Beyond Photography

If you know that a common-household fuse is different than a swordfish then you can understand the difference between nuclear fusion and nuclear fission, as I hope these 2 sort-animations will illustrate.

Portrait Photography 2

By far the most engaging challenge of the semester has been Portrait Photography, so I wanted to try it again. I appreciate Tony telling us we don't have to spend a fortune to get started; that we can use the $20 photo studio, but I really wish I could have gotten access to the photo studio on the second floor of the Humanities East building with it's more sophisticated strobe lights, reflectors and luxurious space, without it I was forced to use one of the music school's piano rehearsal rooms and a set of lights from Home Depot (kindly donated by Don Grant). Unfortunately my camera choked, and the majority of the images came out blurred and streaked, still I'd like to thank the model for driving all the way from Arnold Missouri to help me out, I couldn't have done it without her. Thanks Kat!!!

Time Lapse Photography

I love animation and time lapse photography! So this is without a doubt my favorite assignment of the semester. The 535 images that make up this short-animated movie were imported into AfterEffects as a jpeg sequence and exported to QuickTime.

Color Photography

On some of these photos I used the technic (I learned from Mike Swoboda) where you blur the image and then Fade to the Overlay, Softlight or Hardlight blending mode in order to achieve a soft-focus effect with more vibrant colors . On others I took advantage of my tripod, used Exposure Variation and combined the various images using Photomatix Pro.

Black & White Photography

I captured these images of the Gulliver sculpture on the Meramec campus at night using exposure compensation and then sewed them together with Photomatix Pro. I shot in both raw and jpg formats but couldn't see any distinguishable difference in the final images.

(Not So) Macro Photography

After reviewing the other student's work for this assignment I wondered why everyone else had stunning macro images of objects like coins and flowers, but the best I was able to capture was some half way decent close-up shots, but nothing of very sharp focus like you would see with true macro photography.

Thankfully Tony stayed after class, looked over my camera and the owner's manual and explained that the lens for this camera doesn't have a true macro function; it can't focus on objects closer that 14 inches from the base point.

Portrait Photography 1

I shot quite a few portraits of other people, in studio, with a key, a fill and a rim light, but afterwards I longed to shoot a portrait that nobody else could. The subject is one of my very closest friends since the 7th grade, and the environment is his one-of-a-kind apartment filled with statues, figurines, posters, albums, CDs, magazines, books, comic books and sketchbooks. 

Landscape Photography With Exposure Variation

The objective for this assignment was to shoot a landscape, and to become familiar with exposure variation or exposure compensation functions of the camera.

Interior & Exterior Architectural Photography

When I moved into this apartment I wasn't sure how long I'd stay, now it's going on eleven years. There are so many great things about this place but my favorite is the southern exposure which provides lots of sunlight when I'm at my drawing table, and the fact that my window looks onto a small park and thankfully not the side of another building.

This assignment was a great opportunity for me to document my living environment from the in and outsides. I couldn't have done the Exposure Variations without the tripod.

Photojournalism

This was the one assignment that I felt comfortable with: Tell a story from your life using only pictures. I chose to document the experience of getting  haircut, from realizing that I needed a trim, to getting my haircut to being happy with the result.

Thanks to the people of Soulard Barber Shop for their patients and kindness.

Fill Flash, Slow Sync Exposure & Freeze The Action With Flash

Many of Tony's assignments require 2 or 3 variations on a theme, this week it was flash photography: Slow sync, fill flash and freeze the action with flash. To be honest I wasn't exactly sure what we were suppose to do, I only had a vague idea of what I was trying to accomplish, so imagine my surprise during the crit when Tony said I had fulfilled the parameters of the project!

ISO Portraits

Our first assignment: Shoot some informal portraits of your friends using all the different ISO settings on your camera. The only problem is I forgot to turn off the flash! Oh well the semester is still young.