Self Evaluation

Final Post. Weird.

How has my vision changed through this class? LIGHT. I see it everywhere now. Either greatness, mediocrity, or the lack thereof, I have learned to look for light where ever I go. I have started to grasp the capturing of that light to get the effect that I want in my pictures and that is really what makes photos good or bad is the light that you have. I also find myself envisioning different ANGLES that I could see whatever I am looking at from and thinking about what I would do if I were going to take a picture of that thing/scene. I have looked around me a little more. I think that was something I enjoyed doing-looking all around me and noticing the little things-the little joys and beauties of the things around me. You can make a good picture just about anywhere you are- as long as you do just that MAKE it. Yes, it takes effort and thought and preparation to actually make a good shot. I love how photography can either bring out the simplicity, or complexity of your subject matter. Whichever you choose to show- photography shows us that. I have LOVED this class so much it has been so much fun to really spend time doing something that i love to do- photograph. document. observe. share. Photography gives you the chance to show something about yourself that you really can't share in any other way. It tells people what you notice and what you care about- more so when it is not filling a specific requirement but it really is interesting to see other people's work and see the things they captured and took note of that I would not of otherwise seen. More than anything I guess you could say that this course for me was an eye opener. I am gonna miss it!

Final Project- Navajo Trip

I decided to do my Navajo Trip for my photo project. I am really really glad that I decided to do this one instead of the New Beginnings idea. I am so much more attached to this project and when I was shooting for the new beginnings I really just came to a dead end and couldn't think of anything to shoot leading to "weeds instead of good photos".  I went down to the Navajo Reservation for a week on a community service trip just before Christmas and it was an amazing experience that I will never forget. The girl in a lot of these photos is the daughter of the people we were helping - 7 year old Shauntay. She is like my best friend, I had so much fun with her. When we first got there she was really shy and you can catch a glimpse of that with the very first photo with her dog. She soon opened up though as i kept talking to her and soon i was doing everything with her. She wanted to help out in everyway she could- she brought us water and helped wheelbarrow out muck from the goat pen- she was so helpful and kind and taught me a lot. She had practically nothing, you can see that in the photos. I asked her, "Do you have any friends that live near you that you play with?" "No, just my family. I see my friends at school." So she played with her dogs or her cats or her siblings, or just by herself. She showed me a fort that her sisters and her made in a trailer where they would draw pictures and things like that, hidden away in the back of this garage. The ninth photo is one that represents like 45 minutes of just playing- she picked up this random plastic spoon on the ground and started playing with it, using it to fling balls of dirt to see how far or who we could hit, digging holes in the ground and burying little treasures that we found like a rusted old hot wheels car or her secret arrowhead that she had never shown anyone before or beads that she found on the groud. We raced each other for a long time too, just running over the expansive red dirt for the joy of running. She was sweet. We were there to serve her and she served us. She brought us water in little dixie cups because she thouught we would be thirsty. I love Shauntay, I really miss her a lot and I hope that I can keep in touch with her and hopefully see her again someday. I love how they are so happy and so giving even though they have so little and not much to give. My life has been changed. Okay now that that whole journal entry thing is done-phew-I guess I am supposed to talk about my photos... I love the light in these. Moral of the story- the sun is the best light source you are ever gonna get. I love the story(obviously). Moral of the story- get connected to your photos and take the time to care. I love the compostion on a  lot of these. moral of the story- shoot your photos with the end in mind, don't be lazy- make good shots initially and don't count on cropping. I think I did that well.

My favorite part about this project is that when i took these photos I was not thinking about doing my photo project, my project was something completely different. I was taking pictures of my experiences, using techniques that i learned from taking photo. And I think that is really why we take photo-so that we can look at the world differently and have the capability to document and remember our lives through the power of photography, because lets face it the photos that we really want later are the ones that we have memories and feelings attached to, not ones that fulfull some project requirement.

Life is Interesting. So show it. Everything and everyone has a story. So tell it. There is Beauty everywhere. So recognize it. There is good light. So find it. Life is constantly happening. So enjoy it. And take your camera with you.

Final Project Proposal- New Beginnings

I would really like to have my project on service, but I don't know how many pictures I will be able to take on the Navajo Reservation that wouldn't be cliche. I love taking pictures of nature, I love taking pictures of people. I am having a lot of family over for the holidays, so it would be relatively easy to get some portraits in. The portrait assignment was probably the most difficult for me, which is intriguing, and makes me want to do it again. Last time I took a lot of set up shots, and I would like to get more spontaneous ones this time through. Another idea that crossed my mind was the idea of a  New Beginning. I live right next to a retention dam, and the other day we were driving past and we saw that a section of the fence was totally just gone. We got out to investigate, and saw tire marks going towards the fence, and a crumpled fence down on the rocks below. I have no idea what happened, who it was, or if they are okay - the car was already gone. But it got me thinking. The crash was most probably a terrible experience for those people, and extremely frightening, but I have learned in my life that the greatest changes come from the most difficult experiences. I would like to shoot my project on hope. On the realization after a hard experience that everything will be okay and that you will in fact be better for having gone through it. People too often lose hope in this world, and it makes me sad that they can't see past the hard times! My friend and I after a difficult day, had a sleepover and stayed up late into the night just talking. One of the things we talked about was the concept of happiness. Happiness is a decision - its a choice. It's not a consequence of your circumstances, its a conscience decision to be positive and make the most of whatever comes your way. So things I am thinking about shooting: the fence, New Years, my brother is moving so a shot that tells that story, nature coming through the snow or something, and just anything else that jumps out at me and inspires me over the next two weeks. I am really excited to do this project, I think it will really challenge me to tell a story in my photos, and go deeper into my thought process and preperation. We'll see how it goes!

Cliche photos :)

The first 8 photos are mine. I am very cliche apparently :)

The last two, I have taken before but I found these on google. haha, cliche are fun to take, but i wouldn't do it for real stuff... haha good times :)

Assignment #7 Re-do Bracketing

Trumpet BEFORE

Trumpet AFTER

Bird Ornament BEFORE

Bird Ornament AFTER

See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil BEFORE

See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil AFTER

Shoes BEFORE

Shoes AFTER

I redid my bracketing assignment, because my previous assignment was okay, but it was just fulfilling the assignment the composition was not interesting at all. So this time I worked on setting up shots that had a little more interest to them. I think my bracketing assignment improved alot this time, and the bracketing was really helpful also. My set up that I thought was the best at the beginning NEVER turned out to be the best one in the end. I could have spent a little more time on this assignment, but in the time that I had i think i did a pretty good job. Fun fun fun!

Assignment #6 - Portraits

At first I didn't really enjoy this assignment, but then i got into it and looking for different ideas and angles and getting really up close to my people in the pictures for some of them and it was really fun. I spent about an hour with my grandpa, and it was really fun to get to spend that time with him.  I learned a lot about light - its hard to get the right light to show what you want about the person and I also learned that dark pictures turn out blurry and underexposed (duh...) when I tried to do the mirror pictures. My favorite by far is the first one of my grandpa- I love it. It just has so much emotion. Overall I think it was a fairly successful assignment, I enjoyed it.

"I Told Him To Think About Being a Marine"

"Stuck"

"Hello?"

"There you are!"

"Grandpa"

"No"

"Undiscovered"

"Reminiscing"

"Photographer/Photographee"

Photographer: Joe Rosenthal

Joe Rosenthal was a World War II photographer, who was on Iwo Jima, and got this incredibly famous photograph of the secong flag raising on Iwo Jima.

The photograph is not staged, Joe is an honest man, and very personable. The flag raising was also filmed, and the footage for that can be found online. He was born on October 9th, 1911 in Washington. He had a big interest in photography, and worked for the San Fransisco Examiner as a staff photographer. When World War II broke out he was sent to cover the Pacific War, where he got his most famous images, including the one above.

Assignment #5 On the Belly/Back!

I LOVED this assignment. I loved just laying on my back or on my belly around the park all by myself feeling like an idiot, sort of hoping that someone would walk by, "are you okay?" haha. It really forced me to see the world from a  new perspective that I wouldn't have noticed before, and it forced me to get really creative to find a good angle or shot to take. I think my most creative shot is probably the leaf in the fence, I was pretty happy about finding this, just as it is shown, I didn't arrange the leaf straight up or anything! One of my favorite shots is the chain, I think its a cool angle, and one that we see every time we go on the swings probably, but never really look twice at. Overall, I really enjoyed this assignment, and I thing I am going to shoot these kind of pictures a lot more often, just for fun :)