Introduction to Landscape

When I first saw this picture, I was blown away. I thought it must be photoshopped, how can someone catch the light and the fog like that. This picture is amazing and the soft hues from the little light just add to the mystique to it all. The long lines of the trees are what really made the picture because the angle that they were taken at was very peculiar. Seeing pictures like these really made me want to go out and explore. This made me want to pay attention more to the nature around me and really take notice of the different shapes they come in.

Outside Composition

Our task for this assignment was to take a picture while experimenting with compositions and and different angles. This shot was actually a test shot, I was just trying to incorporate interesting lines in the picture and my model, Joanne, just climbed the stairs and posed. I took advantage of the light and took a picture while the sun was on her face. This assignment was really educational for me because before, I would just take pictures that I thought would turn out nice. Using what I learned has really opened my mind and next time I will definitely look out for objects out of the ordinary to help accentuate the picture.

Portrait

The purpose of this assignment was to shoot a portrait using natural window or door light. My model, JP, was just outside the door so I could have the sun shining on his face. Surprisingly the background turned out darker than I expected and I must say I quite like it that way. By having the background darker, JP's face turned out brighter and it catches more attention that way. JP's clothes helped with the eye catching appeal because they are bright and I like the way that his eyes are not visible because it adds to the allure. I took this shot when the sun was very bright making his face brighter. Its almost as if he was photoshopped into the picture because the background is so dark. I think that the lighting played a key part in this shoot because without proper lighting, it would look like a random snapshot and I didn't want it to look that way.

Group Picture

The picture consists of a dancer, artist, and musician. In the black and white photo, the saxophonist lures the dancer with his soulful noise as the dancer flirts with him. Meanwhile the painter is painting the couple with her easel. In the colored picture, the dancer is posed in the middle while the painter paints her and the boy plays music in the background. In the first picture, there was no particular person in the middle because we did not one person to be the main focus. The colored picture was just a test picture so we tried to see how it would seem like to have our dancer in the middle. This assignment was complicated and it was difficult to find the right lighting. We spent some time trying to find the right light and find the right positions for our models. We chose to use a bright light with the strobe outside because it was a little dark that day of the shoot. It was also hard to try and shoot the models without them being cramped up. The location was a little tricky because the ground was an uneven and there were lots of trees that hinders the strobe from getting as much height. After some obstacles, we were finally able to overcome it and take some satisfactory pictures. If we would have more time, I think we would have shot better quality pictures.

Portrait vs. Snapshot

What sets a portrait and a snapshot apart is the amount of effort put into creating a portrait. So much work has to be done in order to create a proper portrait. Usually a snapshot is birth without much thought, some of them taken as a spur of the moment thing, but a portrait requires more thought and consideration than a snapshot would. In order to shoot a portrait, you need to consider about the proper lighting, composition, and angles for whatever or whomever you are shooting. Snapshots does not necessarily that they are bad but portraits usually have a better quality in them and emits more emotion than a regular snapshot.

7th period

What I have done:
*I worked on Jiane's plastic body --- her body is coming along pretty well, we are almost done with it, we just need to refine some areas
* Completed my road trip lessons---They took me a while to finish, but I am glad I finally completed them. I am excited for our 'road trip'.
*Enrolled in community college--It was weird applying for college in your junior year, but I am happy I am getting college credit.

Photoshop

This photoshop assignment wasn't my first time working with photoshop but I am still quite new to this whole scene. I picked this background because I wanted to add another picture that would look out of the ordinary. I wanted to leave the background alone and just manipulate the picture that I would add the original picture. Originally, I wanted to use the stamp clone tool to make another copy of the bird, but I haven't got a good grasp of that tool yet. So I just settled for using the lasso tool, then magnifying the bird and making the outline of the bird white. I added the extra white bird to add the effect of a mother bird and a baby bird. This assignment was kind of challenging but at the same time it was made easier because of that packet that Mrs. Alvarez gave us about photoshop. I will practice more with photoshop as I would love to one day photoshop on the same level as professionals.

Sequence Book

Ah sequence! When I first heard, that we were going to do this assignment I was really excited. I had so many ideas on how my story would play out and how I'm going to shoot it. In the end I opted for a more simple story: Chris suddenly realizing that he lost his phone and then finding it in his pocket afterwards.

Seeing other people's works made me really envious and frustrated in myself. If given more time, I would have probably chosen a better story or maybe decorate my book more.I really do wish that my book was half as creative as the others in my class but as luck would have it I ran out of time and was left to just try and complete the book.

I didn't really want the images to be so dark because it wasn't meant to be taken seriously. I wanted them to be light because I wanted to portray those moments that I think everyone has where you panic that you lost something only to find it in your hand, head or pocket some time later.

Photobooth Assignment

Trying to think up of four different personas for myself was troublesome but it was fun trying to be someone else. I guess I like the idea of alter egos or being someone you're not. The first set of pictures are supposed to be someone who feels like a celebrity or a socialite. The second was someone who is more prim and proper, possibly innocent. The third one was someone who is kinda dumb and ditzy hence the doh face. The last one is someone who is stressed out, which in a way is how I feel this week.
I felt that this assignment could be made better if the pictures were taken with the whole body as if you are truly personifying that character instead of just changing for your head. As much fun as that sounds, I honestly think it would take too much time however but it would be nice as a project you could do for fun.
I'm pretty satisfied with the overall pictures, I like the variety of characters that I've chosen and I am glad that I finished this assignment on time.

Studio Lighting

Out of all the assignments that we've had this semester, I would have to say that studio lighting is my favorite. I think the main reason why I liked it so much is because I had a lot of fun while shooting. Trying to manipulate light to work in your favor is kind of challenging but at the same time it gives you a lot of options on how you take your pictures. I liked how you can play around with shadows and how you could position the light to convey various moods. I felt that it would be better if I added the crazed fan hands in the background to accentuate the whole rockstar appeal. I think it adds more dynamic in the image and creates nice shadows. I am quite happy that I added those hands as it really does look like Omar is a real rockstar.
In this picture, I wanted to portray a story. Omar is the uber popular lead singer while Chris(in the background) is the unaprecciated member overshadowed by Omar's popularity. I wanted to show Chris' remorse and anger towards the amount of limelight that Omar is getting so I focused most of the light on him but kept some light on Christ-- just enough to show his emotion.
Printing this picture was the only obstacle I had on this assignment. Trying to get the picture to turn out just right was pretty difficult because it would either come out too dark or too light. In the end, I decided to just play around with the contrast in photoshop and fix it up a bit.
Overall I really enjoy shooting for studio lighting and if given the oppurtunity, I would love to this one again just for fun.

YELLOW BOAT

This project was done using mirrors and pictures that printed out. Those pictures had people's faces which was photoshopped out leaving only the hair in tact. The materials for the 3-d project included mirror shards, and individual pictures of people. I needed to plaster the mirror shards on the blank faces so that people looking at the piece would look at themselves. I did this to represent narcissism, how vain people really are. The purpose for this project was to show how narcissistic people can be once they see themselves.
The shapes in the this project are predominantly sharp and appear to have pointy and rough edges. They represent the negative sides of narcissism. since the pieve was compiled as six individual pictures, not one image is the main focus.
Overall, I think this piece was pretty successful, of course I could have elaborated a bit more on the details on the pictures. I wish that I had more time to work on it. I have gone tough much trouble putting this project together. There were some bumps on the road when it came to editing the faces out and when I was printing them out but I'm relived that it all came together in the end

Panning

This picture has some unusual qualities to it, one of them being the eyes lacking irises. having whited out eyes causes the picture to have an eerie feel. It raises questions like "Why are his eyes like that?"and " Is he running from someone?" Everything in background is blurred and it was intended for the person to be the only one in focus. There is an abundance of dark colors like gray in this picture and I think that having that adds to the picture's eerie affect. From first glance it almost seems like instead of him running away from someone, he's the one chasing them. I didn't mean for the picture to turn out like this, my original intention was to catch him running away looking happy. However, because of the way the eyes turned out, it gave a completely different feel than what I originally thought.The person is off to the side near the center as oppose to being the exact middle. There is not much happening in the picture and I think it is better that way because it doesn't distract the person looking at the picture. Having minimal objects in the picture also helps the audience focus on the main object, which i this case is the picture.
Overall I'm pretty satisfied with how this picture came out. I was having trouble with the former assignments and this turning up well boosted up my confidence a bit. I love how it turned out like how I wanted it too (with a few little surprises there) and I will practice harder to achieve something like this in the future, if not better.

Stop-Action

There are three people in this picture, the girl sitting down is amusingly watching the girl jumping off get caught by the boy.

In this scene, it seems like the girl was carelessly jumping off and the boy was worried that she might harm herself when landing.

The people in this picture are not too close but not far away either. 

I see an abundance of trees in the background but they are far off.

  This picture has contradictory shapes with rectangular shapes and curves. The rectangular shapes are from the steps that the girl is jumping of off and the curves are the way the bodies of the people are contracted. I don't really think this image is in great focus, I think the way that it was printed was the reason it was off focus is because the negatives weren't very clean. This picture was taken outdoors to provide more space for jumping .

Overall I wish this picture was more in focus and the print quality was better. Next time I will check the cleanliness of my negatives and I will definitely practice with this assignment more.

Shallow Depth of Field

In this picture, a girl is hiding behind the bushes spying on the boy standing up. The girl is meant to be out of focus while the boy is in focus. She is farther away from the camera and the boy in focus is closer to the camera.
I wanted the girl to stand behind the bushes to look like she was waiting to surprise the boy. Chase looked preoccupied with the leaf that he was playing with and the surprise would have been fnnier. This shot was slightly as I caught Chase in this position and I just told Joanne(the model) to go behind the bushes and scare him.
This assignment was a bit of a challenge because I had to reshoot. I didn't get how the objects had to be to become shallow depth of field. The outcome of my first attempt made everything in the pictures blurry. Reshooting this assignment was a hassle because I only 6 shots to shoot with and if I had a chance to reshoot shallow depth, I would. I have grown to like using shallow depth of field and I'm now trying to incorporate it in my future assignments as a form of practice.

4th period

In the first picture, I liked how the shadows and the background were slightly dark and yet the ground and her dress are very light. I played around with the brightness and contrast tool to darken the shadows even more.  I didn't know that her shadow would be so small it's interesting how that turned out.  I do like the vertical shapes in the first picture. The way Aaysia was standing and how there was a pole by her left that was also omitting a shadow. 

In the second picture, I wanted to get her stop action. I would have wanted to see her whole face but I liked how her body was sharp whilst her feet were blurred out in a way that her feet looks like ballet shoes in a way. I am satisfied by how high she has leapt, but I would have liked it better if the background was darker. In both pictures Aaysia was in the center, so next time I'm going to play around with the person being in all other areas other than the center. I decided to take both pictures indoors as it seemed easier adjusting the light because you already have natural light to surround you. Overall I'm satisfied with my picture being the first one I ever took, but I would have wanted them to turn out better. I would play around with the focus next time and different angles

Emotional.

I see children's toys in the background and the shadow of the child's mother who seems furious with her hence the bruises.

The toys in this picture are,you could,'close by', they still have some distance between them. The girl is in the middle of the picture and her eyes are expressing anger and pain. 

The background is really bright but the person herself is quite dark. The image is not entirely in focus but its not blurry either. This shot was not intentional because it was a practice shot, I was trying to test the lighting and how the light would hit her face. I decided to shoot her in front of her toys as I felt that it would convey more innocence if we showed her in a childlike background with a black eye. I didn't intend for the shadow of the person in the background to look so menacing or like an angry mom but I'm very satisfied with the outcome of the picture overall.

1st Project

All in Focus: I know this looks like it should be stop action but I liked  the angles. I love how clear this picture is and the sharpness of the colors. The only editing I've done to this picture was brightening and I played 

with the brightness and contrast tool to lighten up the picture. I wanted him to look like a kid running away and playing around by jumping through the benches.

Shallow Depth of Field: Even though the background isn't as blurry as I would have liked it to be, I'm still pretty satisfied with it considering that this shot is completely random and candid. I was just trying to test out the lighting and shot this picture of Armyn whilst the wind was blowing around us. I played around with brightness and contrast tool and kept the shadows around her face but lightened up everything else around her.

Panning- I wanted to only focus on Darell and have everything else blurry in the background. It took a lot of tries to get get this shot. I had him walk while I'm walking and Taylr running away in the background. Actually Taylr's addition to the picture was completely accidental and this picture just happened to be the best one out of the bunch despite Taylr's addition.I had the f-stop at a low level to allow in more light since it was in the shade. I really liked this shot because it almost looks like he's about to come out of the picture,almost like 3-D

  













Stop-Action: In this picture, Mac and Ricardo were supposed to high five each other midair, but here it looks like they're just happy to see each other and Mac just looks pleasantly surprised to see Ricardo there... jumping like him . I shot this in between that because if I shot it a little later, they would have lost height and I wanted them to be as high up as possible. I didn't really have to change the f-stop since we're already outside. I just kept this picture the way it is because I didn't feel the need to edit it.