Saturday, March 5, 2011

Frozen


Yet another self-portrait.
I took tons of photos today outside in the freezing rain, but I wasn't satisfied with even one, so I resorted to a selfie. Portraiture is all I want to try lately (and gosh do I need the practice), but I'm lacking subjects. Less than two more weeks until I get my fill of portraiture practice!!! :D I can't WAIT to visit Indiana. Three photo sessions lined up, 2 of them with huge 10+ person families, and hopefully a couple more with Sandra and her daughter Khalila. Photo heaven!

Friday, March 4, 2011

A Taste of Elegance


Still unhappy with my photos. Tomorrow, perhaps? Definitely going to have to take my photos during the daytime if i want anything even remotely decent. :( Anyhow, have a good night (or day, depending on where you are)!

An Issue of Pride

First and foremost, HAPPY BIRTHDAY to the best mentor I could ever ask for! I hope you had a wonderful day, Sandra!

Now, today's photos. Yaaay... *sarcasm sign*

You know, with the exception of the smoke stream photos, I haven't been proud of my work in almost 2 weeks. This is a problem I hope to fix over the weekend with my Nikon FM. Things are going great for me, but it's all with older digital photos, not recent work.

I need to step up my game, anyway. I just found out some terrifying news today: My film photography portfolio is due NEXT WEEK instead of finals week now! AAAARGH! I'm nowhere near ready. The professor chose a few of my prints that he wants in the portfolio, but otherwise, I still need like 9 more. I've decided that my portfolio theme will be Lines. He wants us to have a specific theme, and it seems that all my film prints heavily emphasize lines, so there we go. I'm spending pretty much the whole day Tuesday doing what I can. Wish me skill!
C'est Chic
P.S. Photographer's Forum has finally posted the winners of the contest I was a finalist in. You can find them all here.

Thursday, March 3, 2011

Catch-Up

I didn't forget about you guys!!! It's been kind of a crazy few days, but I'm here now.

Remember how on Thursday (I believe) I said that I got a frame-in-frame shot that I really liked? Turns out that it wasn't as good in-camera as it was in-mind. It's still rather amusing, though. I like how it seems that these freaky little creatures are creeping out of the light.


As for yesterday, I was busy like you wouldn't believe, so my photos of the day are prints that I made during class. Sorry for that. :(

 A wildly painted set of bleachers at the main campus of my school.

Today is no better, photographically speaking. We have a shot I took just to see what using some strange filter I found in my room would do, and a snapshot.

Not quite sure what this filter was, but it made those stars.
It was a great day despite my tone and busy-ness. I got my prints in for the art conference and show I'm being featured in next Friday, and I'm extremely pleased with them. They're all set up and ready to go. Then, I got an e-mail from someone on the committee of the art conference saying that they'd like to feature a few more of my photos, so I've got to choose some ASAP!

Prints all ready to go
For now, I'm exhausted. Have a good one.

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Antiquity


After a long day of studying nothing but the Gothic period and the High Renaissance, I came home thinking about sfumato and chiaroscuro, Leonardo and Michelangelo, pointed arches and sensuous folds. Eventually, I gave in and decided to just take a picture that sort of mimics what I've been seeing all day long. Enjoy. (Please. lol)

Sunday, February 27, 2011

Music to My Eyes

The past few days have been photographically blasé. It feels like I've been failing all week, but today was more than I could have expected. I am so happy with this set I could squeal. If you don't like it, I completely understand, but for once I shall be content. :D

I now present: Music to My Eyes


The Conductor
The Treble Clef


La Tromba (The Trumpet)
The Diva
Smokopelli the Violinist


This is my first time trying my hand at smoke stream photography, somewhat following this tutorial Sandra sent me to. I used a flashlight to light up the smoke while I focused and then shot with the tut's recommended settings and my flash on. I set my white balance to blue intentionally and shot by hand in my poolhouse. It's definitely something I'll be trying again!

Saturday, February 26, 2011

Splish Splash


Today was a photographic failure. I had to cheat so badly to get this photo. My white background had distracting silver brads on it, so blanked it out except for the shadows because this photo is extremely boring otherwise. I don't know. Hope you like it more than I liked editing it. lol

I thought I'd try this out thanks to Shayne Gray's inspiring post, but I couldn't get enough light no matter what I did, and then when I finally got my flash working how I wanted it, I couldn't find an object that would create a good splash. This tiny one was created by a heavy Mexican coin. You might be wondering "Why Mexican?" Well, the answer is that it's magnetic and I could use my nifty magnet pen to get it out of the water from behind my tripod. Laziness for the win!

Other objects I tried include a 50 cent piece, a gold dollar, a golf ball, and three different sizes of rocks since I had no fruit to use. Nothing created a splash. I'm starting to think that glass was cursed (or, uh, specially made not to splash?). Any pointers on what I should have done?

Friday, February 25, 2011

Playful Portrait


Alright, so I was sick today and didn't feel up to doing anything other than sleep-- which somehow I managed not to be able to do. That didn't mean my teddy bear couldn't have a little fun. ;) She was jealous of that sexy pepper last night and had to show it up.

Maybe tomorrow I'll give you something better!

On the Irish and Desirable Veggies

Oh, come on. Who doesn't talk about the Irish and desirable veggies every once in awhile?

It's a story I have to tell because I was thoroughly amused by it, and today was a hard day to amuse my unhealthy self. My Art History professor was showing us photographs from Edward Weston, and someone in the class said, "I don't get it. None of his nudes are sexy. They all look like landscapes!" The professor said to him, "Wait 'til you see what he does with vegetables. Have you ever seen a sexy pepper?" What was just as amusing was that I immediately knew exactly what photo she was talking about. How messed up is that?

You can't tell me you don't love this pepper.

On another note, my Photography class went terribly yet amazingly. I snapped 10-12 photos this morning to finish up the roll of film I wanted to develop, and one of them was quite pleasing to me. I've been trying to practice frame-in-frame shots since that's something I've never really gotten into, and I may or may not have gotten a nice one. The problem is that I forgot to print it. Here's why.

First, I should have checked my reels before I went dark. The two sides of each reel were not matching, so they didn't meet up quite right. I couldn't get my film onto those reels for the life of me. Then, I learned that my particular darkroom doorknob was backwards the hard way-- it should be locked on the outside but unlocked on the inside, yet someone opened up my door while I was in there. It was locked on my side, but whoever opened my door a little spilled light all over my roll.

Once I finally did manage to maneuver the roll onto its reel, I began the developing process. My tank, however, decided that it didn't like its light seal, and the thing fell open even though it had been sealed just fine while I was agitating. Once again, my roll of film was exposed to light prematurely. I asked the professor what he suggested, but he said I might as well trash the roll. Twice exposed is pretty much a death sentence, right?

Wrong! Somehow, that roll managed to come out perfectly fine. Talk about luck of the Irish!!! Even Professor Williams couldn't believe it. However, after all this trouble, I'd used up almost all my class time. I spent the rest of it trying to print a few photos from the beginning of the new roll. How stupid of me. They're all photos from the Photowalk post, only taken with the SLR instead. You've seen them!

Instead of posting my photo of the day TODAY, I'll give you one you haven't seen yet. It was taken last year when I was just learning what White Balance was and how to tweak it. Somehow, it's still a favorite of my friends'. I hope you like it, too!

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Bury Me Alive

Everybody's got to breathe somehow.

I was bored and dissatisfied with my photo for today's challenge (natural beauty), so I decided to posterize it and turn it into a mock book cover. The lyrics are from a beautiful gothic rock song called Bury Me Alive by the band We Are the Fallen. If you like Evanescence, you'll love them. They're actually the original band from Evanescence with a different singer (who sounds almost exactly like Amy Lee. Shocker.)

Anyhow, photography class tomorrow so goodnight! <3