Sick

I have been sick. Haven;t left the house. Haven't even really left bed. No post today

Architectural Photography

I have been really busy with classes so this is another short post with a few images. I did a little photographing of buildings on campus. I decided to share them with you and I may set a goal of starting to photograph more buildings on campus with interesting views. It might be fun.

Random Shots from Campus (Round 2)

I spent some time on campus after my photo class in Wednesday. I decided just to showcase some of the shots I liked.

This thing stood out to me from the bushes when I saw it. The red color jumped out of the green bushes so nicely. I need to go back and figure out what it was though.

I shot this from ground level. The plants were just hanging over so perfectly creating this tunnel. I wish I had shot from a little lower. It might not have been better but everything is about seeing stuff from a different angle. 

I liked the symmetry of this standpipe thing. The chains hang down nicely creating a winding path through the image. I shot it off center because I did not want it just sort of being there but I think I needed a little more space around the edges.

While sitting around I saw this image. The sun was reflecting off of the building behind me into a shadowed area and light this up perfectly. I love the way it looks.

My Fifth Weekly Assignment

My Fifth Weekly Assignment is using negative space. I am really looking forward to doing this assignment because I think it will be interesting. Negative space has so many uses and is used so often but to try and make it an integral part of the image will be the fun part.

No blog post

There will be no blog post today because I spent way to many hours at the fair and 2 hours just to get home and I am way too tired to work on any images. Resumes on Tuesday.

Random Shots from Campus

I had some free time between classes and decided to shoot some shots of a nice area of campus. 

I tried using the light to give a nice frame effect on the right side of the image which I think worked well. It sort of frames it but it is also a focus. The background just feels sort of bland to me though. I think a small depth of field would have worked much better.

I love the shadow on this image. It crosses the plant nicely but the plant it still vibrant. The texture of the building gives some nice lines that the plant mimics. I think it works nicely being slightly of center. I also shot one center but I think centering the focus on really works when the image is mostly symmetrical

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I really like the texture of the bench in this image. The lines lead nicely across the image but I think the left side feels a little empty. Something there might improve the image but it also might set the balance off.

I like the color in this image. I think the purple works very well with the green and blue background. A bokeh effect might make it even better though. A stronger purple could also improve the image.

I actually edited this image a significant amount. The colors were lightened considerably and I remove a light pole and telephone wire that crossed the image. I feel I did a decent job without to many artifacts or noise showing up.

Digital Photography class assignment 2

I decided to post what my next asignment is. It is very open to interpretation and will involve a lot of shooting. It is called a scavenger hunt because it is 20 words or ideas we need to shoot.
THE TWENTY SUBJECTS:
01. Monochromatic.
02. Crazy color pattern or color relationships.
03. Stark.
04. Intricate texture utilizing color.
05. Rough texture utilizing color.
06. Calm color combo.
07. Circles.
08. Squares.
09. Symbol or symbols.
10. Contrast with complimentary colors (opposite each other on the color wheel example: blue next to yellow,
red next to cyan, and green next to magenta).
11. Harmonious color – next to each other on the color wheel.
12. Warm.
13. Cool.
14. Really hot.
15. A part of a head – close up.
16. Disturbing.
17. Smelly.
18. Just plain weird.
19. Something rendered out of focus but still with enough contextual information to discern what it is.
20. Something that is rendered so out of focus that all that is left is the color information.

This is right from the assignment sheet. Some of these will be very interesting to shoot.

My Fourth Weekly Assignment

The fourth weekly assignment is going to be painful for me and I was thinking about skipping it but I need to do it. The fourth assignment is using a high ISO. I really hate using a high ISO but I am going to put a lot of effort into thinking about how to make it work with the image.

My Third Weekly Assignment Results

I am unhappy with my results this week. Going back to school has been keeping me busy and I didn;t have nay luck with the shots I wanted to do.

Even though my dog is not sleeping, she sure was trying. She kept looking at me every time the camera made noise. But I think it fit with my sleep habits anyways because sometimes you can just lay there with your eyes open waiting to sleep.

Part 3 of first Digital Photo Assignment

These are the last few images for the first assignment. The objective was to shoot outdoors at night with a 1600 ISO. I hate 1600 ISO.

Sorry the posts have been short. Classes have been keeping me pretty busy already.

Black and White Band Photos

I decided to experiment a little with desaturating images today. I chose the images of this band because they were new images and band photos are often edited to be more dramatic.

The first image I just desaturated and added a slight posterize effect to the image. I also turned up the contrast a little and darkened the image. I think it really brings out the image nicely.

The next image I desaturated and posterized to a much greater degree. You can not get a great view unless you click on the image to see a larger version. It wiped out the background much better and gave a very dramatic look to the image. The strong contrast really brings the face out nicely.

I pushed the posterization even further with this image but edited out the guitar to not be affected. It really brings the guitar to the foreground. I think that it might have been better if the guitar was still colored but it works well.

I only desaturated this image. I choose to select the band members to not be desaturated to make them much more dominant. I do not think I am happy with the result. I think a triptych of this image with each member independently being the only part with saturation might be interesting but right now they all stand out. This would be fine but they take up to much of the image which diminishes the effect.

Photos of Jordan DePaul and the Reputations

The band I photographed at Vexfest and focused on for my second Vexfest post performed at YSU yesterday. I swung by and caught part of the set, which was amazing as before, and got some images. I am really liking the concert photography but I find that often it is people standing in the same spot not really moving to much and feels repetitive to shoot a lot of images. But I still enjoyed myself. I have been using a telephoto lens to shoot because I don't want to get in anyones way so I am standing back further. It is blocking me from shooting a lot of interesting angles which would provide me with a larger variety in my images. My fear of people is also giving me problems with moving in because I don't want to upset anyone.

My Third Weekly Assignment

Well the Digital Photography School website is down for maintenance at this time. I do know that the next assignment is sleep which sort of makes me regret my last weeks assignment. I already have a new idea though and now I just need to get it in motion to do. I will update this post with the link to the assignment after the website comes back online.

Edit

Sleep

More photos from Vexfest

I wanted to upload some more images I shot at Vexfest. No discussion about them today though. Beginning of school has me a little frazzled and need to focus on it for a few days. Here are the images though.

Digital Photography Class

I am starting my digital photography class at Youngstown State University today. I am hoping to learn a lot in this class. I need a lot more work on my techniques and especially in Photoshop. I will be posting about my assignments as I work on them. Hope this is a good semester.

Vexfest part 2

This is a continuation of yesterdays post. The last band I photographed was called Jordan Depaul and the Reputations. I photographed this band a lot. I was feeling more comfortable photographing by this point and I really got into the music and wanted to stay and keep photographing. The whole group had so much emotion that I had a lot of images that worked well. The biggest problem I had was shooting around the poles which ruined quite a few shots and the sun was going down behind the band a slight amount giving a little back lighting. 

I was very happy with this shot. I had tried to nail this shot several times throughout the set with out luck and the last one I tried I finally got it. I think it might have been improved by have the drummer included but he was further back and it might have unbalance the image. I did have to crop this image though so I did not nail it perfectly. I had also gotten another photographer on the left side of the image shooting toward me. I think the line works very well and leads you through the image nicely.

The lead singer was full of emotion while singing. I thought these two images were the best composed though. The first image has a great depth of field leaving only the singer as an important subject. The second image also has a good depth of field but not as good. I think the second image is great because of the tilt to the image. it really gives you a feeling of looking up at the singer.

The bass player was not as emotional while performing. He reminded me of Charlie Watts of the Rolling Stones, he may not be screaming and making faces but you can see in his face that he loves what he is doing. I think these images work well because they show that. He is focused on playing and it shows that he is enjoying himself.

This guitarist was all over the place. He was moving and having fun and I had fun trying to get interesting shots of him as he moved around. He was very animated. I think if I had a tripod with me or even a monopod I might have been able to get a few great action shots of him playing. The biggest problem I had with photographing him was he was very close to a pole which kept getting in the way. 

The other guitarist was also very animated. He was smiling a lot and made a great subject. He was the hardest to photograph because the poles blocked me from shooting across the stage and equipment boxes made it hard to get a good view from the side he was on. I am happy with both images. The composition in the top image works great and the bottom image just needs that pole cropped out to improve greatly.

The drummer was almost as hard to shoot because of the equipment on stage was blocking a lot and the other members were moving in front of him often. I managed to get a few shots around the members and I shot a lot from the sides of the stage. I wish I would have caught the second image a split second earlier to catch the drumstick though. The microphone also takes a lot away from the image. The first image i though would be horrible when I took it because I couldn't shoot over the speaker enough but I think it worked better that way. It is far enough out of focus that it is barely recognizable but provides a good weight and framing to the image.

Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep. - Scott Adams

Photos of Vexfest

I decided that another aspect of photography I wanted to try was concert photography. Luckily Youngstown has a yearly music festival called Vexfest. It was a free show with varying bands and since the festival is not too large, at least during the day, I was able to get pretty close to the stage without many problems.

The first band I photographed was called AGP. This was a band that moved around a lot so I had trouble getting a lot of shots because of poles. Both outdoor stages had lots of poles along the front that were always in the way. I think due to the more rock oriented music the crowd was pushed in tighter for the band so I wasn't able to get as close as I would have liked. Both images I like the cropping. They are close enough to cut everything else out but far enough away to not feel crowded. I definitely feel I captured some of the emotion of the music in these images. The first image would be a lot better if that darn pole was not there and the second image could be cropped a little better to eliminate the speaker stack on the right side of the image.

The second band I photographed was a Hip-hop group called DaKreek. I did not take as many images of these group because I am not a fan of hip-hop. I do know that my photography does not involve listening but it was really hot and I did not come adequately prepared with water so I took the chance to rest during their show. They were very energetic about their music and very into the crowd. I felt that this image captured the interaction they were trying to achieve with the crowd.

The third band I photographed was called Cease to Exist. They were another hard rock band that moved around a lot. I am very happy with the first image. The microphone stands give a nice frame to the image and the emotion is shown in the guitarists face. The second image I am mostly satisfied with. I would be happier if I had the guitarists eyes in the image. It works well but his face being turned about 30 degrees toward me I think would have made the image.

Tomorrow I will continue with the coverage with the final band I photographed.

Perishability in a photograph is important in a picture.  If a photograph looks perishable we say, "Gee, I'm glad I have that moment."  ~John Loengard, "Pictures Under Discussion"

Final Product Photography (for now)

I finally have achieved a desirable result of the glass jar. I am very happy with the result not. It has good color, and the light reflections have been nearly reduced to nothing. I managed to keep the edges of the product clear finally which took a lot of work and a lot of balancing. It took a lot of time to reach this point but I am glad I finally got the image right. I learned a lot about light while working on this. It required a lot of experimenting which I think is much better than reading that if you do something you get this result. I know how and why I got each result. I know I could use more work but I need to keep my mind open and varied with subjects. I will continue to develop the techniques over time.

No photographer is as good as the simplest camera.  ~Edward Steichen

My Second Weekly Assignment

This week I will be doing Dreams. A lot of leeway with this assignment so I will have to think a lot about what I am going to do. Hopefully I will have an amazing shot up on next Wednesday.

There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs.  ~Ansel Adams

My First Weekly Assignment Results

This is the follow up to My First Assignment, I decided to continue with the product photography and do a sample of a food photography for the shoot. I have not tried photographing food before so it was a new experience. I think the white background actually take away from the image. I should have used a plate and maybe a dinner setting to get a better background. The tomato looks mostly appealing. I think I need to spend a lot more time getting a perfect cut on the tomato. The jagged edge really takes away from the image. Tomato's are a food I think of when I think fresh. 

I had another idea I was not able to do which was to have someone hold juice in their mouth and bite a fruit so the juice would all rush out and down their chin. The shot would be a close-up of the lower face so it would look like the juice was squirting from the fruit.

While there is perhaps a province in which the photograph can tell us nothing more than what we see with our own eyes, there is another in which it proves to us how little our eyes permit us to see.  ~Dorothea Lange