For this one, we used water balloons to capture the motion of the water coming out from a single pop… or drop.
This was frustrating to me at first, but I got the hang of it by changing my settings to get the perfect shot.
ignore.ignore this.I had to get close and zoom in for this one.
A shutter speed of 1/250 best captured the water’s motion and details for me.
Since we were using water balloons for our lab, I knew this was going to be different than the paper sculptures. I had to change most of my settings to get a perfect shot of the eater coming out of the balloon.
Anticipating the moment and adjusting shutter speed enhanced my shot by using my timer, to be prepared whenever it comes. Expressing the scene in my own way also enhanced my shot.
Lessons from Blind Photography
From this lesson, I learned that there are many different ways to take photos using the five senses. When we did the blindfold test in front of the school, I was able to use all five of my senses (all but taste, in this case). I had the most fun doing that one than the water balloons on my opinion. This project expanded my creative boundaries by teaching me how important it was to capture a single image over an extended period of time.
This part of our lesson was honestly my favorite because we got to experience what it is like to be blind. It was a fun experience to say the least.
My mom led me outside for this one. She told me to tilt my phone to the side and snap, so I did.
For this one, my mom led me to my room, which was dark by the way, and just put something in front of me. I felt it for a few times, but didn’t question it. Anyway, that’s how I got this photo.
My sister eventually led me to my room, where she told me to take a photo of the right side, so I got my mini posters.
when Mrs. Lee told us to take a photo of the tree in front of us.
when Mrs. Lee told us to take a photo of the flags above us. All I got was the ZHS and American flag.
The blindfolded experience changed my approach when photographing because I was using my senses wherever I went. Like during the school lab, I was touching things near me to know where I was and where to go, or I was listening to the other person’s voice nearby.
I wasn’t investigating anything in particular. When I was at home, I closed my eyes and just started walking anywhere around my house to take a photo. The senses I followed were touch and smell.
Pushing my sensory boundaries affected my artistic voice and photographic style by using all five senses. Knowing this now changes my way of taking photos.
Emulating blind photography is an incredibly unique and transformative approach to photography, as it challenges conventional ideas about how we perceive and capture the world.
The choice of paper structure shapes influence shadow designs by determining how light passes through or around the object. The process behind this would basically be folding, cutting, and crumping to change the shape of the paper and overall use you imagination. No matter what you do, shadows are still created.
Changing light affects shadow complexity by altering their sharpness, length, and definition. With paper structures, a low light creates long and sharp shadows while a high light creates shorter shadows and less complex.
Focusing on capturing shadows through different lighting made me realize how much light angles and intensity can change the look of shadows. It helped me understand that shadows aren’t just about blocking light, but also about how the light hits and interacts with the surface.
For those of you that don’t know what a light painting is, light painting is a photo technique where you manually move light through space during a long exposure photograph.
One of the most notable photographers of this topic is Pete Eckert. Pete Eckert is a blind-light painting photographer who creates images using sound, touch, and memory. He was diagnosed with Retinitis pigmentosa, or RP. RP causes progressive vision loss.
Above is an example of Eckert’s works. In many of his work, he creates layered exposures and dancing light. This gives viewers a visual of what they are seeing. I really like the specific photo I used to introduce him because it gave me a good visual.
The process of long exposure was to capture a single image over an extended period of time. I really liked the project because it was fun learning more about the shutter and exposure. Messing around with the lights was fun too.
I feel like patience plays an important role when using long exposure to capture light and motion. We get the image we want by slowing the shutter speed down. Photographers like Pete Eckert have surreal and ethereal images because they were patient with their methods.
The best part of photographing my shadows and light paintings was how the light would interact with different surfaces and create these cool, unexpected shapes. Light painting was so fun because it felt like I was creating something out of nothing, just by moving the light around.
When working with light, the positive light is often bright and reveals texture, detail, and bringing life to the scene, while negative light creates shadows and evokes the mood. Yesterday, I learned that absence of light in certain areas can create a powerful, negative space. That helped me balance the composition in the photos I took while outside. By adjusting the f-stop, I could control the amount of light entering the camera and with a wider aperture. Shutter speed was critical in capturing the movement of light and using a slower shutter speed helped to emphasize the flow and grace of light. ISO adjustments helped me manipulate sensitivity to light, where a higher ISO is for low conditions and lower ISO to keep the photo clean. The mode I used was portrait mode due to me wanting to try the project on my phone instead of a camera, but it still gave me full control over settings for precise light manipulation. While taking photos, I learned how light can define the character of a photograph, whether it is positive or negative. Each exposure felt like an experiment in how light and shadow can tell different stories depending on how balanced they are. Overall, this project helped me capture true depth in my images through shadows and light.
2024 was a year of… unexpected surprises. From feuds to the presidential election, it was unexpected. To me, though, it was a pretty okay year. I personally enjoyed 2023 better, but hey. I learned a lot of things about myself, like how extremely poetic I am. I didn’t know I was capable of being a creative writer, but after showing my friend this one poem I wrote during class, he encouraged me to write more, and so I did. I also discovered new music, new anime, new food, etc.
Anyway, my aspiration for 2025 as a photographer in this class is that I should take the time and figure out what I’m capturing at the moment, rather than just taking the photo and claiming that it’s good. I will learn how to take better photos in and out of class so I can get better at the hobby. As a student, my aspiration is to know what I’ll be doing in the future when I graduate in 2026. Like how I’m in this class now, I probably would want to be a photographer in the future, but I’m still thinking about that.
A personal goal for me would be to focus on my mental health and not worry about what others say about me. My short-term goal is basic: it is for me to get used to using an actual camera rather than my phone for taking videos and photos. I have yet to get a real one for my hobby (Canon, Nikon, etc.). For my long-term goal, I would like to master my photography skills.
For this semester, I would like to seek after landscape photography, especially when no one is in the shot. I personally think I’m getting better at it.
Hello, everyone. We’ve done a lot of projects from August to December. I wouldn’t say a lot, but we did enough up until the Midterm Exam. These are the top 10 photography projects I chose from 2024. They’re pretty basic, mind you. I’ll change that this year.
Above are two photos from our very first project in this class. They fall under the Elements of Photography category with the first being texture and the second being color. I simply chose those two because they were the best ones I took out of the entire project (I was still learning).
This one came from our very first lab. I was satisfied with every photo I took, but I had to choose one. Most of them were taken outside. I enjoyed it because it gave me an idea on what I would be doing in the class. It was also fun exploring campus.
This came from our Glow in the Dark project. I was familiar with it all when I took Digital Media 2 last year as a sophomore, so it was easy for me to know how to glow objects in Photoshop. Certain videos in the photoshop projects made it easier for me to complete the photo.
This photo came from our Midterm, being the conceptual one. The items in the photo are items that give others an idea of what I’m like. You can see the notepad and pen, implying that I like to write, and manga (or books in general…), implying that I love to read. The socks are there to represent warmth just in case you were wondering why I added that there.
This photo came from the mobile scavenger hunt project. I enjoyed finding objects to mess around with so I could get the perfect photo. Here, I took a photo of my mom’s car (soon to be mine). I actually took multiple photos of the interior. The purpose of this project was to improve how well you take photos.
This photo here came from the Aperture lab. It’s not that much of an interesting angle, but it’s something. The point of this project was to learn more about shallow and deep depth of field.
These two came from the change my mood project from photoshop. They are pretty basic coming from my perspective, but it was something. The purpose of this project was to describe have viewers feel emotions through a photograph.
This one came from the backdrop thing from photoshop. It wasn’t hard and didn’t take long to do, and like I said about the Glow in the Dark photo, certain videos help me complete my work, like this one. I personally like creating backdrops because they set the scene in photography.
What was my top project?
I don’t have any photos of my top project here, but I would say the ABC project is my top because… it was challenging to say the least. It was very challenging for me to find objects that look like letters, but I had fun making attempts.
As we are entering the 2025 year, we should remember these skills and understand what the purpose of them are for upcoming projects (or of you just enjoy editing for a hobby).
File formats are important because they determine how data can used. There are nine most commonly used file format types.
JPEG: Literally meaning “Joint Photographic Experts Group” are image files that can compress at any moment the image is taken. They are easy to transfer from devices like your phone or laptop.
HEIF: “High Efficiency Image Format” image files offer increased quality and are smaller than JPEGs. Even though they take up less space, it can be hard to share them online.
TIFF: “Tagged Image File Format” image files are compressed files that are high quality and offer many opportunities. However, even though you can adjust a TIFF file as much as you want, they take up a lot of space on your device(s).
RAW: These files are used to store all of the information that was originally captured by a camera, like exposure and saturation for example. However, remarkable time is needed to edit and convert photos, as well as bigger files requiring more storage and longer post-processing times.
DNG: Also known as Digital Negative, the file is offered as a main RAW file that can be used by all manufacturers and cameras. However, it can take time to convert RAW files from your camera to DNGs.
PNG: These files give people the opportunity to view and edit because of the detail and compressed format. PNGs are also very useful online because they don’t require a lot of storage space.
GIF: These files are small, but support transparency and allows for animation. However, the files are not the greatest choice for photos when it comes to color as there is a maximum.
BMP: Invented by Microsoft, these file formats are used to print. With that being said, quality of the image is extremely high, but not exactly a good choice to share online because the file requires a lot of storage.
PSD: Image files used by Adobe Photoshop to save any data you have there, like an unfinished project. You can do anything with a PSD, like separate layers and re-access editing layers, but when the file is flattened, it cannot be undone.
On September 11th, 2001, a tragedy that would make history happened unexpectedly. An organization by the name of Al-Qaeda, led by Osama bin Laden, caused the attack that as a result killed many people. The victims’ families were and still are devastated, leaving them with long-term health issues. However, they aren’t the only ones who have been feeling that way. There are some who weren’t even born to hear about the attack, or those who weren’t even in the state where it occurred, who still feel bad.
Me? I’m one of those people who feels bad that it happened, but it doesn’t really affect me as much as it did others who dealt with it in person. I heard about the event when I was in elementary school. Now me, being the oblivious and naive person I was back then, I didn’t know what 9/11 was. But then, I (still a kid, by the way) came across a video on YouTube. A flash animation video about 9/11. If I’m remembering it correctly, it was about a little girl who was talking to her father, who died in the 9/11 attack. When I watched the video, I had no opinion on it because, again, I was oblivious and naive. When I think back to the video at 16, I feel bad for the character, who resembles many family members of the victim. For me, every September to be exact, remembering 9/11 is an everyday thing, but I don’t necessarily get sad about it. However, I do think that if an attack like that would happen in Louisiana, I would be sad for sure because it could have been a family member of mine who died as a result. Sometimes, I can be happy about the day, because my cousin was born, two years after the attacks (2004). While I’m celebrating her birthday, what happened on that very day in 2001 doesn’t come to mind.
Source/Website for Image: Daily News Egypt
Documentary photography plays a role in remembering such a day by educating those of events that they never knew happened. Even though topics like 9/11 are hard to hear and learn about, people should still be educated by the event and understand the effects of it. The purpose of documentary photography is to capture real-life events and settings, like the Great Depression, for example. Images like that are important for us to see so we can be aware that it happened, despite them being hard to look at.
Source/Website for image: DirectIndustry e-Magazine
The imagery impacts the event and experience by literally capturing it all. The airplanes flying towards the buildings, fumes, destruction, countless innocent people left dead and injured, family members in tears, it was too much. Not only imagery, but videos as well, like my experience with knowing of the attack. Viewing either an image or video can be heartbreaking. But, those people got together and consoled each other in their time in need, which was a good thing. So even though I wasn’t physically on Earth to hear about the 9/11 attack in 2001, it had an impact on me in a way to find out about it.
Hi, my name is Camella (pronounced Come-Ella). My favorite colors are blue and black. My favorite music genres are alt rock, hip hop, and indie, but really my music taste depends on my mood. My favorite meal is really anything Asian. When I grow up, I want to be either a voice actress or a book author. I would sing Lovers Rock by TV Girl on a karaoke night because I know all the lyrics for one- and also because I enjoy TV Girl. If I were a superhero, I would have teleportation because I’d just want to go anywhere I want. If I were to be somewhere I didn’t want to be, it would be simple because of my power. A perfect Saturday night for me would be staying at home and watching movies or anime on call with friends. If I could pick any wild animal, I would pick an opossum. If I could transport myself anywhere in the world, I would go to Japan, because I love the culture, not just because of anime. If I could go back in time, I would go back to the year I was born, late 2007, if not the whole 2000s era. The reason why I chose this class was simply because I love taking photos… not so much of myself, but of people and my surroundings. I love taking sky photos specifically, because they’re so pretty. Anyway, I know I’m going to enjoy Photography 1 because of my interests and hobbies.
