This assignment was probably the hardest one I've gotten all year! I was instructed to pick out my 7 favorite photos of this year.....which was pretty much impossible, and I ended up with 10. They are all very unique!
This photo was taken for my first ever assignment in this class, posted Feb. 2. I made this photo in my back yard, trying to take pictures of "Winter Nature". My photography teacher is pretty much in love with it for some reason. I like it because of the contrasting shades and the way the branches come out of the tree like spokes. It's kind of abstract in that right away when you look at it, you can't really tell what it is. I'm not sure what improvements could be made to it (I'm bad at that part), but if you have any suggestions, I'd be more than happy to receive some constructive criticism.
This photo was blogged on Feb. 23. I took this picture at my favorite ski hill, Bruce Mound! I had a lot of blurry pictures, and my hands were frozen, but it was worth it to get this one good picture. Because of the slow shudder speed, everything looks like it's doubled. I like how the motion of this picture is just frozen in time. I wasn't sure whether to make this photo black and white or not, but the only colors in the original photo were two little strips of green on the subject (my friend Mary)'s jacket, and a little yellow post in the snow. I think I prefer the black and white because of the just immense contrast of the photo, and how it simplifies it a little.
This was a part of the photo assignment for March 9 on Seeing Things Differently. This is the bridge of my electric guitar, Dabney. Most electric guitar strings are color-coded and the walls of my bedroom are green. I love all the different colors in this picture. I also really like how shallow the depth of field is: only the 4th and 5th string bottoms are really in focus. Maybe this photo could be improved by having the closer strings more in focus, rather than the farther ones....or by cleaning some of the dust off of my guitar before I took the picture!
This picture was never posted on my blog, but the last weekend that Bruce Mound is open every year, they dig a hole in the snow, fill it with pond water, and have people try to ski or snowboard across it (usually wearing silly costumes). This is my friend Willy trying to splash everyone! I love how the whole splash and all the water is frozen in place, and the bright colors of peoples' clothes contrasts with the white snow. This picture holds a lot of great memories in it! :)
This is probably my all time favorite picture. In early April, on the way home from a choir trip to Florida (on a 27 hour bus ride) I had a lot of time to take pictures. I made a lot of pictures of car headlights as we passed them in the bus. I tried at first to put my camera on sport mode, but it didn't catch enough time as the vehicles passed, so I changed it to fireworks mode which worked really well to catch the full length of the headlights, tail lights, or any other lights that I wanted to make pictures of. I made this picture as we drove through a town with lots of lit-up signs. I really like how abstract it is. Also, I love the motion that the picture has, and all the colors, and contrast of lights on the dark canvas......I am in love with this picture.
In early May, we had an assignment to take pictures of lines. I made this picture at our schools track (which is junk, by the way). I tried to get a variety of the different lines that are on our track, then after I took the picture I put it in photoshop, made it black and white, then duplicated and flipped it so that the two pictures were next to each other and opposite. It kinda looks like a little bit of an optical illusion. I like the contrast of this picture and how it makes you look at it for a while before you can really determine what it is. I think the photo would be better if we had a nice, non-cracked, rubberized track :)
This picture was posted May 20th, after the photography class took a little field trip to the school playground to take some bubble pictures. I like the colors of this picture, and the free, happy mood that it seems to have. I also like the motion that it has as the bubbles fly away together; you can see them grow and change, and then drift away. The photo is a little washed out, and the quality isn't the best, but it's still one of my favorite pictures..........I really love bubbles.
These next two photos were my most recently posted pictures on May 23rd. The Wednesday before that, our class took a field trip to the Arboretum, a little nature park in our town, to take pictures of flowers. This was my favorite pictures of the day and one of my favorites of the year because of the contrast it has. I love the contrast between the beautiful, natural, pure flower and the harsh, colorful concrete and graffiti in the background.....the only semi-good graffiti we have in our small town! I also like the shallow depth of field....I'm a fan.
This photo was taken the same day as the one above. I darkened it quite a bit and I blurred and darkened the edges. I like how the flower's own leaves cast a shadow on the petals. I like the colors a lot. Maybe it should be a bit lighter, or maybe have the colors slightly more exaggerated, but I still like it a lot :)
This picture was posted April 29th, and it was a super fun assignment because we got to use photoshop a lot! This assignment was actually called "Hard Select" but I prefer "Mini Me" because the assignment was to miniaturize ourselves and Photoshop ourselves into a different scene. So, I got out my shrink ray and aimed it at myself. My dad helped me up onto the string of his ukulele.....and that's how we got this shot ;) kinda....For the self portrait I was hanging on monkey bars at the park to try to mimic the way I would be hanging from the string of a ukulele. And when I shot the ukulele, I pulled down the bottom string with some fishing wire to make it look like something was pulling down on it. I pasted myself into the picture (after some hard core detailed delete work) and painted in some shadows to make it look realistic......but I like the shrink ray story much better.....I like this picture a lot because of the comic value it has! It just makes me giggle. I think the lighting is good, it's good exposure, it's clear. I think it's an overall great picture....and it's fun!
