Shop with a Cop final video

Shooting is one thing. Editing is another. I had absolutely no idea where I wanted to go with the video the first time I opened iMovie to work on it. I started by pulling the usable clips and just placing them on the timeline hoping it would give me inspiration. But it didn't. When Smith came to help, it all seemed to fall into place. Practice makes perfect, I guess. Anyways, we started by getting all the sound like we wanted then we placed the pictures on top if that in order to match it up. The sound starts with the sirens, which makes since because that was the first thing that happened. We then decided to use Officer Erving's interview and then another firefighter's interview. Next we used the Christmas carol sung by the girl scout troop. Afterwards we used the sound of James talking about the toys he got that morning. We ended with another officer talking about the event in past tense so we wanted to end with that.
After we finished the sound portion of it, we rendered it out. Then we put all the photos on top of the sound file. When placing the pictures on there, I wanted to put them in chronological order so it would tell a story. I started with shots of the parade and the kids watching the cars come in. Then I went to pick out pictures of kids and cops getting paired up then them shopping. The majority of the video is them shopping. Once we got to the end I placed pictures of them checking out and talking at the doors.
Oh! I almost forgot to talk about voice over at the beginning. We wanted to do one that had a guy talking about what Shop with a Cop was and all that. At first we got Josh to do it but he just wasn't cutting it. So Rush and I had the bright idea to get Chris Keith to do it since he has a perfect voice to do the voice over. After he recorded the statement, we just plugged it into the beginning of the video. The sirens are underneath the sound of Chris but both are still clear.

While making this video,  learned a lot. First lesson, which I talked about on the last blog, is that I needed more sound. and a lot of it. Next I learned that when you get an interview from someone, you also need to make sure we get pictures of them too. Example one was when we tried to use the talking of James. We didn't have any pictures of him so I just had to use pictures of boys. However, I don't think we a problem with undershooting. Having 5 photographers plus a videographer was a good amount for a first experience photojournalism adventure. 

Shooting Shop with a Cop

I learned so much shooting video for shop with a cop. It was soooo much different than planning the shot and just shooting a portion of the video fifteen times until we get it right.. like the BIG 72 and ATPI video contests. When I was at Target I focused on the video aspect more than the sound..which was the opposite of what I should have been doing. The event started off with the parade of police cars and fire trucks into the parking lot. We needed the sirens because thats how we opened the video. After the parade, we went inside. I got video of the officers and children getting paired up, but I didn't get hardly any sound. Next I followed officer Erving around with his child, Stormy. And again, I didn't focus on the sound. I wanted to get cool video shots and be all creative and stuff, but it didn't work. The toy aisles were super crowded and there wasn't very much room to get wide shots of the two shopping. Also, there was one point were they were talking about a toy...and there was room for me to get the sound..and it was a long conversation. Where was I? halfway down the aisle shooting video. Its just really aggravating that I didn't get sound. But I learned my lesson. After following Officer Erving and Stormy around I decided to get videos of interviews. I attempted to interview stormy but she was really quiet and I couldn't hear her on the video so I decided to just interview Officer Erving. Rush then interviewed Santa, another cop, a firefighter, and a few kids while I videoed them. While waiting on Santa so we could interview him, the girl scout troop came to the front of the store and started signing Christmas carols. I was really glad I got a few of their songs because we ended up using them for the background sound in the final video. While we were all up front waiting for everyone to finish shooting, I noticed Caroline talking to this kid about the items he got. I wanted to get his reaction to the gifts with out just interviewing him like I had the others. We ended up using a portion of this as background to a few pictures. 

Overall, this assignment taught me that video isn't just about the video. Sound is extremely important. I also learned that I can't just stand far away and miraculously get the sound I need. I have to get all close and personal in order to get the conversations if I want to use them for background sound. This was a good experience because it taught me the difference between photojournalism video and creative video.

I should be a model...not

ISO: 200    f/9.0    1/200sec

Amy needed someone to model for a newspaper picture. They needed a picture with someone that illustrated that words hurt. I helped Amy set up the lights so background was completely white. We tried different photos..like my hand over my mouth and tape over my mouth but without the words. We had to get a little creative instead of just taking a picture. It made me realize how much Amy goes through to think of the creative pictures newspaper always wants.

Human Lightstand

ISO: 400    f/16.0    1/80sec

I did not take this picture. Claire did.

So Claire got an assignment for a bullying picture for the newspaper. A bunch of use went to help her take it but I ended up being the human lightstand.
We started out taking the picture in the stairs to nowhere. We tried multiple different angles and flash placements and settings. But we just couldn't get it to work. The people who were being bullied were at the bottom, I (the lightstand) was on the ledge just over them pointing the flash on top of their heads, Josh was a few steps from the top of the stairs with a light behind his fist. After about an hour, we called smith. When he finally arrived, he told us our set up wasn't necessarily wrong but it would never work just like we wanted. So we moved to the spot where the above picture is. I was standing on the right side of the picture and I was positioned in between Josh and Kenzie. I had a 580 flash, and I'll be honest..I don't remember what the settings were. By helping with this picture, I learned a little bit more about lighting people and where to stand. 

Shop with a Cop

ISO: 800    f/2.8    1/125sec

ISO: 800    f/2.8   1/125sec

Shop with a cop..a.k.a. one of the saddest yet eye opening experiences. When we were at Target shooting Shop with a Cop, Rush and I saw a school cop, Officer Erving. and we decided to follow him. Well, Rush had a breakdown. After calming her down, she decided she wanted to help him shop for some clothes for Stormy, so I took a break from video and took pictures with rush's camera. I wanted to capture him helping her pick out clothes. The lighting was kinda weird in target because if I knelt down to take a picture like the ones above, it got a little darker. It wasn't much adjusting just because Rush had already used it. Anyway, I wanted to make my angles a little creative and not just snap some pictures. The first picture, I tried to use some leading lines, to where your eyes are drawn into the two of them. It also shows where they are. not necessarily target, but you can tell that they are shopping for clothes. In the second picture, Officer Erving is helping her try on some shoes, and he was  checking the tennis shoes she was wearing for her size. I didn't get to shoot still pictures but for only like 5 minutes because I was mainly doing video. However, it was nice to take a short break and take a few pictures. 

Basketball is back!

ISO: 1000   f/3.5    1/200sec

I was super excited to shoot basketball again. However, it was the first time I actually had to set up the lights by myself. Granted Ndidi was there, but I was used to having a senior there to guide me in the right direction. It wasn't that hard to set up the lights but I had to ask Claire to double check what I was doing because we changed how to do the lights this year. We set up two lightstands with the flashes facing each other towards the side of the gym. The settings were at 1/2 power and at 50mm zoom. Then we had another lightstand with one flash on the side of the court pointed toward the ceiling. This flash was also at 1/2 power but it was 105mm zoom. 

I haven't had a chance to look through all of my raw files because Carlie and Kenzie processed my pictures, but this one was one of the good ones from that. It took me awhile to get back in the rhythm of basketball since you can't just "spray and pray." Timing is super important in the shooting of basketball.  This picture, in my opinion, was timed fairly well. I wish number 4 wasn't in the shot because he is kinda distracting, but the other two players are far enough to the right that he isn't in the way.  

Attempt Number 1 at Creeper/TOP pictures

 ISO: 1250   f/2.8   0.3sec

This was one of our first pictures. We took these in a Spring Lake Park parking lot. This was the first location we tried, but as you can see its super orange. This was also the first picture with the flash in the car. It was super bright so we spent a few minutes trying to get it low enough to where it would blow the people's faces when they got in. After realizing that location wouldn't work because of the orange color, we moved to the other side of the parking lot.

ISO: 200   f/2.8   1/4 sec

Anddd...this was the next location! We used Davis' car and he backed up into the parking spot so the orange street lights would be in the picture. We originally wanted the creeps shadow on the car (our attempt above) but we soon realized it wouldn't work. Our reason for doing it in the front is so the car could be lit up some too. But after we took away the shadow, it was insanely too bright. So our next idea was to use Claire's car and shine her headlights on the left side of Davis' car.

ISO: 500   f/2.8   1/8sec

This was our favorite picture as far as the lighting goes inside the car. We couldn't get the flashes to go off all at the same time so the picture never worked. But we wanted to show what we were going for in the car. 

ISO: 500  f/2.8   1/8sec

So this is the picture that illustrated how we wanted Davis lit and the side of the car using Claire's car. I really wish we could take this picture and insert the lighting inside the car to it. But of course, I don't think thats possible. 

So we spent a lot of time on this picture..

With the help of Rush, Claire, Michael, and Davis :)

but it didn't meet our expectations. We are definitely gonna attempt this again. 

and its gonna be awesome! 

The Precious Ferns

ISO: 1250   f/2.8   1/30sec

So I had to go re take this ad picture for a yearbook spread. Rushing and I had already taken this once, but when they yearbook staff sent the proof to the owner, he told them he wanted his new ferns in the picture. On my way to take this picture, I thought these ferns were going to be the best things ever and make the building pop and be super extravagant. No. The precious ferns were potted plants. Anywho, I did what he wanted and re took the picture. The street lights were very uncooperative. They made the picture look really orange, which is never fun. 

Heather's Ring

ISO: 200   f/1.8   1/2000 sec.   50mm lens

I'm pretty sure I took this picture for the online newspaper, but it could have been print..i dont really remember. Wynne was doing a story over Heather and how she wears her dad's wedding ring as a necklace. She started wearing it after her dad died this summer. Smith wanted me to use the new 50mm lens to make the background all "bok-a-ey" (spell check?) Amy wanted me to get really close and get the ring in focus. I think the picture satifies this request. I made the background a little darker so the ring would pop and be the main focus.

Swim!

 ISO: 500   f/2.5   1/160 sec  Macro lens -_-
So I think I was just getting gear really fast because I accidently got the macro lens unstead of the 50mm. Dumb. but it wasn't that bad. I took this picture of Josh and I didn't think it was too bad. The rule of thirds is good but I don't think its very sharp. It is really hard not to get the typical swim picture.. especially when they only come up for like .2 seconds. However, I thought this was a tad different because of the angle and such.

 

ISO: 500   f/2.5    1/400   Macro lens -_-
So this is one of those typical swim pictures. I think this was during the butterfly race. Like the one above, it's in focus and at a different angle which is good. However, it's still not one of those amazing pictures. I want to shoot swim atleast one more time because I'm determined to get a really good yet different swim picture.

Race for the Cure

 ISO: 1000   f/4.0    1/1000sec.   70-200 lens
I took this photo before the race when Ezry was filming the cross country team yelling something. I thought it might be a cool picture so I took it. I wish I wouldn't have been so close because I feel it doesn't tell a very good story because it's kinda tight. Also, there is a lot of head room and I cut off their feet. 

***when I was writing this at home, I accidentally deleted the picture but I'll put it back next week. 

 

 ISO: 100    f/4.0    1/1000sec.   70-200 lens
With this picture, I tried to be all "photojournalismy" and tell a story but it didn't work very well. The shadows in this picture are definitely distracting; especially on her face. The lady got really close before I saw her and so the picture was kinda tight. It was really hard to get people walking because everyone was so close. I was only able to get the people on the outside and most of the time, somebody walked in front of the camera right when I would take a picture. 

ISO: 100 f/4.0 1/1000sec. 70-200 lens

All the cross country team was at the race. Since the "cheerleaders" weren't doing much of anything, I made sure to get some pictures of the runners (even though I didn't get any of Autumn..who won. -_-) anyway, i liked this picture because the runners were framed. I was also excited because it was in focus.

 

Madison Maynard

 ISO: 1000   f/4.0   1/30sec

ISO: 1000   f/4.0    1/30sec

So today I took this picture of Madison for Amy since she was sick. It is for a feature story on the online newspaper. Potter wanted her doing the splits with her head propped on her hands in front of her. Claire and I wanted to take it on the blue mats in the gym so it would give the illusion of being at the actual gym. Once we scoped out the gym, we went to get Madison. When we got everything set up, we asked her if she could do the splits Potter wanted. However, she told us her splits weren't that good and asked us if she could do the pose above. We told her she could as long as her face was in the direction of us. When we first set up the mat (picture 1) we had it close to the brick wall but she didn't pop off the page enough so we turned it around (picture 2) which worked better. and it mad it "boka-ey" (spell check?) 

Natalie's Notes

A little over a week ago, Natalie Copland was in a terrible four wheeler accident. When I was walking in the hall, Morgan Williams (yearbooker) stopped me and asked if I could take pictures of the notes they were writing Natalie. Not very many people were writing when I went to take pictures so it was kinda difficult to be creative. The top picture is of the note that someone wrote giving directions of what was happening. The bottom picture is of Dawson who was writing a note to her. I tried to be really creative when taking these pictures but it didn't work very well.

Btw, I went to Natalie's yesterday (the 17th) and I saw all the notes that were glued onto a string. It was really sweet and there were a lot in the end. :)

Plan

       So there's this picture that I really want to take. I think I'm going to do it Wednesday, if a dancer can help me out. I would like to go to the theatre and have a dancer doing different poses across the stage like she's dancing but I want to light her by painting with light. But in the background I want a girl who can't dance (like broken leg or something) standing there all sad and stuff. but if i can't get that to look normal, I'll just do the dancer. I want lights shining either towards the camera from the back of the stage or at the bottom of the stage pointed towards the stage. I just haven't decided yet. I'm really hoping I get to do this before ATPI because it could look really cool....if I can make it look like it does in my head. :)

I found a picture!

ISO: 2000   f/5.0   1/250sec

So I was looking through my pictures from last year so I could put them in ATPI. When I got to basketball I found this one that I don't remember taking. I went and re edited it because I didn't do it very well the first time. I just cropped it and I believe brought up the exposure and sharpened it a little. I'm honestly skeptical about putting a sports picture in ATPI because all of the other ones are going to be super good.

Shadows!

        So today, Claire, Caroline, Rush, and I work on a picture that Claire really wanted to do. It was of a girls face, but she had shadows of this lace looking stuff on her face. I was the model, Rush held the lace, Caroline was a human lightstand, and Claire took the picture. First we started by just using the flash pointed directly on my face. But it was too sharp. So then we just used one of the alien bees to shine in front of me but it was across the room. Then Rush held the lace in front of my face while Claire took pictures from different angles. We definitely learned a lot about lighting and shadows, even though it didn't really work. The pictures ended up looking pretty cool, but it wasn't exactly like the picture Claire was trying to recreate.

Creeper Project Plan

So Amy and I are working together for the creeper/TOP program pictures. We decided to do a "The Town that Dreaded Sundown" theme. Amy and I went to Fuji's this past Saturday to plan out our picture. We decided we wanted to do the picture about a couple being murdered while on a car date. We are going to use an old car and have the car turned on so the lights help add to the mood. We might use a fog machine if it looks cool. We are going to have the guy already dead in the back seat of the car. In order to light him we will have a flash behind the back window and maybe have to add a light in the car in order to get his face. The girl is going to be dying (already shot) on the ground in front of the car (this is where the car lights come into play and maybe another). The phantom's shadow in going to be on the side of the car and/or on the ground. In order to make the blood, we are using a red dyed sheet. We are super excited! :)

I hate when people get in the way.

 ISO: 640   f/4.5   1/250sec.

The celebration shot. I had been waiting the whole game for them to celebrate in some way. And they never did. This was like the only time they ever celebrated and freakin number 85 got in the way. 

ISO: 200   f/2.8   1/400sec.

Stupid coach. He is very distracting. You even stressed like two days that you need to watch whats happening in the background as well as the foreground. I guess this game is what finally made that lesson clear. 

Anyway, I shot freshman AND jv....which took forever I might add. Carlie and I were at the stadium for almost five hours. Even though it was almost a fail, I did learn a lot. Just as I always do on assignment. 

Football

 ISO:1000   f/2.8    1/320sec
So I was super pumped about this game because it was the only Texas Arkansas game I would be able to shoot. And it was freshman. They never did anything cool. ever. And it was raining...actually misting..which was worse. I had the bigma and it was really hard to clean the leans so I had to continually get someone else to wipe it with a t-shirt. But other than the few setbacks, it was still a good game to shoot. This picture is one of my better ones. I liked how our guy is unning with the ball and pushing through the player, but I wish he was sharper. I also like how he is framed by the two players.

ISO: 1000   f/2.8    1/250 sec
I mainly wanted to put this picture on here because it shows how most of my pictures turned out: foggy. I never thought shooting while it was misting would be so difficult. There was even a 30 minute lightning delay after half time. This was taken after the guy was injured and the coaches were helping him off the field. I'm not exactly good at shooting football in action so I wanted to make sure I got one of this. I do like how the coaches are looking down at his hurt leg. It kind of shows some emotion within the picture.

YERD CAMP.

ISO: 100    f/8.0    1/500sec

This picture was at yerd camp. I really like how the water splash is stopped and you are able to see it in the air. I also like the expression on her face.  But I dislike the fact that Casey is in the background. To me, its just really bothersome. However, the picture is properly exposed which is why I am keeping it. I've definitely realized the fact that I need to pay attention to the background and not just the foreground. 

Portfolio

 ISO: 100   f/4.0   130.0sec

Painting with light. This was one of my favorite things to do whenever we learned it at the beginning of the year...well because it actually fully made since. It was a couple of days after Smith taught us the concept behind painting with light and how to actually do it. I believe it was Rushing, Brianna, and I were in the dark room (now studio) and we were experimenting. I thought of doing a ballerina pose and capturing two different arm placements. I messed up a lot in this picture from my original vision, but it still turned out alright. (well I guess it did since it won 1st place in ATPI) One of those things was her left arm on the right side of the picture...it wasn't fully lit, and it kinda looks weird. Anyway, when I took it to the conference, one of my critiques noted that her hand was cut of at the wrist. I had never really noticed it before but now that all I see. However, looking back at this picture I now noticed that her face is framed by her arms. Its amazing how different you see a picture after so long.

 ISO: 250   f/6.3   1/200sec

This was literally one of the first pictures I ever took on my own. No Smith, no Alex, nobody. It was during boot camp when Smith let us take a camera home to get a feel for the camera. I decided to take pictures of my dog since it was pretty outside. When processing this picture I decided I liked it black and white, but I can never seem to find a crop that I just extremely like. I guess I'm just OCD. When I took this picture to the ATPI conference, a critique said that he showed a lot of emotion that is hard to capture in animals. Which is true because it can be quite difficult to get an animal look directly at you...(I haven't been able to get my dog to do it again) While taking these pictures of my dog, it did help me learn some considering I hadn't taken very many before hand. It was really good to practice with the camera.

 ISO: 100   f/4.0   1/800sec

Oh Free Byrd. One of many protests that occured on (or near) the Texas High campus. This is one picture I'm SO thankful for a long lens. In order to even take pictures we had to stay on school property so we couldn't get in trouble considering it was still school hours. So Ruth, Brianna, and I walked to the theatre parking lot and took pictures of the protest going on in Summerhill Square. I like this because it shows photojournalism, which I need to work on since I'm not too good at creative photojournalism...but I guess it takes practice. One thing I like about this picture is the depth of field. You can tell it is a protest by the other students and signs in the background but they aren't too distracting to the main focus.

 ISO: 2000   f/4.5   1/250sec

Basketball <3

I've disliked this sport all my life, but for some reason I LOVE taking pictures of it. It's actually really fun. It's a challenge to get the timing just right so the flashes will go off with it ( I mean you can't just hold the shutter down or else half of your pictures would be not lit correctly.) I like the challenge. :) I really like the intensity of her face, it gives emotion not just an action shot. When I took this picture to the conference, one critique even pointed out the reflection from the table thing. It's really neat to get other's opinions because I probably would have never noticed that. When I took this picture I immediately feel in love with this sport.

 ISO: 2000   f/5.0   1/250sec

Another basketball. :)

So apparently this is a good picture. Everyone likes it except me. (yes, I know you said put your 10 best images, but I felt I should talk about this one as well) So this was a "last second, barely caught the picture, just wanted to see how it would turn out" kind of picture. I was looking at the last few pictures I had took when the ball went out of bounds and when I looked up I saw what you see in the picture. So I snapped it super quick. I think if I would have had a little more time to react and actually think about the position and what not, it would have been a much better picture. But apparently, Smith really likes thi picture. And it has grown on me over time, but not completely. It is a differnent picture no one never really sees, and her face is quite humerous. But I guess it paid off because it was in the sports portfolio that won 1st place!!!

boooyahhh! (spell check?)

 ISO: 1600   f/16.0   41.0sec

ORBS!! I enjoyed this project...even though I waited until the last minute and had to use a laundry basket for a tripod. This was a super fun project and it was fun looking like an idiot in the St. Michaels park area spinning around a glow stick. It defintely made us use our creativity to pick spots and colors of the glow sticks. Even though every picture had to have a sphere, everyone put there own twist on it which was very interesting. I wish my orb could have been a little more spherical and not as "see-throughy." Hoever I do like how the background ended up being lit.

 ISO: 400   f/4.0   1/4000sec

Freshman Football....not so easy or fun. I defintely learned how complicated it is to shoot football at 5 o'clock in the afternoon when the sun doesn't stay the same for more than like 2 minutes. None of my settings were ever matched up and this game was definitely a fail, that ended up teaching me a lot. This picture in particular, was cropped quite a bit. It was actually a very awkward task because someone was always cut off at a bad place. That's one thing I dislike about football, is the trying to crop iff need be because they are so close together. I like the framing in this picture beause the other team is like wraping around our player as he breaks through the huddle i guess you'd call it with the football.

 ISO: 1600   f/2.8   1/400sec

So shooting in the theatre is interesting. Sometimes the lights are very difficult to work with. BUT I did get a chance to use the bigma, which was fun. This is a picture of Urvi's indian dance for Miss THS. I like the shadow on the stairs from her hand. Shooting Miss THS helped me work on timing as well as making people look pretty while dancing or other things. I think its good for everyone to shoot something in the theatre because it makes you feally focus on your settings and make sure your histogram is right. About every 2 minutes I had to change something about my settings.

ISO: 400   f/4.0   1/400sec

NEW YORK!!! This was in Central Park, and as we were walking through I saw this tree and how it was framed. The framing of the tree adds depth in my opinion. I feel like you can see for forever. Taking pictures in New York was interesting. If you wanted to stop and take a picture you couldn't just stop for as long as you wanted. You had to snap it, then catch up to the rest of the group. Also, its kinda like shooting in the theatre, the settings change constantly. When I processed this picture it was a little over exposed, so I changed it to black and white to off set it.

ISO: 200   f/4.0   1/800sec

HDR. So one day I walk in class and I believe Ruth said that there was a yellow camero outside and someone should do an HDR. I love yellow, and no one else jumped at the opportunity so when I was done with the scratch meeting I went outside and took the pictures. This was my first HDR...well its my only...but I like the colors it gives off. They are very vibrant and show a lot of depth, I guess is the right word. The reflection in the car's side is pretty cool too..I never noticed that before. THis was a learning experience when it came to actually outting all the photos together. Smith had to tell me what to do and when I got to the effect selection, I just played around until I got this one. I think it brings out the yellow in the car.

*

Personal Reflection:
When I first joined this class, I had set myself up for failure. I just knew I was going to be the next Cari, who just gave up and quit. But I refused. Even though I couldn't shoot football on friday nights, I still tried to shoot as much as I could. And throughout the year, even though I didn't shoot the hardest sport because of the hard conditions, I do feel like I'm better at sports than I am portraits. I'm just too awkward to pose people and what not. I learned a lot from the little lessons like spiderman which helped me a lot on times to painting with light which helped me understand what my setting actually did. One of my favorite pictures in obviously my Ballerina Brianna picture, considering I won. It was a picture that helped me learn a lot and broaden my creativity. Also, I really my basketball picture where the girl is super intense. (Picture #4) Shooting basketball taught me a lot about timing because its super hard to share a flash with someone and hope it goes off at the exact moment. Even though I've felt somewhat behind this entire year, I want to remain in photography to better myself in this field and learn new things.
[ 215 words :) ]

NEW YORK!!

 ISO: 400   28mm   f/4.0   1/400sec

ISO: 2500   43mm   f/2.8   1/20sec

The top picture is of Central Park. I liked the lines that the tress made. It was overexposed in the background so I changed it to black and white to tone it down and to make it more detailed. 

The bottom picture is from the top of the Rockefeller Center. I enjoy it because you can see the reflection of the city in the water. I also like the how I got the city surrounding it. It is a little blurry; however. Which I obviously don't like.  

Wind-Up

I was assigned to shoot the softball game against Pleasant Grove. When I got to game Erin Woods came up to me and asked if I could do a favor for her. After saying yes, I kinda wished I hadn't. She wanted me to get take as many pictures as I could during the pitchers wind up from the side by third base. They are doing a story on the softball spread and are putting the wind up across the bottom of the page. Definitely not the easiest thing to do. Either her foot, hand, or the ball was blurry. But I did this for about two innings and got tons of pictures. I was only able to keep about half but I'm pretty sure she had enough..or atleast I hope.

I liked this one the best becuase most of her was in focus and I like the position she was in when I took it.

Dinner Theater

One of the hardest assignments ever. I never would have thought the lighting could be that bad. Yellow lights half the time, and rainbow or green the rest. Not fun. But I made the best of it, and kept on going. I like this picture becuase 1) she is in focus and 2) she is somewhat properly exposed. I don't like that I cut off her feet. --I'm really bad at that. -- Anyway, even though the lighting wasn't the greatest, I didn't completely bomb the assignment.

Yellow Camero!

Well I was in class one day and, I believe it was Ruth, said that there was a yellow camero outside and someone should do an HDR. Me being the yellow, loving girl I am was pretty excited. So when I finished all the processing and stuff I had to do, I got gear and went outside. It took me all of about 5 minutes to take it, but I think it turned out pretty cool. I like the effect I chose because it brings out the yellow and the lines of the car. I don't really like the placement of the car. I should have roated the camera a little to the left so the car would have been a little bit more centered. But oh well. I can always go back and crop the final picture next time.

Miss THS!

URVI!! So I've offically decided I LOVE to take pictures of Indian dances. I especially love Urvi because she really gets into her dances and make for good pictures. During her dance, she faced the back a lot and even though you couldn't see her face I still liked it. I like how I was able to place her on the right side of the picture and do rule of thirds and I also like the shadow of her hands and head on the stage. I'm not exactly sure how I feel about the judges head in the bottom left corner. Part of me hates the distraction, but part of me think that it helps tell the story.

"The crowning shot." When I volunteered to shoot Miss THS, all Smith could say is make sure and get the crowning moment. Yeah, no pressure there. But I made sure I had plenty of room on my card even though it was almost full. I wanted to get Mr. Bailey placing the crown on her head, and here it is. I don't like how I cut off her feet, but I was in the moment and was more focused on getting the actual crown and not chopping off Bailey's head. Lesson learned though.

Six Weeks Project: Orbs

Before I get started, I just want to give a shout out to my wonderful grandma who got out in the cold to come take pictures with me so I had someone to hold down the button. Also she was trooper for carrying  around my "tripod" in the parking lot. Since I wasn't able to get an actual tripod, I used my laundry basket and turned it upside down and propped the lens up with a binder.

Well I was searching for a place to take my orbs, and my grandma suggested that we go to St. Michaels because she had noticed that there weren't many lights out by the pond and stuff.

ISO: 1600   f/16.0   44seconds
My first attempt at orbs by myself... was kinda a fail. I really thought it was gonna be cool, but it's not in focus...which is upsetting. Anyway, the hardest part was that I kept hitting the railing. I do really want to retry this picture because I think I can do it better.

ISO: 1600  f/16.0   41seconds
This picture was under the gazebo right beside the pond. I really like it because the bench and stuff is exposed just enough to show what is is, but not too exposed to where it takes away from the orb. 

ISO: 1600  f/16.0   51seconds

I would have to this one is my favorite. I really like exposure and also how the orbs is really circular. I also like that I got the tree in it. The hard thing about this picture was that the ground was really wet and hard to take tiny steps in all of the leaves. The thing I don't like is whatever is going on in the center of the circle. 

I really enjoyed doing this assignment. I really feel like I learned a lot. :)

Catherine's Skinny Jeans

ISO: 400   f/4.0   1/30sec

So many assignments! I took this in the day that we all got so many assignments for the people pages. I had to take a picture of Catherine and an administrator because the story is about her never getting stopped for wearing skinny jeans.

We Won A Medal!

ISO: 640   f/4.0   1/80sec

This is the medal some of us won at ATPI. We were all extremely excited when we won this for the Big 72 video contest as well as the school portfolio team. When we returned back to school Smith asked me to take a picture of the medal so we would have a picture. I took it on the table in the classroom, but I wish I would have taken it on a better background. I wanted to make sure the actual medal was in focus and I think I did this pretty well.

Videos!

Found: this whole experience started when smith asked if anybody wanted to participate in the big 72 contest. So Claire, Ruth, Haley, and I all wanted to work on it. I have never really worked with video before so I was eager to try it out. We faced a lot of problems, with it being Crystal's birthday on Friday and sadie on Saturday night, it was hard finding time to shoot all the scenes. The requirements for the video were that it had to be under three minutes, have a cell phone showing the date, and the theme was found. Our original idea was to have someone searching for the perfect birthday present before the person's birthday party. However we felt it would be too difficult so we decided to do a story that was based off the Cinderella story. We began by shooting all the scenes that were in her workplace. We used the el Tigre cafe room across the hall for this. For the slippers we used Claire's swag shoes which provided us with our twist. We faced some problems when had to shoot some scenes at sadie. We needed to get Haley and Travis dancing as well as Haley loosing her shoe. This was a lot harder than we all thought it would be. There were so many people around and they would walk through our shots. But we did get in done in the end. When we were actually making the video, we have to "glitter a few terds" from the dance footage but in the end it was pretty good for everybody's first time doing a video. When we were at ATPI and they announced 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place, we were all disappointed. But then they said, "now to announce the best in show." everyone just froze and waited. When they said that Texas high had won we went a little crazy. We were all very excited that we won and that all out hard work paid off.

SWIMMMM

ISO: 640   f/2.8   1/400sec

While I was at this swim meet, the team got in their huddle and did the "Who ya with?" chant. I ran up on the bleachers so I could get it from above. I like how you can see Matt yelling. I'm really excited because it's being considered for the divider in the yearbook. That makes me happy. :) Anyway, I wish the chant would have lasted longer so I could have gotten some other angles, but I was only able to get about 3 by the time I got on the bleachers. 

Basketball

ISO: 1250   f/2.8   1/200sec

When I was assigned to shoot the basketball a few days ago, Hannah asked Allison and I to make sure and get pictures of number 3. So I tried really hard to get as many pictures as I could of this girl. One thing I like about the picture is that I was able to get her face as well as the other team member. I also like that is somewhat properly exposed. Over the past few games, I realized how much I really enjoy shooting basketball. :)