Fishing

I went fishing yesterday...ALL BY MYSELF! And i caught this fish, so i thought i'd take a picture for proof! :) It's a crappie (and I knew that! all by myself!) and his name is Fred. 

Here's Fred right after I caught him. Stop flopping around Fred!

Fred looks dashing in black and white. What a studly fish...

Here's me with the fish. That's legit evidence. I'm for real here.

I caught this fish shortly after the first, and it was like twice as big! but right as i brought it out of the water, he fell off my line....i took a picture while he was flopping in the shallows...then i helped him into the deep water with a stick.

I love fishing :)

Derivative

In this assignment, we had to try to recreate a photo of an artist who uses a lot of photoshop. This is the photo I chose....but it was very difficult to get a picture of a boat, especially in water, without being a total creep....so this is the best I could do. I took a picture of my friend Orlando's hands, then blacked out the outside and added more definition to the shadows on the fingers. After that, I feathered the picture of the boat a LOT and pasted it on the hands. I did some sizing and deleting work, and tadah! Here it is.

This is my version of the photographer's work

Here is the original work

Flowers!

Okay, so I know there's a lot of pictures here...but I couldn't pick which ones I liked! I took these pictures yesterday in my mom's garden, because all the flowers were just gorgeous! Hope you enjoy this little taste of summer!!

This flower had a little dandelion fluff on it :)

Not entirely sure if it's possible to have purple honeysuckle...but if so, this is it! Looks like it...tastes like it....must be it, right? If anyone can prove me wrong or right, I'd appreciate it :)

Bumble bee on my mom's lupins :)

Bleeding hearts

I finally feel like I have hope that summer's really here! Thank you flowers!

Cake!

This isn't an assignment, I just wanted to show of this cake that me and some friends made for our pole vaulting student/coach, Dodger. He's a beast. So, this is a cake made to look like a pole vault pit. The grass is just frosting, the pit is cake. The standards and crossbar are made of candy canes and a chocolaty thing. The little man is made of modeling chocolate (just white chocolate chips and light syrup molded together and chilled for a little bit, then kneaded together shaped into whatever you want. We also added some food coloring to get the right color) and we made his clothes out of frosting with a superman symbol made with food coloring. The only inedible things on this cake are the pole (made of lead free solder) and a shishkibob stick to hold him up.

Back angle. Looks oh so high!

We even personalized our little mini-Dodger with a goatee :) Stud.

A Day In the Life of......Me

This is....the lamest assignment yet this year...because my life is not exciting....and I feel like a total creep  walking around taking pictures of my friends all day! (or worse...myself!) But...now that that's out of my system, here's what I came up with....

I slept in :) with my teddy bear...I put on my beloved ducky bathrobe and went downstairs. I ate some pudding and fruit (which was delicious) then just chilled till like 3 in the afternoon (not my norm, I promise). Then I went to a graduation party with some of my friends. After that, we went to my friend Derek's house and played Halo...When I got home, I attempted to learn a new song on my guitar, but ended up just playing songs I already knew :) Then I ate some ice cream and blueberries and went to bed. I know...I'm a loser.

Best of the Year!

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!

This Wednesday in photography, our class took a little field trip to the Arboretum to take pictures of wild flowers......Mostly everyone in our class took pictures of the same flowers, but I tried to be creative.

I think this first picture is my favorite. I really like the contrast between the beautiful, natural, pure flower and the harsh, colorful concrete and graffiti in the background.

I really love the shadows in this picture from the little parts in the center that stick up (I don't know what they're called) 

This picture is one of my favorites because of the shadows that the flower is making on its own petals because of the sun in the back. The petals are super thin and delicate. Pretty pretty :)

Bubbles :)

Wednesday in photography class, we went out to the Elementary playground to take pictures of each other blowing bubbles (best assignment ever!). Here's some of my favorite shots :) 

This picture was kind of ironic...I was trying to pop the bubble in the lower left, but I shot at just the right time to catch the top bubble popping on Greene's hood. :) Happy accident.

Bubble :) I like this photo in black and white because of the cool contrasts (light and shadows, the stripes on Jay's shirt). I also really like the little drip at the bottom of the bubble :)

This is Jay, trying to look buff while blowing bubbles. I think it's a cool angle for this shot.

I liked the super blue sky in this photo, and the really long sting of bubbles. It makes the picture have a sort of flow, and movement to it.

......I LOVE BUBBLES <3 

Water

This assignment was pretty vague....we just had to make photos of water. This is what I came up with....Not super creative, but I had limited resources. Here's some of the ones I liked best.
I tried doing some shots with slower shutter speed to make the water look smooth, but my camera doesn't have adjustable shutter speed, so I set it to the fireworks setting, but it was taking in waaaay to much light, and just getting super washed out. I moved inside and tried to limit the amount of light, but then it was too dark...so i got a flashlight. The photos still didn't turn out...so it kinda was a fail...but a good learning experience I suppose.

Kinda cliche, but here's a rose, covered in water. I think the way the droplets form and just stay there is really neat. I like the shallow depth of field and the natural light from the window.

My mom has a system of little hoses that water her hanging baskets of flowers in the summer. I turned them on and took pictures of the pretty flowers. Kinda looks silly because the water is raining down, but it's sunny outside. 

To take these next pictures I dropped a ring into a glass of water to try to capture the splash. I got a few good shots....but there were little bubbles in the water that wouldn't go away and made it look.....fuzzy. It was bothersome, but I think overall, they turned out alright. 

Yup.....this is water.

Rural Life

It doesn't get more rural than this. The pride and joy of our town is this: Chatty Belle, the world's largest talking cow <3 Nuff said.

Lines

This is a photography assignment on lines. I had more pictures, but my computer was being silly and decided to delete them all...but tease me by leaving the image there...you just couldn't click on it! Silly computer! Well, anyways, here is my assignment on lines. 

This first picture is an example of leading lines, and I like that there are a variety of different kinds of lines, like the horizontal lines of the wooden steps contrasting with the telephone wire and the white lines of the railing that are both vertical and leading to the building at the focal point of the photo.

I really like this picture 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.

Mini Me

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...

Down and Dirty

Our latest photo assignment was to make pictures of things from underneath them: Down and Dirty. This is a shot of my Fender guitar amp in my bedroom from underneath. The angle adds a lot of drama that wouldn't be there if you took the picture from above. I also took out some of the color in the background to add to the affect of the red knobs and the red circle in the speaker.