just love them. I feel this is original and creative. The light isn't great, but the blue kinda adds to the sad, lonely, EMPTY feeling of zero. I wish I didn't cut off the left thumb, but other then that I like the close crop. These hands look like they're going to present something, but they have nothing to offer. Therefore, zero.

This isn't very creative; doesn't tell much of a story. But it's pretty. Yeah it's a little blown out, but I like the pure, clean, soapy feeling I get when I look at these pure, clean, good-smelling plates. The light makes this shot. It shows a pattern of shadows and highlights thanks to the

angle of the window. I like the position of the stack and how it's not in the middle. Slade loves this, therefore I like it too.

The light on this is beautiful, as is the focus. Again it doesn't tell much of a story, but it's fun to look at. And it tells you a number; which was the purpose. The focus is amazing, you can see each speck of grime. (yuck) Again, Slade loves this; therefore. I like how half is light, and half dark; half is focused, half blurry.

This was my lucky shot. I love it. It's fun to look at, tells you about an old red truck. The depth of field and focus on the handle is interesting. It's like the truck is saying "Come on, get in." It sends you on an adventure. I was so lucky, because even though I created the composition with the focus and depth of field, I was lucky enough to stumble upon gorgeous sunset 5:00 light. Yessssssssss. *this is unedited* which makes it SO much better.

Complimentary colors; orange and blue. Gorgeous sunset light. Focus. Story of a girly, chic young woman. (me) :) I like how there are different shades of blue in the shadows and the polka dots; and also different shades of orange in the cream and in the brown. Strong shot. (slade loves it)

I LOVE THIS ONE. Funny interpretation I guess, but it was perfect for the assigment of complimentary colors. The focus and light is SO ideal. Almost flawless I'd say. The reason why I really love it is because these are colors that no one used. They're not on the color wheel, but they're in between. I found the exact opposite of the pink; right in between purple and red; of course yellow and green. I purposely focused on the name of the crayon so the viewer would understand that these two are exactly complimentary.

I love this shot as well. These are my oldest favoritest comfy-est shoes. Even through the contrast of black and white, this is perfectly monochrome; alllllll white. I love the focus. love the off center. Light could be a little better, but thanks to lightroom I think I pulled it off. I think this kinda tells about these old shoes. They're slightly dirty, but well-taken care of. I love how close I got. I love the originality. I love this shot.

Portraits

I. Love. Portraits. I always have. I know they're tough, but that's why I like them. People are beautiful. Portraits show expression, where no other photo can.

Apparently I love to make it extra challenging, because I love to shoot kids. They are HARD. They don't follow directions; that's why Slade doesn't like portraits of kids. But I can't resist; they're so natural. They don't care about the camera, and they act how they would any other day when in front of the lens. I love my challenge, and my goal is to defy Slade's dislike for children portraits.

While shooting portraits, I babysat for a mom with six kids under the age of 12. Her husband recently got called to fight in Iraq, and has just left. It's been really tough on her, and so I wanted to simply give her a day off, a day to herself. Here is what I came up with:

This makes me laugh. He's pissed. He wants to play with me, and all I want to do is press a stupid button. Later he softens up and loves the camera, but here, nu uh. :) I love the eye contact. The background isn't too bad, and his expression is priceless.

I think this is the favorite shot. Slade helped me crop it to tell a true portrait. We got rid of the unimportant distracting background, and only told the story that Evan's telling me. He is an explorer. He's serious about it. And he's ready to go. I love how his hands are dirty. They add so much to the shot for me. His eyes, and expression show how dedicated he is. Love. This.

This is tells the same story, but it's a little bit more innocent. I still love the eye contact, but the expression is different. Now he's asking me to come along exploring with him. I love this too.

Here is Chase. He was terrified of the camera, and this is about the only shot I got of him. It's adorable, because his expression tells you one thing: busted. He got caught. I love how he's doing something so unexpected and so childlike; why is he even climbing the washer? No one knows. Composition could be better but again, priceless expression.

This is a little bit boring. Not a very interesting story. But I still love the eye contact.

This was a disagreement between Slade and I. If you can't tell, Ava is on a slide, and she's scared out of her mind. Here is a priceless expression. Slade wasn't convinced, he said it was just a cliche baby on a slide. But I'm fighting for it. Not to the death, it's not nearly my favorite. But I like it. I like how she's holding on for dear life. She won't even look at the camera, she's looking to her brother surely thinking, "HELP ME!!"

This one just about makes me cry. He's being an 'army dude' just like his Dad. He knows what his dad is doing out there, he loves, supports, and wants to be just like him. No matter what. That hat was actually one of his dad's old ones, and Evan treats it like a security blanket. Love this.

Alrighty here are the rest of my portraits. I know there are more than ten I just wanted to show all the work that I did.

This is exceptional. I don't know how I got this lucky, but I am in love with this photo. I know it's all I've been talking about but these are the things I love about portraits: eye contact and expression. This basically defines a portrait in my head. This tells a story through her emotion. She's wondering what in the world I am doing there. The focus is beautiful. Light is gorgeous. Expression is unbelievable. This is one of my strongest shots of the entire term.

Here is how simple minded I am. This is my only self-portrait. I could've worked harder at it, but I'd rather shoot others. Interpret how you will. I like the position of the shadow in the photograph; I like it on the far right.

This is romantic. A run-away bride. Obviously, I made it blurry on purpose. Gorgeous dress. Interesting story. *notice how her feet are bare. I like that*



Here is another blur shot, that I did on purpose. No one else really appreciates it, but I do. He was actually late, and actually didn't have time for a photo shoot. He's checking his little pocket watch in his fancy attire. I like the story. Actual photo could be better though.

This just tells you a little bit more about the image above. It's not very strong at all, I just wanted to extend the story. Here you see more of his fancy attire, snobby expression and stance. There you go.


I love portraits. I want to get better at them. For my final project, I'm shooting the Colmere family. I'll do a sole shot of each child, and give them to the mother so she can send them to the father in Iraq. Heartbreaking, life-changing I know. :) I can't wait. Thanks for the idea Slade!

50 Shots

Something very unfortunate happened during this assignment. Somehow, half of my pictures I had shot for this assignment went "offline or missing." I tried to reimport about 17 times, to no avail of my photos. Oh and I lost my memory card. But I'm truly thinking it just got stolen. Anyway, I have about 8 images from this, but my others simply wouldn't cooperate. I tried to do others but I have here alllllll of the shots from this free shoot that Lightroom would let me access. I apologize, and Slade, I hope you will give me a break.

I love the light in this shot. I also like the angle. I like the shadows on my side of the poles that frame the shot, I only wish the top one was perfectly straight.. i love the radiance on the actual swing. This is pretty great.

This is a fun shot. It's kinda cool how, in this beautiful 5:00 pm light, the house shadows half of the playset.

awwwww. I figured free shoot, free editing so I completely altered the color. I like this. (secretly I did this awhile ago all on my own, but Ithought it fit this assignment perfectly.)

Cliche. But I like it. Not my favorite.

Cute purse. Cute light. Cute focus. Like.

I actually shot this during complimentary colors, because in fact the inside of these boots, are purple. How perfect except..... my camera would NOT cooperate and show the purple. It looks pure black. Cool shot though, so I included it.

Shrug. Found this on the side of the road. Kinda cool Iguess.

And this was from my portraits. This is not in fact a portrait though, it's a picture of a girl who likes red. I LOVE how her socks and headband match. That's the reason why I love the shot, but that's not enough to make me love it as a portrait. So, here we go.

I apologize so many are from previous assignments, it's just all I had to work with:( hopefully, that terrible accident will never happen again. Shooting this was fun and relaxed though, and I liked it.

PANORAMA

2 horizontal/2 vertical

short:long dimension
at least:
1:2.5
2:5
4:10

Shoot multiple files across a given scene.

Something must be shown that you can not capture in one frame.


horizontal panorama: vertical orientation
vertical panorama: horizontal orientation


overlaping.. TRIPOD. 30% overlapped.

all manual. leave the exposure and focus the same.

import/export as on the web.
9"
80
resolution:72

*photoshop* yesssssss

File/automate/photomerge
Layout depends on your opinion.
Use:/folder/exported photos: pano

Hit OK, watch the magic.


Don't shoot a panorama of moving objects; like sheep.

Work on the middle image; since it has elements from both the first and last shot.

Settings/copy settings/check all/copy
*Chromatic aberration*

Paste Settings to the first image in the series.

Select the entire series/sync.../check all/syncronize

Export.
Format/TIFF
Color space/prophoto RGB
Long edge/13 in
Resolution/150
Sharpen for/screen
Post processing/after export/do nothing.
Check b lend images together.

Complimentary Colors

I loved this assignment. I would have loved the other too if I had done what I did with this one. I actually shot!! :) I took time working on this. I made photo a priority for a small period of time, and it turned out well. I had lots of options; all of which I loved. Instead of having to choose between images that weren't very strong, I had to eliminate even photos that I loved. Here are my favorites; I LOVE COLOR. My crayons are my favorites.


heeheehee. The light is pretty. This is a lobster. I like its expression. :)

Meh, I don't love this. But the focus is cool, the bag is cute, and the colors are complimentary.

Cliche. Okay though, because the color is so AWESOME and opposite. I did hardly any editing on the color. The sun amazes me.

My single analogous shot. I like it cause I like orange, pumpkins, brown, socks, and autumn.

This was sweet; I just stumbled upon it on the road. Very red and green. Fate. 6:30 sunset light=heaven. I like the tar. I like how the brown leaves make the red one scream even more.

Cute tacky bag that's cute. Cute socks. Blue and orange. Yessssssss. I like this. I like the light. I like that Slade likes this. I like the materialistic objects. Cute.

My boots:) I love them. Crayons. Original I'd say.. sort of. I like it.

Puuuurrrrty light. Interesting placement. Intruiging adjective before blue.

LOVE this. Because these colors aren't on the color wheel, but they're still complimentary. I figured out the opposite of pink(which is in between red and purple) is in between green and yellow. The name on the crayon was on purpose; so you know that they are complimentary.

I like this. I like her eyes in it. Cute accessories eh? I liked it not so cropped where I could see her face and hair. I don't like that blinding white spot in the window. bleh.

Shrug. Not bad. Complimentary. A little fuzzy. Purty window light.

I like this. I like the focus, the angle, how close it is. The colors are completely natural, as is the light. yes..

I am pleased.

Irving Penn

Irving Penn was a legend. He was a fashion photographer. I love him, because I love fashion. :) He is superb because he photographed hats and face nets which I love. I love scarves and gloves and accessories that have to do with the sort of 40's style. It's a shame that he just died a couple of weeks ago; he was brilliant. But 92 is a pretty good long life. I'll always mourn October 7th, because I love his images. I love photography, and I love his subjects; so I am in love. He was educated in the Pennsylvania Museum School of Industrial Arts under the direction of Alexey Brodovitch. He originally painted and drew until he found his passion for photography of feminine chic and glamour. I am feminine, chic, glamorous, sparkly, and styled in the forty's, hence my definite appreciation of Irving Penn. :) He likes PENNsylvania because his last name is PENN. He worked in the first stages of Vogue. He is a legend. His secret was simplicity. He was one of the first to use plain white or grey backdrops to focus on the subject. He focused on expression to bring a sense of drama to the image. His signature technique. I respect him because he used au natural window light. Instead of a studio with huge stage spotlights, he used a skylight. That's legit. He makes the model stand out, and not be so fake. LOVE him. He married his favorite model. awwwww. But she died 17 years ago. They had one son, Tom Penn, who became a designer. How perfect. Clarity. Composition. Form. These techniques helped Mr. Penn make almost anything an original, artistic (Slade's favorite adjective) interesting photograph. "Photographing a cake can be art." He inspires me. He knows how to tell a story, change a life through his art.

"A good photograph is one that communicates a fact, touches the heart and leaves the viewer a changed person for having seen it. It is, in a word, effective." --Irving Penn.

Here are some perfect examples of his simplicity of fashion. All the eye catches is the model, and her hat. Which is the objective.

I love this one. Her make up is brilliant, her hand placement is brilliant, I want her hat with the feather stuff.

i.love.this.

The expression is priceless. That was his secret--portraying emotion. This is my favorite I think.

i.love.this.too.

It shows his simplicity and clarity and cleanliness. This is refreshing. I'm going to print it big and put it in my room.

This is legendary. Epic. The famous photo--for a reason. It's brilliant. I want her hat, her net, her everything. Which is his goal right? I love her expression. I love the clarity. I love everything about this photo.


Here is some modern stuff he's done. This shows his signiture center shot, clean, simple, on a plain dropback.

I want this coat. I loveeeee love love love love her expression. She looks like her coat is what is making her so happy, so I want it. Irving knows exactly how to do his job--he's perfect for fashion photography.

I.am.in.love.with.this.

This is one of my favorite photographs I have ever seen in my entire life. I love the car. It explains the setting, along with his hat and coat. I love his stance and arms/hands. It shows naivity and innocence in a positive way. I want this little boy. He is handsome, confident, concerned. Ready to stand up for something he believes in. This has changed my life. Thank you Irving Penn.

Never shall I forget you.