English project-miniature guy and his shadows

ISO: 800 f/2.8 shutter speed: 1/100

ISO: 800 f/2.8 shutter speed: 1/60

ISO: 800 f/2.8 shutter speed: 1/160

ISO: 800  f/4.5  shutter speed: 1/40

ISO: 800 f/2.8 shutter speed: 1/80

                   I had an English poetry project to do over the poem "My Shadow" so I decided to do something with photography because, well why not it's about shadows. I was originally going to use people but nobody in my family wanted to volunteer and be the subject so I went and found these little lego people and used that instead. In the poem it talks about his different shadows: big, small, weird, just his shadow in bed, him by himself, etc. (I have more pictures than what is on here.) The hardest, and worst picture is the one of just the shadow on the bed. I had my brother hold the lego man and a flashlight but you can clearly see his hand in the shadow, but I figured Mrs. Johnson wouldn't be too picky about that so I didn't worry about it. I used a flashlight for all of these since it was on such a small scale and pocket wizards never seem to work well with me. But the flashlight worked just fine for what I needed. The last picture is the guy getting up for the early morning sunrise so I just pointed the flashlight right at the well, but had it to where not the whole thing would be showing to try and make it look like the sun, which if you ask me, I think it kinda resembles it pretty well. Using a flashlight also makes it very easy to tell how big your shadow is going to be right then rather than taking the picture, looking, guessing where to move the flash and keep going on and on until you finally get it right, so for that purpose I enjoyed using the flashlight. It was a lot faster for the purposes I needed. I set up in a corner in our kitchen and was laying down or on my knees for all the pictures to get eye level with the little guy. I had a 17-50mm lens and reallly didn't do much editing at all except maybe a little crop and white balance adjustment.

Copy Cat- but not near as good

ISO: 800  f/2.8  shutter speed: 1/100

         So I was trying to re create the image of the finger cut in the book from a school's ATPI TOP portfolio that was about books. It is my favorite theme portfolio, but after taking this I realized that this image doesn't work as well by itself. It's better in a portfolio. Carlie already had a cut on her finger, so I borrowed her hand but her fingernails weren't painted and it was in a different spot than the image I was re creating, but that's ok. In Lightroom, I tried to make her cut a little more red because it wasn't that red, but keep in mind that I spent like .2 seconds editing because I am not really attached to this photo or anything, but it definitely helped it out. I used a 50mm lens for this and started off using a flash but turned it off since it wasn't doing what I wanted it too.

Mysticles Many Kiddos

ISO: 1600 f/3.5 shutter speed: 1/250

          So I got an assignment to take a picture of Mr. Kyles and all his kids for newspaper. I was told just a simple picture, portrait I guess, but nothing fancy. Anyways, I showed up and Mr. Kyles had a rope and was telling me that he wanted his kids to tie him up and all be pulling it. Only Mr. Kyles. haha, but we went inside Bounce-A-Lot which is where I met them and the background for this picture is well ehhh...just ignore that. What was so annoying, though, was he asked me if I wanted to take it outside but when he asked me the sun was really bright and the shadows were going to be terrible so I said no. As soon as I left, however, it was overcast. Perfect for taking pictures. So annoying. This image could have been really good in a different location. The bounce house and trampoline in the back just kind of mess it up. I still love the expressions and the idea of the picture.

Basketball...with no strobes

ISO: 1600 f/2.8 shutter speed: 1/250

         So yes this is from a little while ago, but I haven't done anything with it yet. This was my little brothers championship game and I came straight from shooting an assignment so I had gear in my car, so at half time I went out to my car to grab a camera so my mom could have pictures of Matt playing basketball. The gym was very dark and I couldn't use flash or strobes so yea, I now have some grainy pictures. I bumped my ISO up and luckily had a f/2.8 lens and for the most part tried to keep my shutter speed as high as possible. This picture turned out alright for my circumstances but I definitely had to bring up my exposure in Lightroom and I de-noised it some and brought the clarity up a little bit. I was using a 17-50mm lens which was really nice and since I didn't have strobes I was able to move around more which was very helpful. For this picture, for example, I was sitting on the sidelines, like literally right on the line. This isn't the best, but it's not terrible and it'll please my mom so that's good.

Birdies :)

ISO: 160 f/4.0 shutter speed: 1/1250

ISO: 160 f/4.0 shutter speed: 1/1250

ISO: 160 f/4.0 shutter speed: 1/1250

          So these pictures are from when I went to Mexico back in February, I just haven't taken the time to process any of the pictures I took then until recently. Well, I really only processed a couple for blogs and haven't had time to finish the rest yet. I'll get to them eventually. Anyways, we were walking down the beach right before a storm and we went out on this deck and there were birds everywhere. I had a 17-50mm lens so I was trying to walk really really quietly and slowly so they wouldn't all fly away. Most of them did, but several stayed so I was taking pictures while slowly walking closer. I really wish that the top of the post was wood and not that ugly metal thing because that just really bothers me and makes it meh. I had a hard time white balancing these because of the color of the ocean and the sky and yea it just didn't want to look right for me, but I did the best I could. I think my favorite of these is the last one just because it has the wood and rope and it's not just an ugly, metal thing with bird poop all on it.

          

From a little while back

ISO: 200  f/7.1  shutter speed: 1/800

         This was taken while in Colorado over Christmas break. I was snowboarding with a camera around my neck for a couple runs one day. (Probably not the smartest idea since I'm a newbie snowboarder aka not good) Anyways, I was following my brother and sister to try and get some pictures of them. At one point they were ahead of me and so they sat down to wait on my catch up. I saw them sitting there like that and decided to stop behind them and capture them. I really wish I could have been lower down but we were on a mountain meaning I was on higher ground than them so there's not really anything I could have done about that. I wish my sister's jacket didn't blend in with the snow/mountain so much but that was not in my control either haha. Anyways, I still like this image and am glad I took the risk of carrying a camera while snowboarding.

Baby Shower

ISO: 800  f/4.0  shutter speed: 1/50

ISO: 800  f/4.0  shutter speed: 1/50

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ISO: 800  f/5.6  shutter speed: 1/125

          So Alex's baby shower was at our house and my mom kept asking me to get some pictures of it. The first two pictures are of tables and how they were set up. My mom wanted a picture of those to remember how they were set up so she could refer to them for future when she needs to decorate again. (A friend set up at our house for the baby shower.) In both of them I had to use natural light to my advantage and use as much of it as possible. The first one, I think I went and opened the blinds a little to get some more light because it was dark. I couldn't decide the best way to get the table to be able to see everything, well I take that back I thought the best was would be from above but I didn't have a way to get high enough so i just went with if the table had eyes- it's eye level. I have several other pictures for my mom's sake that are not on here so don't worry, there are some close ups. For the 2nd table it was super dark and then someone walked in the house and when they opened the door it helped tremendously so I kept it open for a couple minutes, took a picture then closed it.

         Oh goodness gracious. The next picture (3rd) was just not working very well for me. Talk about mini catastrophe (mainly because all of the hostess' wanted this picture). It was super dark, I was without flash and I already had run my ISO way up. I didn't have a f/2.8 lens and I wasn't about to use pop-up flash. So I help really still and did what I could with what I had. And oh my freakin goodness. I just realized something terrible. Terribly terrible. I did have a falsh. I had gear for something else that night and I had a flash! I could have used that, I could have avoided all the awfulness of this picture. I could have had a lot better image without trying to bring the exposure up and fill light and all that. AHHH! Why did I not realize this at the time. :(

          And for the last image. I just couldn't resist putting it up. It cracks me up and describes their personalities perfectly. They are all sisters and I was getting a picture of the 3 of them together with the Middle Sister wine bottle or something like that. Anyways, they started talking and someone said something and they all reacted. I really like this picture and it makes me laugh every time.

Pregnancy Pictures

ISO: 200  f/4.0  shutter speed: 1/250

ISO: 200  f/4.0  shutter speed: 1/500

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          One of our good friends, Alex Benefield White, is pregnant and due this summer (so exciting!). She didn't want to do the whole maternity photo shoot thing, but in her baby book is a place for a picture of Alex pregnant, so she asked me if I would take a couple pictures of her the other day. She had an idea of what she wanted which was good because other wise I wouldn't have known how to pose her. The sun was not very cooperative when I was taking them, but I did the best with what I had. In the first picture, I really wish I would have moved to the left so the bright, white sky wouldn't be in the picture. (Of course I would notice that now and not then.) In the second one, yes I know the background is bright, but it actually doesn't bother me for this particular image. Looking at it though, if I were to do it again, I would have angled her a little more towards me so you could see more of her left arm instead of just her left hand. However, at first her left hand wasn't there and she didn't look pregnant so it's a good thing we noticed that and had her put her hand there. And the last picture took a couple minutes of trying to not make them look awkward. At first, Alex's eyes were closed which just looked weird, then she turned her head which also looked weird but finally she just opened her eyes and looked at Cody (her husband) which looks so much better. Oh and also at first her left hand was up by her right hand which again made her not look pregnant rather just bigger than she is (well was before she was pregnant and will be again after she has the baby). Anyways, these were my favorite of the pictures I got of her.

Portraiture is difficult

ISO: 400  f.4.0  shutter speed: 1/1000

ISO: 400  f/4.0  shutter speed: 1/1000

ISO: 400  f/4.0  shutter speed: 1/1000

           So Paige asked me to take her senior pictures and I told her I would. I have never really done portrait/people since my main focus has always been action shots so this was a new challenge for me. I am not used to having to worry about my subject so much so there were a lot of picture I had to delete because of things I didn't think to tell Paige. In all of my pictures I didn't worry about the background first which made my editing process go a lot slower. I had to go through with a brush tool and burn down the background and brighten Paige to make her stand off a little better. The first picture I really like of her except for the fact that her hand is holding her ear. Perfect example of me not being used to having to worry about those types of things. I really wish I would have noticed that and told her to move her hands. The second picture I just think is really cute. She was laughing at something her mom said. And the last picture I really liked since she wasn't aware I was taking a picture, but I had to crop it not to my liking because Woodsies leg was in the frame. (Woods went with me.) Her mom really wanted Paige sitting in the flowers and I like the look on her face in that picture since it is very natural and not at all forced. Her face, however, is also a little dark since it is in the shadows; I still like this picture though. I used a 7D and a 70-200mm lens for these pictures, and Smith told me (after I finished of course) that I should have scooted back and been zoomed in all the way or not been zoomed in at all. While I may not have done the best job, it was a great learning experience for me and thankfully her mom was very happy with the pictures.