Saturday, April 21, 2012

Photography I Projects

These are the photos I took for my projects in Photography I this semester, all with a DSLR. (A Nikon D3100, if you were wondering.)

-PROJECT I-
For our first project, we had to take 3 images: one looking straight up, one looking straight down, and one micro. The point of the project was to look at things with a different perspective. I always enjoyed looking up at things, but don't often look down. And I love Micro. (I want a Micro lens.)
This is my straight up photo. It's of an old building across from the building where all my design classes are. The sky was really nice that day.
Straight down. I tried to focus on the bricks.
My micro shot. I was working, and I needed to take a look at a computer to see what needed to be fixed, so I opened it up. I always thought that the inside of computers looked very cool, so I thought that taking a micro shot of that would be very interesting.

-PROJECT 2-
For the next project we needed to take 4 images: large depth of field, shallow depth of field, blurred motion and frozen motion. This project was to learn how to use different depths of field to our advantage, and how to capture motion. I like shallow depth of field and am fine with large depth of field, but I never liked trying to capture motion.
This is my wide depth of field.  I took it while I was walking to class. The original image was more centered and the colors were cooler because it was early morning. It reminds me of a Beatles album cover for some reason.
This is my shallow depth of field. Link sits on the lamp on my desk. I tried to edit it so he stood out more, and in the original image he was very dark.
Frozen motion, from the Chinese New Year's festival at my college.
And blurred motion. I had trouble with editing the blurred and frozen motion, and am not really happy with them. I thought this one was cool because she looks ghostly, but it didn't turn out right.
-PROJECT 3-
Next we had to take 3 images for a nature triptych. You can do some interesting things with triptychs, and we had to learn how to take images that worked well together in a set.
These were all taken in my front and backyard. (Because my yard is so naturally abundant. Not.) I went with these three because they all show a part of a fence.

-PROJECT 4-
Next we did triptychs of indoor architecture.
I took the photos for this project not realizing we were making another triptych, so I had some trouble finding 3 images that worked together. I took these in the front area of my High School, and I just had to use that chandelier photo. I tried to edit them in a way so they'd work better together. I was playing around with the background haha. (I used the colors that are in the photos, though.) 

-PROJECT 5-
Next we learned how to do HDRs (High Dynamic Range), and needed to take an indoor, outdoor, night, and portrait photo. HDR is done by taking the same image with several different exposures, and then combining them to get more details in the shadows and the light.
Indoor, in a building where one of my history classes is. I think it turned out alright, but it's nothing special. (Kinda boring.)
This is my outdoor, and I like how this one came out. There's a park/beach nearby and this was taken at sunset. I had to crop it to get rid of some rocks in the foreground that were drawing your attention to them. (In particular a big red one.)  I tried to give the photo a panoramic feeling. (Man I really want a Telephoto lens…)
This is my night snapshot, and that guy was creepy. (He just parked there, then kept moving closer…) Good thing I wasn't alone.
Getting an HDR of a person or a group of people is the hardest because they need to stay PERFECTLY. STILL. (Or not, you can get interesting things when they move, like some of my classmates did.) I don't like this one, but I had fun editing it.

-PROJECT 6-
After midterms, we just had two projects left to do, in the studio. We had two weeks for these unlike the regular one. The 6th project was portraits, 4 images. Two inside the studio, one with direct light, one with diffused light. The other two images required were natural direct light and natural diffused light. (Natural light=the sun.)
This is my studio direct.
She was really tired when she came in, so I really appreciate her helping me anyway.
Studio diffused.
Me taking portraits is basically me just moving the lights around and telling them to pose however they want. I would never be a portrait photographer. She was very good at posing, though.
My sister-in-law and nephew. =)
 Natural direct. That lamp I left in because I liked it there, but I wonder if it's distracting… I made the background black and white to call attention to the two of them. This was easier to select the area I wanted black and white because they both have black hair and the rest of them were different from the other colors so I didn't have to be too careful/photoshop did most of the work for me.
Natural diffused. 
Usually when I start editing a photo, I don't really have a clear idea of what I want to do, I just need to edit it. But with this one and the above (did this one first) I had a clear idea what I wanted.

I don't like taking pictures of people, but I like how all these came out. (A nice feeling after being unhappy with so many after the first project.)

-PROJECT 7-
The final project, objects. To be taken in the studio, we needed an object with lighting that showed depth, contour, and texture, a diffused metal and a direct metal. And a still life. 5 images. We could also take two photos of glass, one on a dark field and one on a light field for extra credit. I wanted to just to try taking a photo of glass, but someone had moved the light for the table and I didn't know how to set it up. :/
More studio lighting practice. Good especially if you are looking to go into commercial photography.

Depth. I don't particularly like it, but I don't really hate it either. The candies that were in the tin were good. Mmm…
Contour. I like my owl statues, and I used them for a few of the assignments but ended up not using the photo, so I'm glad I finally did. =)
I had many different edited versions (as I do with many of the photos) and went with this one because, well, owls are nocturnal so the background should be darker.
Texture. This football is actually pretty flat, I need to give it some air. :/
Metal direct. I feel so-so about this one. I'm worried I might of edited out the directness of it…
Metal diffused. As I was editing it, I came to a point where it had gotten grainy like this. And I like it, it's like an old grainy photo. There was red fuzz all over the table from the knit hat I was using as another textured object.
Still life. I had no idea what to do for still life, but I did do some set ups with random objects. This was meant for a contour, but my prof said it could count for still life. =)

I liked the reflections in the photos, so I didn't edit any out.

I didn't know what objects to use, so I ended up taking so many that I had a hard time deciding which photos to use…

……………

Well, that's it! I really enjoyed the class (One day I will take a darkroom photography class…), I always loved photography. (I like taking pictures of nature and architecture best.) I'm looking foreword to taking Photography II next next semester. (Next semester I'm taking Motion Graphics II, which is only available in the fall.)

-Dawn

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