And February 25 and February 27

Yes, I did combine blog dates...I hope that's okay. I did this because for the past three days, all I've done is stuff for Jostens. I think I could burn CDs and print pictures in my sleep. I've been helping Claire throughout this process so she wouldn't go completely insane because of how many pictures we entered. 158 to be exact. I guess I didn't realize how much work went into entering these pictures on a large scale. Last year the printers didn't work so we just entered photos that were already printed from ATPI portfolio. But this year, we printed like crazy. For the past few class periods and for three hours thursday night, the printers were continuously going. It did feel good to get everything done and now all we have to do is mail them in. I do have this thought about all the work I did... If I don't win an award, at least I helped someone win.

Brianna's soccer

When we went to ATPI there was a soccer game that friday night that HAD to be shot. However, everyone was out of town. Even the people who weren't going to ATPI were out of town. So we asked Brianna if she could shoot the game for us. The next week I had to process the pictures for her. And they were really good...

 ISO: 1000   f/2.8    1/400sec

This was one of my favorites. The ball and Lyndsey are really sharp in focus. I didn't have to do hardly anything while processing because they were so in focus. It was a tad underexposed but at least they were in focus. The only thing that bothers me about this picture is that there is someone right behind her that kinda takes away from Lyndsey. 

ISO: 1000   f/2.8   1/500sec

Its about the same thing as the one above about the focus and what not. I'm super jealous that she hasn't picked up a camera in almost a year and she took pictures that were this good. 

BIG 72

So a few weeks ago we did the BIG 72 video contest. And we worked REALLY  hard. And we thought it was a good video. And one of the other ones was terrible. And we got last. LAST! 

Anyway, we did the video about immigration (that was the theme) and the story line went a little like this: there were four people immigrating to Texas and it was a short video about their troubles and adventures. We spent all day the first part of the day shooting all the video. We had two cameras going at one time trying to get a bunch of different shots to add complexity to the video. I was mainly in charge of making sure we got every shot, and I wrote down all the good shots so it would save time when we were editing.
I learned something that night when we were editing. Teenage girls get a little delusional at night when they have been working on something all day. I'm really surprised Smith didn't kill us. BUT we eventually got it done. It took like 20 hours but we did it.
We did have one problem that I would like to address:
We missed a shot. and very important one at that. So now there is a black spot in the middle of the video where they were supposed to go to sleep. We definitely glittered a terd on that one.
However, we didn't have as many problems as we would have if we wouldn't have planned as well as we did. I was really glad that we planned out every single shot and had a game plan for the entire day.
Even though we were robbed with the outcome, it was a good experience in which everyone learned a lot. 

probably my last basketball game

ISO: 1250   f/4.0   1/200sec

Well this was probably last basketball game to shoot, and I got a decent picture...of the other team. When Smith walked by he did his whole "yuhh!" phrase so I guess its a pretty good picture. During this game, I wasn't getting too many pictures. Every time they came to my end of the court, they were only there for like two seconds so I wasn't able to get a whole lot of our team when they were on offense. But during the second half, I was trying to look for good defensive plays and I was waiting for our team to turn around so I could get their faces but when they didn't, I saw how good the picture would be even though it wasn't our team. When I processed, I couldn't figure out how to crop it without making it awkward, but then smith told be to make it square. I didn't have to much correcting except to bring up the exposure a tad bit. 

Thank you so much for wearing this.

ISO: 640   f/4.5   1/30sec

So this was the glorious day Smith decided to wear his kilt. During the scratch meeting, Rush asked me to take pictures of him talking. And let me tell you, that wasn't too easy. Smith makes weird faces when you take pictures of him talking. (no offense smith) I liked this one because it looked like he was teaching because he's pointing the marker at something and the photo assignment page was up..even though no one is gonna know what that is.

Paxton Venable

ISO:800   f/2.8   1/80sec

I can't remember which publication requested that this picture be taken but it had to be of Paxton with Ms. Fruge while they were studying for Literary Criticism UIL..or something like that. Well I went to Ms. Fruge one day after school when they were supposed to have practice but she didn't come. So the next day, I went and got her out of class and took her to Ms. Fruge's room to take this picture. They wanted a horizontal picture of them looking at all of the stuff they have while they study for whatever its called. I guess this picture isn't too bad..its not like you can do a whole lot with an assignment like this. I tried to make it a little "bokaey" in the background so they would pop a tad bit. I'm glad that they weren't awkward because they actually seem like they are enjoying what they are doing.