Multiple Flash

For the multiple flash assignment, my group (Christina Manolis and Irene Rojas) decided to go to Studio B and take photos of two different dance classes. The room was hard to shoot in because there were a lot of mirrors as well as lights on the wall and in the ceiling that were in awkward places when we were shooting. We placed a strobe high up in a corner along the mirror and had one on the camera as well as a third one that one of us would maneuver and work with while others were shooting. Here is my select from the shoot.

 Instructor Frankie Humphrey teaches his hip hop students the next move in their routine at Studio B dance studio on November 17. The class is an hour long and focuses on hip hop.

I shot this photo with an ISO of 200, an aperture of f/ 2.8 and shutter speed of 1/90. I had one strobe set up high in the corner of the room that is behind me, and Irene held the other strobe on my right side and held it near the floor and faced it up towards Frankie, which lit his face. I like this photo because it is capturing an interesting moment and students are visible in the background. The photo makes sense in that he is instructing and they are following him. If I could have done anything differently in this shoot I would have tried to get more interesting angles, although it was hard with the mirror and the terrible looking lights that were all around the studio. Here are some other photos that I took in the studio.

 

 

 

These photos are from the flamingo classes. I had a harder time shooting that class because the mirror as well as the lights in the ceiling were distracting and it was hard to get the light just right on the women dancing. I feel like since there were three of us shooting and only two hours to get good content, we felt pressure to get things done quickly. I feel that if we had more time to experiment with the light and different angles, we would have been a little more successful. All in all, I thought this assignment was a really good way to learn how to deal with multiple flash and I will able to take what I learned from this assignment and apply it to future situations and hopefully be more successful with my photos.

Fill and Balancing

This assignment wasn't as stressful as the color correction for me. I was able to take fill flash as well as balancing flash. My favorite of the two is the photo that I got with balancing flash. I was walking downtown and looking for shops with big windows when I saw a group of girls in the window at ACME t shirts. I walked into the store and they let me make pictures of them. This is my select for the assignment.

Brianna Lawrence, Jodie Walker and Lyndsay Dickson look at examples of t-shirt designs in ACME t- shirt company on Ninth Street on Tuesday, November 10. "We're trying to design a shirt for students in the Ultrasound Program," said Dickson, who is also a part of the Ulrasound Program at Mizzou.

I shot this photo with an ISO of 200, an aperture at f/6.7 and shutter speed of 1/125. I really like this photo because it is pretty clear what they are doing. Their emotion also seems to work in this photo because they are all staring that the design and debating what they want to do for their own shirts. The only problem that I have with this photo is that the background is too light. I wish that I would have taken more with a darker background so that the buildings outside didn't look so overexposed.

For my fill flash, I ran into girls in Zeta Tau Alpha Sorority who were giving away pink lemonade as well as selling "I Love Boobs" shirts for their philanthropy that benefits breast cancer research. Here is my favorite take from the fill flash portion of the assignment.

It was a little hard to shoot these girls because their booth was in the shade the entire time. I also wish that I had a different lens with me because all I had was an 18 to 55 lens that isn't full frame (it is from my older camera and isn't completely compatible with my new camera.)

All in all, I feel that this assignment was really helpful and it is something that I will definitely have to be aware of and use in the future.

Multimedia Story- "When No One's Looking" (Reported by Ian Urbina)

When looking for a well done multimedia story, I found "When No One's Looking" on the New York Times website. This story is about the increasing number of homeless teenagers and the approaches they take on the streets in order to survive.

http://video.nytimes.com/video/2009/10/25/us/1247465360380/when-no-one-s-looking.html

This story was produced by Lisa Iaboni and Amy OLeary. I thought that the introduction was creative and also felt that the audio ran really well next to the content of the photos. Both pieces worked together to keep the story strong and easy to understand. They have also included video, which helped enhance the story at certain times. I'm not sure how I feel about having the narrorator, Ian Urbina (who was also the reporter), narrating in certain parts of the story. I did feel like it helped at certain times, but it was at times hard to tell who was talking and text might have at times made more of an impact. Although there were some things that I feel could have been done differently, I really liked it overall. I think they told the story in a way that worked, and there is even a part two to the story below.

http://video.nytimes.com/video/2009/10/26/us/1247465377685/when-no-one-s-looking-part-2.html

All in all, the way they reported this multimedia story gave a true look inside to homeless teenagers and told it in a way that will cause reaction to the audiences.

Color Correction

The Color Correction assignment was a challenge for me because a lot of different things went wrong. What made it harder was that most of the problems were my fault. We had completed the lab for this assignment a couple of weeks ago. At the time I was feeling really good about how the flash worked and thought I could get it down. However, when it came to do the assignment, there were many things that I forgot to refresh on, such as what white balance to use for the fluorescent lighting photo. When I first started shooting at Andy's Frozen Custard, I set it on the right setting the first time, however thought it looked too blue. Below is the photo I took in the correct setting.

Andrew Luley takes out toppings for a concrete ordered by a customer at Andy's Frozen Custard on November 4. He has worked at Andy's for two and a half years now. "I really enjoy the fast pace and the people I work with mostly," Luley states.

This photo isn't the best content, however it was the only one I took in the right white balance. I wasn't sure if it was the right one because it looked to me like his face was a little to blue looking. So I switched it to daylight, which was a mistake.

I really wished that I had looked back over the notes before I went out and did this part of the assignment because it had been a long time since we had gone over it in lab. Andy's was also a hard place to get good shots with because of the set up. I kind of liked that it was a challenge because it made me look outside the box and find neat angles and different opportunities to make a good photo. However, the fact that all of them are in the wrong white balance makes me very frustrated. If I could have redone this shoot I would have made sure that I knew exactly what to do and try to take the time I need to instead of feeling like I have to rush through it.

I felt a little better about the Tungsten portion of this assignment because I was comfortable with the setting and was able to try a lot of different things to get a good photo with strong content. Below is my select for this assignment.

Ashley Cummins, junior, works on a project for her graphic design class on November 1. Cummins was assigned this project for the entire month of October where she had to design her own clip art from a real life image as well as their own font. By doing tracings, flattening the image and pairing it with typography, she was able to pull together her entire project to turn in.

I shot this photo with an ISO of 200, aperture of f/3.5 and shutter speed at 1/45. I like this photo because it looks at the subject in a different angle. Even though I am shooting up towards her through the table, the glass allows us to still see her face and what she is doing.

All in all, I would have felt better with this assignment if I had gone over the assignment details again before shooting. I was also nervous because several others and I hadn't had time to meet with David before the assignment was due, but didn't want to pressure him as I knew he was really swamped with everything. Although I made some mistakes now it definitely taught me a lesson so that next time I will be sure to do everything correctly. I am really hard on myself when I make mistakes so it is really hard for me to turn in this assignment when there are things I need to fix, but I am also glad that I can learn from this experience so that it will turn out much better from now on.

Painting with Light

After completing the lab for this assignment, I was really excited to go out and try it on my own with my group (Preston Guerra, Christina Manolis, and Lillian Kelly.) We went out to a farm in Millersburg around fifteen minutes away from Columbia and were able to shoot a big tractor as well as massive bails of hay. We got there a little before 8pm, and it was surprisingly warm compared to the weather we have been having. The sky was pretty clear too, which was nice for our photos. We started working with the tractor at first and did a lot of different stuff with gels and strobes. Below is our select for this assignment.

After being run over and chopped up by a tractor one stormy night in 1832, the young girl's ghost returns every dark and stormy night to seek her revenge on anyone who crosses her path. Many people have ventured out to this farm to see if the story is really true. Nobody has ever heard from any of them again.

We shot this with an ISO of 200, at an aperture of f/8.0 on the bulb setting with a 50mm lens. We really liked this photo because of the ghost that is sitting on the tractor. I was lucky enough to be the ghost in all of our takes and it was really fun! I used a small flash to light myself up on the tractor after all of the other lights were painted onto the tractor. I really like how we lowered the tripod down so that the camera is almost looking up at the tractor. This makes it look like the tractor is coming towards the camera. It looks really scary when the camera is on this level. I also like the colors that we used, especially the red for the tractor. Looking back on it the one thing I would have liked to have done would be to add another flash to the seat of the tractor when I wasn't sitting there so it would add more of a transparent look to the ghost. All in all, I had a really fun time with this assignment. Our group also worked extremely well together and we were able to come up with a lot of neat frames. It was hard to choose just one for this assignment! This has been my favorite assignment in Advanced Techniques so far and I'm really proud of the work we produced.

Here are some more frames that we produced.

 

Single Flash Second Take

When I set out for my second attempt at the single flash, I was feeling a lot better because the first time I shot I was able to get a feel of what worked and didn't work. This time I focused more on a bounced flash instead of a direct flash.

Below is the photo I selected for my second take with single flash.

Alpha Phi members Megan Geisz, freshman, and Samantha Gillstrom, sophomore, observe their work at Which Wich during decorate the district on October 21. Different Mizzou organizations participate in decorate the district every year as a part of celebrating the Mizzou Homecoming tradition.


I shot this photo with an ISO of 200, shutter speed of 1/60 and aperture of 6.7 on the daylight setting. I really liked this photo because I feel that the content is a lot better in this photo than my first take and the flash is less noticeable. I also bounced the flash off of a white card, so it made the photo look more even and not as bright. I wish that the flash didn't show up so much in the reflection of the balloons, but I don't think that it is too distracting. The sky also looks really hot because it was really gray that day. Other than that, I was pretty happy with the photo.

Although this assignment was challenging, it really helped me get a feel of how to work with a single flash outside of a comfortable environment. I was really worried about getting good content as well as have a good flash photo, but it ended up working out better than I thought that it would. All in all, I was very happy with the assignment because it forced me to go outside my comfort zone and it helped me learn a lot about single flash.

Single Flash First Take

Taking on the Honest Emotion/ Interaction with a single flash assignment was definitely scary. I was worried because many said it would be a big challenge.

Below is the photo I selected for my first take with single flash.

Westminster athletes Katie Morfeld, middle hitter, and Alex Berry, outside hitter, block the ball in their match against Blackburn College on Saturday, October 17. Westminster defeated Blackburn after winning an intense third game in their match.

I shot this with an ISO of 200, shutter speed at 1/125 and aperture of f/4.8 on the daylight setting. Since my guide number is 110 and I was about 20 feet away, I set it at 5.6 at first. However, the photo looked better when I set it at 4.8. The gym was challenging to shoot in because it was so dark. I was also at an awkward angle because the gym was small so I had to work around that. For this shot I used a direct flash. I liked this photo because not only was the light even on both players, it also showed how they interact with each other during a match as well as how they interact with the other team.

If I were in this situation again, I would try to get a photo with better content. Since I was so focused on how the light looked in the photo, it was hard to also try to get a photo with strong content. I am hoping in my second take I will be able to have a better quality photo with light as well as better content in the photo.

Metal and Glass

In this assignment, I was responsible for working with glass while my partner, Andrew Williams, worked on metal. When I first started this assignment, I wanted to do something with a wide range of colors. I bought many different colors of nail polish and lined them up in a row against the black velvet material on a table. I had a light source behind the velvet and used a white reflector to place more light on the front of the nail polish bottles. I also placed nail polish bottles along with perfume bottles and other glass products on the fiberglass light table. I scattered them around and took pictures of them lying on the table with a light underneath it. I liked how these both turned out, however I felt like I needed something more creative. I looked around at different stores and found neat looking candleholders. I thought it would be really cool to use rubber cement and light them on fire. I also thought making the clear candle holders look red would look neat as well. I used the fiberglass white table and put a light underneath it with a red gel on it. I placed the black velvet behind the two candleholders and used a reflector to light the base of both candle holders.

Here is my favorite frame from the glass assignment.

Two glass candleholders catch on fire in the photojournalism studio on Monday October 12, 2009.


I shot this with an ISO of 200, a shutter speed of 1/250 and aperture of f/6.7 on the daylight setting. I really liked how this turned out becase it shows the shape of the glass. The red gel that I used in this shoot made the glass look really good and enhanced the photo. If I went back and redid the shoot I would try to light the bottom of the candleholders better. Even though they are visible, they are still a a little dark. All in all, I really liked this assignment. I was able to work with different shapes of glass and see what techniques worked in lighting them. I also learned a lot more about how to light metal after working with Andrew on his metal photo. We both worked together and were able to get through the problems we faced when it came to doing this assignment. After completing this assignment I have a better grip on what works and doesn't work when it comes to lighting metal and glass.

Classmate Portrait

For the classmate portrait I was partnered with Wonsuk Choi. He was a very fun partner to work with and also helped me a lot with working in the studio. We were able to figure out a lot together when it came to experimenting with light sources.

Below is the photo that has a single light source, and it is my favorite photo that I shot for this assignment.

Wonsuk Choi poses to take a photo in the photojournalism studio in Lee Hills Hall on September 28, 2009.  Wonsuk is from South Korea and his passion for photojournalism has brought him to the University of Missouri to gain more experience.

This photo was taken with an ISO of 200, shutter speed at 1/125 and aperture at f/6.7 on the daylight setting. I used one light source on the left of Wonsuk as well as a reflector on the right side of him to reflect some of the light onto the other side of his body so that it would be more visible. The hard light and the shadows add more of a dramatic effect to the photo. I really like this photo because I feel like it captures Wonsuk's personality pretty well. He is a very determined person, especially when it comes to photojournalism. If I could change one thing about this photo to make it better, I would try to add more light on the camera so that it is easier to see the details on the camera. All in all I am pretty proud of this photo and think that it captures Wonsuk pretty well.

Below is the photo that I used two light sources on.

Wonsuk Choi poses in the photojournalism studio in Lee Hills Hall on September 24, 2009. 

 I took this photo with an ISO of 200 at a shutter speed of 1/180 and aperture at f/19 on the daylight setting. For this photo I used a backlight with a blue gel as well as a light source on the left of Wonsuk. I like the pose that Wonsuk is doing in the photo because it describes his positive attitude and friendly personality. He gave me many different and fun poses, which made it really easy to shoot. There was never a dull moment! I wish that I had taken more close up shots with this light setup, however I still like the shots that I got while using two light sources. This was also the first day that we shot, and the more time we spent on shooting, the more comfortable I felt and I tried to improve my photos as I went.

The next photo below was taken with two light sources. Wonsuk had remotes that attached to his camera as well as his flash, so we thought it would be cool to play around with it and see what we came up with.

Wonsuk Choi poses with his flash in the photojournalism studio in Lee Hills Hall on September 24, 2009. 

I shot this photo with an ISO of 200, a shutter speed of 1/125 at an aperture of f/16 on the daylight setting. I used a softbox on the left side of Wonsuk to make the flash that he was holding in his hand visible. It took us a couple of tries to get the hang of working with this flash, but it ended up creating a really neat effect. I really like this photo because it says a lot about him since he knows a lot about cameras and is passionate about photography. The lighting also falls on his face extremely well and I like how it seems to look like it is the only light source in a dark room. I still have a lot of trouble figuring out how to use the hand held flash, but Wonsuk helped me out a lot and I was able to see how it worked a little better.

All in all, I really liked this assignment and feel like I learned quite a bit from it. Wonsuk had a good feel of what to do in the studio, which really helped me figure things out since I am new to most of this. He was a great help and took the time to help me with any questions I had. I had a really good time being his partner and appreciate all of his hard work!

Portrait of "blue girl" taken by Dano Pendygrasse

I came across this photo and thought that it was a really good representation of how the subject is feeling.

This photo was taken by Dano Pendygrasse. 

http://www.danopendygrasse.com/Details/details/blog_files/tag-portraits.php

I feel that the bluish light captures her emotion of being sad or depressed. There are some shadows and it looks like there is a light above her coming from the left and there could also be another light source to light up the other side of her face. The shadows create a dramatic feel of her sadness. This portrait is well done in my opinion because it does a good job at communicating the subject's emotion.

Copy Test, Meter Calibration, and Light Exercise

I have already learned so much from these three assignments.



First, there was the Copy Test, where I photographed a photo that I felt had emotional lighting in it and the other photo I photographed was a "Stump the Chump" photo because I couldn't exactly tell how what types of light were in the photo.



Here is what I selected for the "mood lighting" photo.

This photo was taken by Pascal Maitre from National Geographic.

  I shot this photo with a 50mm lens at an ISO of 200 and an aperture of f/22 on the tungsten setting. The hard light in the photo focuses on the subject's face as well as casts dark shadows behind him. This gives off a feeling of discomfort and fear. This frame of the photo is actually one stop higher than what the meter on my camera told me to shoot at. By just going up one stop higher I was able to get greater contrast in the photo. By shooting one stop higher and lower from the meter I was able to see a great difference in how the photo turned out. From this experience I learned that I won't be able to always trust the meter since it always sees 18% gray!

This is the photo I selected for my "Stump the Chump" photo.

 

This photo was taken by Stefano Unterthiner from National Geographic.

  I shot this photo with my 50mm lens at an ISO of 200 and an aperture of f/16 on the tungsten setting. I thought this photo seemed confusing because although the sun is visible and the use of natural light is obvious, I was confused at why the penguins aren't silhouetted since the sun seems to be behind them. I didn't know if there was some artificial light used or how the photographer went about making this photo.

All in all, I really enjoyed the Copy Test because I figured a lot out by just using the studio for the first time and working with my camera. Being able to do this activity allowed me to experiment with the meter on my camera and gave me more confidence with how to work around what the meter says to capture a better photo.

I also did a Meter Calibration test. In this test we had to make six exposures of the same white textured object. Here are my six frames below.

I shot this first frame with my 50mm lens at an ISO of 200 and an aperture of f/16 and shutter speed of 1/10 on the daylight setting.

I shot this second frame with everything the same, however I changed my aperture to f/8.

I shot the third with everything the same except my aperture is not at f/6.7.

The fourth was taken with an aperture at f/5.6

The fifth frame was taken with an aperture of f/4.8.

The sixth frame was taken with an aperture of f/4.

As the aperture changes, the photos get lighter. It is helpful to see what differences are in each photo with just the aperture changing because it shows how big of a difference one stop can make in the photo. It has really made me realize how important it is to get the most accurate frame, which may even be a stop higher or lower than what the meter says. 

After completing the Copy Test and Meter Calibration, I completed an excercise where I took photos of different lighting conditions. I took half of the frames on the tungsten setting and half on the daylight setting.

Here is my favorite photo with the tungsten setting dealing with artificial light.

Lucy, member of the Hendry family, stands in their kitchen on Sunday Sept. 6, 2009. She was adopted from Columbia's Central Missouri Humane Society in 2008 at seven months old and now lives happily with her family in St. Louis, MO.

I took this photo with my 18 to 55mm lens with an ISO of 5000 and an aperture of f/3.5 and shutter speed of 1/45. I liked this photo because the hard light in the photo silhouettes the object and casts shadows, which makes it more mysterious and intense. Although the object is silhouetted it is still in the shape of a dog, which makes it a little easier to figure out what is going on in the photo. With this class I hope to gain a lot more experience with using flash so that in the future if I had a situation like this where I didn't want the silhouette I could figure out how to acheive that by using artificial light.

Here is my favorite photo using the daylight setting and using natural light.

A black praying mantis rests under the sun on a bush in Kirkwood, MO on Monday Sept. 7, 2009.

I took this photo with my 18 to 55mm lens with an ISO of 500 with an aperture of f/5.6 and shutter speed at 1/750. This photo was taken in the afternoon around 3pm. The light from the sun is hitting the leaves and also shows the object clearly. This is a softer light and there aren't as many shadows visible. There is a lot of information shown in the photo, which creates a more relaxed and pleasant mood. While I am happy with the way the photo turned out I hope that in the future I can learn how to get the best frame possible with the natural light that is provided. 

I had some trouble with this exercise because right now I'm one of those people who likes to take a lot of photos. It is really hard for me to have a limit on how many photos I take. I am also feeling the pressure when it comes to making the frame perfect on the first try. I also like to check what I am shooting and go from there, which I know I shouldn't do as much. I know that these two things are my biggest weaknesses right now, and I'm determined to move away from that as soon as I can. Although I know it will be a struggle at first I am really happy that this class is going to push me to step out of my comfort zone and make the best photos that I can on the first try. I am looking forward to this semester because I know that I have a lot to work on and am willing to try as hard as I can to get rid of my weaknesses and grow as a photographer.

Rush it, Love it

It is hard to believe that three years ago I was on the other side of recruitment at Mizzou. I was the little freshman who was about to make one of the most important decisions that would affect me for the next four years of my life. The first morning of recruitment I stood next to other potential new members. Each of us waited in anticipation for the horn to go off. We had been told what would happen, but I don't think there would have been any amount of explaining anyone could have done to prepare us for what really happened the second the horn blew. I have never felt so overwhelmed when the first chapter busted out of their windows and doors, chanting a song that echoed the love of their sorority throughout greektown. Throughout the week I ended up talking about anything and everything I could think of, and as it is supposed to happen, the houses on my list narrowed down each morning. It came down to three. I headed to my last chapter of the day, already feeling a sense of panic when I realized the next day was the end of recruitment. After I entered the last house, I knew where I belonged. I left with a rush of happiness and genuine love for those women who I didn't even know. But soon enough, the next day in fact, I was a part of that genuine love and sisterhood.
Alpha Phi has been my foundation at Mizzou, and although it is hard to explain it (and also hard for people outside to understand it), that will always be how I feel. Growing up is scary, and knowing the women who are older than me are about to graduate is hard. They were the ones who stood in that room on the last day of recruitment and reached out to me. I can never thank them enough for my experiences at Mizzou.

Alpha Phi Seniors infront of the Chapter House on "Mock Recruitment Day."

Women in Alpha Phi walkout during "Mock Recruitment."

Best friends in Alpha Phi share a moment during "Mock Recruitment."

 

Alpha Phi waits with other Panhellenic sororities as they wait to meet their new members.

Alpha Phi "Pi Chis" proudly unveil what chapter they belong to after a week of being disaffiliated from Alpha Phi in order to be counselors for potential new members.

Seniors have fun while waiting to meet their new members at Jesse Hall.

Two new members run to the Alpha Phi after receiving their invitation to be an Alpha Phi.

Alpha Phis celebrate receiving their new members.

Alpha Phis meet with their new members, happy to see that many are women they met throughout the week of recruitment.

A new member stares up at the sorority house as the new members approach Alpha Phi.

Older Alpha Phis wait at the house to welcome the new members.

Members celebrate and welcome the new members at Alpha Phi.