Time

This past semester I was able to work for the University of South Carolina's student newspaper: The Daily Gamecock. It was really cool, I was able to learn a ton. I learned mostly about news style photography, and how to (try to) capture an event. What I quickly came to realize, is that this involves a lot of waiting. But I've come to think that that is what photography is about. When you're trying to capture a moment in time, you have to wait for that moment to come and happen. That's what happened here. I had to take a picture of the candidates for student council. The moderators/people asking questions, were pretty much right behind me to my right when I took this. The debate was set up so that the moderators would ask a question, then all the candidates would answer one at a time. So after the first question, as the last candidate was answering, I got in my position where I knew all the candidates would all be looking at the sam time: right next to the moderators. I had already set up my exposure settings beforehand. I'm pretty okay with how this came out.



I also learned how important it is to figure our settings as quick as possible. Here's an example of when I was in the right spot, but the picture's overexposed a bit. I got a text message one day after class, saying there was a protest to keep a camp open for kids with disabilities. I figured it would be cool to wait for the protesters to walk past me, so I waited by the sidewalk. But I was in the shade; not the best, I learned, for getting even light. Oh well, now I know.

Flowers are usually pretty

So....I'm finally done with school. That should explain a lot. In other words, I will be posting more regularly now for a while. I have so many pictures I've wanted to post. I'll start with this one.

I was walking back to my dorm from something, I think it was some meeting, and it was about 5:30 PM in early March. Golden hour. I walked past these flowers and thought it would make a good picture, so I convinced myself to stop. Pretty much just basic settings, trying to get right exposure and all. I was physically pretty close to the flowers themselves, so that helped a lot with the depth of field.

Lessoned learned: actually trying is half the work.

Something Different

Thought someone might want to try this.

I think I might.

Fun Stuff

The South finally got some snow! It is always a big event down here, so I went ahead and got out to take some pics even though there was a two hour delay (yes this was as much snow as we got in the pics).

I really like textures, so I was trying to convey the texture of fresh snow in these last ones.

Please let me know what's good and bad. Thanks a ton.

Turn Around

One of the first things I've noticed with my camera is how much lighting changes even by just turning around. For example, when I was at my bro's police academy graduation, I had my settings adjusted for the stage lighting, where my brother would be walking across the stage. But then the speaker asked the parents to stand up. So I saw an opportunity when my ma and pa stood up next to me on my right, I just went ahead and started clicking away. But as you can tell, the lighting was not the same. So, all that to say: I need to learn how to adjust my settings quicker and when to do so.

And a practical tip I've learned the hard way; set your ISO higher before slowing down shutter speed or changing anything else when taking indoor pictures. I've found indoor lighting is almost always darker than you think it is.

UPDATE: 1/7/09
Here, the only difference between these is that the second picture is one f-stop higher. It should have been lower to begin with, but it works for illustration purposes. You can see, that there is almost no detail in the face of the one dog in the second picture, but if I felt like cropping the first one a bit, you could actually see the dog's face a bit more. This is how much difference there is in lighting, just by turning around. 

I hope this helps

And we're back (!!!!!)

First: MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

I got a camera!! I still can't really believe I actually have this amazing thing. (Canon rebel XS, in case you're wondering)

Here's a few of my first pics I took with it.


I have a lot to learn now, but I am so glad I am now able to really take what I want. Key word there is "able". So please feel very free to be as critical as possible on pics I post from now on. Any pointers would be appreciated.


And along the lines of the actual content; I am being taught the ways of photojournalism at school. The photography group I've been going to lately has been pretty helpful. The main thing I've learned so far is to never take a picture that I can't answer the question "why did you take that". In other words don't take pictures that only serve to look pretty. If someone were to ask, "why did you tilt the camera that way?" make sure you have a very specific reason for that; as to why that visual element helps tell the story of your picture (not just make it look pretty).

But keep in mind that this is for journalistic photos. Photos that help to tell a story. But I think that it is somewhat applicable to any other type of photo too. Just sharing what I learned the hard way a couple weeks ago at school when I took some of my photos to a "portfolio workshop". I learned a lot, but it was the hard way =^ P Oh well, one way or another.


So I hope this helps somewhat, I super excited to have a camera again. Please be super critical. I will definitely be posting more regularly now.

Finally

Yes....oh yes. 

I finally got a camera from the USC newspaper. And it was worth the wait: nikon D40x with the standard 35-80mm lens and an amazing 70-300mm macro lens. It looked like it wasn't brand new, but that didn't matter one bit. The 35-80mm lens was a bit easier to control, and better for general purposes, but the other lens opened up so many more options. 

I got the camera at about 5:30, went to the horseshoe, which for my purposes, was a photographers paradise, and just tried to let the camera do its thing. I still managed to take some out of focus, ill-cropped, and plain bad pictures, but it was kinda hard to take a bad picture. 

I only kept about 120 pics of all that i took. There's only about 12 different subjects, just a lot if hit-and-miss shots. If anyone wants to see the others, let me know, and i'll put up a album (in picasa). I know this is too many, but i haven't had a camera in a while, and when i got a nikon D40x.......

None are edited for color, contrast, etc. Only one is edited to straighten it out. 

And yes, i barely knew how to adjust any settings on the camera.

Ya, so i was already excited to have a sweet camera in my hands, and then this squirrel comes out of no where, right next to me. This is in his mid-jump. 

Just messin around with the 70-300mm lens

I think i should have put more of this tree in focus. (?)

Probably one of my favorites. This was the hardest to get, as i had to wait for the wind to stop. Defininetly could have focused better. I have a ton of these tries.

The Horseshoe

I felt like a stalker. 

This is the one i straightened out. 

I kinda wish this came across better; focusing on the sandals. Maybe if they were mine, and i moved them closer together and got down lower....

This is just outside my dorm. I wish there was someone unlocking their bike. This is also an example of a photo i would edit for contrast/white balance, etc.

Not sure which of these next two i like better

Oh ya, i did crop this one a little too. 

Can you say 'oversaturated' ?

4th of July (in August)

Since i've been using my mom's camera (kodak point-and-shoot), i have to wait till i can get it back from her to get the pictures off. So here are the pics i took on the 4th of July at my grandma's house in Virginia Beach: (fireworks turn a point-and-shoot into a point-and-hope)

Detail

Aside from being flat out cool, and darn impressive, i thought this might help understanding detail and lighting. Ya, computers are cheating, but just watch this simply to see how much the kind of lighting can effect a shot. I know this isn't a photograph, but at this level, the principles are the same.

Or, maybe i'm just putting this up because i don't have a camera right now.

Beachfest 08

Went to Beachfest this weekend. Very cool. Saw the BMX show and Toby Mac. BMX was a lot harder to shoot than i thought. Of course, this was  a point n' shoot. You can tell the difference between the original and edited BMX pictures. Most of the others were really blurry. 

Oh, if you ever get the chance to go to a Toby Mac show, go, his shows are so good, even if you're not the biggest fan of his music.

Senior Trip

So last week we went on our senior trip. It's been in the works since last year, so we got it worked out to stay in a really nice house twenty minutes from all the parks we went to in Orlando. (Except Busch Gardens in Tampa). We did everything but Disney. Lots of action during our trip, so i didn't get much chance to take my time taking pictures. (that's my excuse, and i'm sticking to it). I was actually doing a a lot of filming. Just practicing for school this fall i guess. 

Oh, and in case you don't read my other blog, i just got my new laptop too. So i've been having tons of fun in iphoto. 

here is some of my faves,

 First pic of the trip. We left at 4:30 (yes, AM) to beat traffic. Says my aperture was f 2.8. Ya, i'm not positive what that means. I think it was something like 1.5 sec exposure. Unedited.

Seven thirty in Universal Studios. Pretty much full auto camera settings. However, i am enjoying my new computer, so i edited it a little, also adding the vignette. ('vin-yay'; the burnt corners took me a while to learn that term, but maybe ya'll all ready knew it)

Having no one else to boss around, i made myself the subject in this one. It was six-thirty, and the sunset was reflecting off the concrete pillar i'm standing behind in the pic. I hate to say it is edited, but only slightly. 

Good afternoon sun. Edited a little for contrast, took a couple tries to get it with his mouth open. It was a little bit of zoom; we were pretty close.

This is Busch Gardens. Best wooden coaster i've been on. It's ten after one in this pic, but i liked the angle while waiting in line.

Photo contests: results

I think i got the usual:

"you have a 1:9,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.2 chance in winning. Would you like to purchase one of our $69 photo books?"

I don't recommend online photo contests.

(sorry there's no pictures in this one)

Going back in time

I love film. It reminds me of the good ole' days. Even scanning film to make digital ruins it a little. But since my camera got its inards' semi-squashed on the bus ride up to our senior trip, i had to use the disposable cameras i brought. I think they came out cool. (I think that's because i couldn't mess with any settings on the camera) But digital is amazing in its "sharability" factor, and it's almost just as good as film if you don't look too closely.

Some of these have a little bit of the negative still exposed because i just had them developed straight from the negative film to a disc. I might make prints from the negatives eventually.







Also, since my camera won't work without two hundred bucks of work to it, i entered this pic into a few online photo contests. If anything happens I'll let you all know so you can get in on them.