Writing with light inspiration

Rineke Dijkstra

Rineke Dijkstra is a photographer that did a series of portraits of people on the beach in front of the ocean. Her subjects are centered which puts the focus of the viewer on them. In some of the portraits such as the one on the right have a light on the subject that also contributes to the focus on the subject. While shooting this series, "Beach Portraits", she didn't communicate much with the subject. She wanted genuine feelings and emotions to be conveyed in the photograph. She once said that “When you take a photograph, you look in a more objective way, but there is also a connection between photographer and subject."

Second Chances tutorial

To further my knowledge on how to improve my series for the second chances project, I did some research using tutorials I found on YouTube that teach more techniques on how to edit HDRs in Photomatix to make them look more professional, rather than too heavily edited. Focusing on not overdoing the options for editing specific aspects of the image such as the grittiness and contrast you can create from the light sources in the image can create a much cleaner looking image. This is the link to the tutorial

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ArmOY6ikVI

Second Chances

For my second chances project, I will be redoing my HDR series. For this project I originally chose to photograph Christmas ornaments. After finding out that many other people did their final on a similar subject, I'm choosing to redo mine to produce a more original series. For my new HDR series I am going to be shooting pictures of my glasses in different environments so that the reflection in the lens of the glasses will be visible. The images will be representative of all of the different things that we see everyday and pass by without taking in.

Shooting In Paris

Last week in Paris, 4 people were executed in cold blood by terrorists at the magazine office of Charles Hebdo in an attempt to limit the free speech. 

At Booker T. Washington High School, we support freedom of speech. We showed our freedom of speech by collecting pens and pencils in a display in our library.

Winter Break

Over winter break, I decided to explore black&white photography and how photoshop can aid in the process of creating a black&white image. I wasn't focusing as much on the content of the image as much as exploring and increasing my understanding of the tools such as levels, curves, and contrast in photoshop. I discovered how the curves tool in photoshop gives me more control of the amounts of black, white, and gray in the image. The images I shot were for the most part abstract. I chose to shoot images of condensation on a window, which is somewhat of a basic idea, but I knew that there would be more to work with in photoshop because of the reflective property that water has. Also the shadow the came from the window created a gradient. I also shot pictures of plants and trees to do the same process.

I also explored the settings of fast shutter speed. While on the way back form my aunt's house, I sat in the passengers seat to take pictures while in motion.